During his first rally with Vice President Kamala Harris as her vice presidential candidate on Tuesday, Tim Walz made a couch joke about former President Donald Trump's own VP pick, J.D. Vance—and conservatives are not okay.
Social media has been flooded with jokes and memes suggesting that Vance once engaged in a sexual act with couch cushions. The viral claim that Vance wrote about having sex with a couch in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, is untrue.
On July 15, the day Vance was confirmed as Trump’s running mate, X user @rickrudescalves claimed that Vance might be the first vice-presidential pick to have admitted in a New York Times bestseller to "f***ing an inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions (Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, pp. 179-181)." Vance never describes anything of the sort in his book.
But the rumor has propagated online nonetheless, and Walz made a brief joking reference to the rumor while declaring his enthusiasm to debate Vance.
Walz quipped:
"J.D. Vance literally wrote the foreword for the architect of the Project 2025 agenda. Like all regular people I grew up with in the Heartland, J.D. studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community. C'mon! That's not what middle America is."
"And I've gotta tell you, I can't wait to debate the guy."
The rally attendees erupted into cheers and both Walz and Harris took a moment to bask in the crowd's reaction before he went in for the kill:
"That is, if he’s willing to get off his couch and show up. You see what I did there?"
You can hear Walz's remarks in the video below.
Walz also shared the same message via his official X account.
But many conservatives were not happy and accused Walz of trafficking in misinformation—as if their own presidential candidate hasn't made a career out of it himself.
Meanwhile, conservative journalist Mary Katharine Ham also took the opportunity to lash out at Walz:
"Slandering someone based on a s**tpost is indeed propagating misinformation and really bad behavior and it would be a “this is very bad” story instead of a “Republicans are complaining” story if I made a concerted effort to go on TV and imply Gov. Walz f**ked a traffic cone."
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Others were quick to mock and call out the conservative backlash.
At one point, after journalist Natasha Korecki noted that some Republicans "have been frustrated" with the media for not "smacking down" this "false story about Vance," journalist Mehdi Hasan pointed out something crucial:
"Republicans don't get to be frustrated. Their candidate [Trump] lies and smears his opponents *every day.*"
And notably, the X account "New York Times Pitchbot"—whose posts satirize New York Times pieces—pointed out just how ridiculous the GOP outrage really is:
"Trump supporters have called for the imprisonment of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Christopher Wray, and General Mattis, but folks at a Harris-Walz rally chanting “lock him up” and Tim Walz making a JD Vance couch-f**ker joke seems exceedingly divisive for America."
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The Tuesday appearance was a pivotal moment for both Walz, a relatively unknown figure nationally, and Harris to introduce his story to voters nationwide, highlighting his journey from rural Nebraska to his tenure as governor of Minnesota.
During the rally, Walz and Harris praised each other's accomplishments. Harris expressed admiration for Walz, citing his background in coaching high school football as a testament to his leadership qualities, and explaining why she chose him as her running mate, emphasizing that he is “more than a governor.”
Walz, in turn, thanked Harris for her trust and for "bringing back the joy," expressing his excitement to embark on the campaign trail with Harris and her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
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