National Review Editor Tweaks JD Vance After VP Winces at Reminder He Wrote for Magazine

AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

Ramesh Ponnuru, a Washington Post columnist and the editor of National Review magazine, tweaked Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday after he winced at a reminder of his past affiliation with the latter, conservative publication.

On Tuesday evening, Vance attended an event hosted by American Compass, a think tank pushing for the GOP to move to the left on economics, and sat down for a discussion with the organization’s founder, Oren Cass.

“I am thrilled to have this opportunity to talk with you and so grateful that the work you’re doing and, in a sense, so in awe of it because there are politicians out there who are– they’ve just been politicians,” said Cass to kick off the conversation. “But you are someone who was an intellectual first. Some people don’t like the word ‘intellectual.’ But I mean it in the good sense of the term. You were writing for National Review. You were at the bar late at night arguing about and helping shape these ideas that you are now–”

At that point, the VP interrupted to mischievously observe, “I come here for free and you insult me. And you call me ‘an intellectual,’ remind me that I wrote for National Review. What an asshole this guy is!”

“That’s fair,” replied a chastened Cass. “I will admit that I, too, wrote for National Review.”

In a brief blog post published the following afternoon, Ponnuru responded graciously — but also managed to include some subtle digs.

Under the headline, “A Former Contributor in the News,” he wrote:

At an event last night, Vice President JD Vance joked that it was an “insult” to be reminded that he used to write articles for National Review. I think those articles — see here for an archive — hold up pretty well. But Vance is of course entitled to change his mind and has exercised that right with gusto. Perhaps events, and further changes of mind, will bring us back to closer accord. Our pages, print and digital, will remain open to his thoughts in any case. We’ll try to go light with the red pen.

Vance’s remarkable transformation from a free marketeer espousing traditionally conservative views on a wide range of topics into a populist disciple of Trump’s has been well-documented. Before emerging as one of his boss’s most reflexive allies, Vance had compared the “reprehensible” Trump to Adolf Hitler and wondered aloud “what percentage of the American population” he had “sexually assaulted.”

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