Vice President JD Vance jumped back into social media combat after a months-long break by mocking a conservative columnist's weight, a move that exposed a real fault line inside the GOP over affordability and how Republicans talk to younger voters.
The target was Marc Thiessen, a Washington Post columnist and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. Thiessen had dismissed a college student's complaint about high food prices, posting on social media: "Cry me a river. The burritos in the college cafeteria are included in your meal plan." Vance responded with a personal shot: "If you've ever met him in person, it's quite obvious the man has never missed a burrito."
The exchange, reported by The New York Times, was not a one-off. It fits a pattern of combative online behavior that has made Vance one of the most confrontational vice presidents in modern history, and drawn criticism from former Republican staffers, legal scholars, and even allies who say the approach carries real risk.
Vance's office declined to elaborate on the Thiessen exchange. Thiessen did not respond to requests for comment.
The personal jab did not land in a vacuum. Thiessen had spent weeks publicly criticizing Vance's handling of Iran negotiations. In a Washington Post column published roughly a month before the burrito exchange, Thiessen blamed Vance for a failed memorandum of understanding with Tehran. The Washington Examiner reported that Thiessen described the negotiations as a "strategic cul-de-sac" and suggested President Trump should take advice from others who had "delivered him success in Iran, not those like Vance who have failed him."
Alex Bruesewitz, a former Trump campaign aide and Vance ally, made the connection explicit. He said Thiessen had used his platform to "dismiss the economic anxieties of young Americans" while "promoting war after war on television." Bruesewitz went further, calling Thiessen "severely obese" and saying he "should lay off the burritos."
That kind of defense tells you something about the world Vance operates in. The vice president's allies see the burrito exchange not as a lapse in decorum but as a populist counterpunch against a commentator who belittled real economic frustration. Vance himself told Fox News that "the past 40 years of economic policy, bipartisan economic policy, has failed." The burrito thread gave him a way to make that argument, and settle a score at the same time.
The broader debate matters more than the insult. A Turning Point USA college student's complaint that "a burrito shouldn't cost $20" opened a rift between fiscal conservatives who downplay affordability concerns and populist Republicans who warn the party will pay a price for ignoring them. Angela Morabito of the Defense of Freedom Institute put it bluntly, as Fox News reported: "If the Right's solution to the affordability crisis is telling people to eat worse food, we will lose, and we will deserve it."
Thiessen is far from the only person Vance has gone after online. Over the past year, the vice president has called a podcaster's dismissal of Trump supporters "smug, self-assured bulls***." He labeled a Wall Street Journal story about Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein "complete and utter bulls***." When Democratic senators questioned Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vance posted: "You're full of s*** and everyone knows it."
He called former ABC News correspondent Terry Moran "a leftwing radical." He tagged Jewish Insider journalist Josh Kraushaar as either "the biggest hack in Washington" or "the dumbest journalist in Washington." He dismissed David Reaboi, a right-wing commentator who suggested Vance's team was leaking to the media, as a "loser." And when right-wing influencer Laura Loomer sowed division over an abortion-related dispute, Vance called her behavior "disgraceful actually."
Vance has also shown he will defend his own team with force. After online attacks targeted Buckley Carlson, Tucker Carlson's son, who works on Vance's staff, the vice president posted: "I have an extraordinary tolerance for disagreements and criticisms from the various people in our coalition. But I am a very loyal person, and I have zero tolerance for scumbags attacking my staff."
That willingness to mix it up with critics across the political spectrum has made Vance a distinctive figure in the office. Joel K. Goldstein, a scholar of the vice presidency at St. Louis University School of Law, said Vance's conduct "stands apart from the behavior of modern vice presidents during the last half-century." Goldstein added that it "departs from the norms associated with the office and undermines the goal of promoting rational public discourse."
Kevin Kellems, who served as communications director for Vice President Dick Cheney, did not hold back. "It's childish behavior that is unbecoming of the office," Kellems said. "He's behaving like a high school jock trying to win over the temporary young fun friends."
Jamal Simmons, who held the same role under Vice President Kamala Harris, offered a different read. "I would guess this is the culture of Vance's boss in grading his performance," Simmons said. "In the Trump administration, everybody has an audience of one, and you get rewarded for being pugilistic and snarky."
Vance is the first millennial vice president, and he leans into that identity. In an NBC News interview early last year, he said: "I tend to err on the side of openness. That's probably a generational thing, right? I come from a very tech-forward generation." He has framed social media as a tool that "exposes you to unfiltered raw opinions", something he says he needs as a political leader.
But Vance also seems to know the habit carries a cost. He gave up social media for Lent earlier this year, deleting the X app from his phone. During the break, he told NBC News that "not having that as a distraction, I think, has made me much more productive." His feed went quiet for a couple of months, apparently maintained by staff in a more conventional tone.
The New York Post reported that Vance's hiatus may have followed advice from White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to tone down his abrasive online presence. Vance's return to combative posting suggests the advice did not stick, or that Vance decided the benefits of engagement outweigh the risks.
Vance's political standing inside the White House has been a subject of speculation for months. His willingness to pick public fights, with media figures, with fellow conservatives, with members of his own coalition, sets him apart from Mike Pence, Trump's first vice president, who maintained what the Times described as "an old-fashioned disciplined dignity" throughout his four years.
The closest historical comparison, according to the Times report, is Spiro T. Agnew, who served under President Richard Nixon. Agnew was described as "the most vituperative vice president of the modern age," known for calling liberals "pusillanimous pussyfooters," journalists "nattering nabobs of negativism," and antiwar protesters "an effete corps of impudent snobs."
Vice presidents have long played the role of political enforcer, the one who throws elbows so the president does not have to. But Vance's targets are often inside his own coalition, not across the aisle. Thiessen is a conservative columnist. Reaboi calls himself a "right-wing Twitter pugilist." Loomer is a right-wing influencer. That pattern raises a different question: whether Vance is enforcing party discipline or simply picking fights.
Vance's allies would argue the former. Bruesewitz framed the Thiessen exchange as a defense of young Americans' economic concerns against a commentator who earns "an absurd living" dismissing them. On that reading, Vance is doing exactly what a populist vice president should do, siding with voters over pundits.
Meanwhile, Vance has also shown he can operate in a more traditional register. His book "Communion," an account of his journey from evangelical Christianity to atheism to Catholicism, came out in June. His appearance on ABC's "The View" to promote it was described as "vigorous but civil." Host Joy Behar said afterward that Vance had a sense of humor and suggested he would "go back to being a kinder person" if he became president.
That range, civil on a daytime talk show, combative on social media, is part of what makes Vance hard to pin down. He lost 30 pounds between 2022 and 2024, by his own account, which makes the weight-based attack on Thiessen land with a particular edge. He knows what the insult means. He chose it anyway.
Vance's spokesman said the vice president's earlier comments to NBC about the value of social media "still stood," but added that this did not mean Vance would stop engaging with supporters and critics alike. In practice, "engaging" has meant calling people liars, hacks, and worse, in language that would get most employees called into HR.
Whether that approach helps Vance build credibility as a leader with a policy portfolio or undermines his ability to be taken seriously on substance is the question his critics keep asking. Vance does not seem interested in answering it. He is too busy posting.
The affordability debate at the center of the burrito fight is real, and Republicans ignore it at their peril. But a vice president who makes his point by mocking a critic's waistline is choosing the shortcut over the argument, and shortcuts have a way of catching up with you.