JD Vance Accidently Shakes Hands With a Reporter: ‘You Got All The Shit On, I Couldn’t Tell’
Vice President JD Vance visited a steel plant in Huger, South Carolina, on Thursday and accidentally shook the hand of a reporter before laughing and quickly making clear he meant to do no such thing.
While touring the plant, Vance came up a flight of stairs into a room where workers had gathered and started shaking hands. He turned to the first person next to him and shook his hand, quickly realizing the person was a reporter.
“Oh, you guys are just reporters you got all the shit on I couldn’t tell,” Vance then said, joking. He soon turned to an actual steel worker and said, “Do you guys actually work here?”
NOTUS political reporter Reese Gorman, whose hand Vance shook, later reacted on X, writing, “I now know I can pass as a steel mill employee if need be.”
The pool report on Vance’s visit offered some additional context on the exchange:
Your pooler did not see the VP enter the steel mill. We were brought through Door 16 of the Melt Shop and led up a steep flight of stairs to a control room at 1:35 PM. VP entered the control room and approached NOTUS reporter Reese Gorman for a handshake, apparently thinking he was an employee at the mill.
Reporters were wearing hard hats and PPE. Vance then walked over to the actual employees of the mill and greeted them before observing the melting of the steel into a massive furnace just outside the control room.
C-SPAN caught the moment on camera and also released some other clips from Vance’s visit, including an exchange with a worker as they lit the furnace.
“When you see a charge get dropped and you can see the firework start, you can start the furnace up if you’d like,” said the worker.
“Okay, yeah, I’d love that,” said Vance, “Okay, when you say charge gets dropped, what do you mean?”
“So what we’re going to do, we’re gonna take a bucket, it’s got a lot of scrap steel, about 135 tons of scrap. We’re gonna drop it into the furnace, let you strike dark on it,” answered the worker as Vance replied, “That’s awesome.”
Watch the clip above.
