It all started with a tweet about a couch. Within hours of Donald Trump announcing the Ohio senator JD Vance as his running mate in the presidential race, a rather lurid accusation cropped up on social media.
The user of a since-deleted X account wrote last month, “can’t say for sure but he might be the first vp pick to have admitted in a ny times bestseller to fucking an inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions (vance, hillbilly elegy, pp. 179-181).”
The fake page citation from Vance’s bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy lent credibility to what turned out to be a baseless claim, as detailed in a now-removed fact check from the Associated Press. Soon, the internet was awash in memes mocking Vance’s relationship with various pieces of furniture. “I did not have sectional relations,” one X user joked, paraphrasing Bill Clinton’s infamous quote about his extramarital affair. Another user added: “Who hasn’t been excited by the thrill of the chaise?”
Even Kamala Harris’s newly launched presidential campaign appeared to get in on the fun, tweeting: “JD Vance does not couch his hatred for women.”
I mean, we can’t definitively say it didn’t happen.
That is almost certainly why the AP fact check was taken down. While it was true that the alleged passage was not in the book as claimed, there is no proof that Vance did not fuck a piece of furniture.
We can only really say for sure that he didn’t write about it in his book. But have we checked everything he ever wrote?
Has he ever specifically stated that he has not had sectional relations?
No, but he did state that his hardwood sofa is an inanimate object and thus consent is not something he’d have to worry about