JD Vance “straight up lied” about Donald Trump trying to “salvage” Obamacare during Tuesday’s debate, former White House aide Alyssa Farah Griffin said Wednesday on The View.
Griffin, a former White House Communications official during Trump’s administration, said she was there—and that’s not what happened.
“When [Vance] said Trump tried to save Obamacare, I was on Capital Hill and we were trying to repeal Obamacare,” she said as the hosts shared their reactions to the VP debate. “I’m willing to admit what we were trying to do as Republicans.”
“[Vance] just straight up lied about that,” she added of the Ohio senator’s comments that “Trump could have destroyed the program” and instead “worked in a bipartisan way to ensure that Americans had access to affordable care.”
Co-host Joy Behar retorted that “you cannot buy this type of slickness,” as she’d never seen such “straight-faced” lying.
She then compared Vance to a knock-off luxury bag salesman and added that Trump must be “jealous” of Vance’s ability to hold his composure while dishing out the same talking points.
Though Griffin called Vance out on the “lie,” she did acknowledge where Vance’s performance seemed to eclipse Walz’s.
“From a performance and delivery perspective, Tim Walz had the rockier night,” she said. “JD Vance strategically went in to do midwestern nice to disarm Tim Walz and Tim Walz kind of took the bait. He wasn’t in fighting mode,” she explained.
She opined that Walz hadn’t taken advantage of some of the moments where he could have come out on top during the debate, suggesting he “missed opportunities” and “dropped the ball.”
That said, Vance’s performance did little to change her opinion of him, Griffin added. “Performance-wise, [Vance] is eloquent, he can feign empathy,” she said, “But I just remember the guy insulting cat ladies, the guy who maybe says he has sympathy for Tim Walz’s son but didn’t have sympathy for Haitian migrant children who are being targeted in their schools because of the lies that he’s spread.”
