MSNBC Faceplants on Live TV After Baseless Attack on Vice President JD Vance — One Simple Sentence Destroys the Narrative

MSNBC attempted another drive-by smear Thursday night, and once again it backfired spectacularly.

During his show “The Last Word,” host Lawrence O’Donnell launched what can only be described as a desperate and delusional attack on Vice President J.D. Vance — falsely claiming Vance has been “silent” about President Donald Trump and recently resurfaced Epstein-related allegations.

It was a narrative built on fantasy. And it collapsed the moment Vance responded.

O’Donnell’s monologue — which he seemed to think was clever — relied on a tortured comparison between Vance and former Vice President Gerald Ford. While discussing the swearing-in of Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) and her adding the 218th vote to force a House vote on releasing Epstein files, O’Donnell narrated the moment as though it were historic drama.

“She provided the 218th signature for that discharge petition, which will come to a vote, possibly next week in the House of Representatives that would force the release of the Epstein files.”

From there, O’Donnell abruptly pivoted to Vance, suggesting the vice president is intentionally silent because the left wishes to drag President Trump’s name into the Epstein matter.

“J.D. Vance is doing exactly what Gerald Ford did while the Nixon presidency was sinking and Richard Nixon was under increasing pressure over several months that led to his resignation,” he said.

O’Donnell continued with theatrical flair, insisting, “Gerald Ford said nothing. When things were the darkest for President Richard Nixon, Vice President Gerald Ford said nothing. And when Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, Vice President Ford said, ‘Our long national nightmare is over.’”

He pressed on, insisting, “Tonight J.D. Vance is silent. Tonight, J.D. Vance is Gerald Ford.” According to O’Donnell, the vice president’s supposed offense is that he has not publicly reacted to an email from Jeffrey Epstein — written in 2019 — which O’Donnell claims implicates the current President Donald Trump. O’Donnell declared, “And so J.D. Vance is silent tonight. But what is J.D. Vance supposed to say tonight when he reads an email written by Jeffrey Epstein during the Trump presidency in 2019, six months before Jeffrey Epstein’s second arrest, saying, ‘of course he knew about the girls, meaning Donald Trump.’”

There was only one problem for MSNBC: J.D. Vance was not silent at all.

The vice president answered directly on X, obliterating O’Donnell’s manufactured storyline in a single sentence.

“I did two media interviews literally today, one of which is airing in a few hours.”

With that reply, the entire MSNBC segment instantly aged like milk. Vance had not been hiding. He had not been dodging the press. In fact, he spoke publicly twice that day — including an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity. The second interview has not yet aired, but again, Vance was hardly “silent.”

The only silence on display came from MSNBC once their narrative collapsed in real time.

O’Donnell’s dramatic comparison wasn’t journalism — it was political fanfiction designed to smear the current administration because the network cannot cope with the reality that President Trump and Vice President Vance remain explosive political forces who refuse to bend to media intimidation.

It is now standard operating procedure for MSNBC: throw anything at the wall, hope viewers don’t check, and pray no one responds. But this time, Vance did respond — and the entire segment now looks like a parody of itself.

If the left-wing media is going to attack the vice president, they might want to make sure he hasn’t spoken to the press twice the same day.