Donald Trump’s brutal answer when asked if JD Vance could do his job

Donald Trump said the vice-president has 'virtually no impact'. (Image: Getty)

Donald Trump gave a brutally honest repsonse when asked whether he thought JD Vance would be ready to take over as president "on day one". The Republican appeared at at the National Association of Black Journalists' conference shortly after his attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania last July. Fox News host Harris Faulkner asked the now president: "When you look at JD Vance, is he ready on day one?", and she received quite a strange answer.

Mr Trump responded: "Historically, the vice president, in terms of the election, does not have any impact. I mean, virtually no impact. ... Virtually never has it mattered.” In an even more bizarre turn of events, Mr Vance publicly agreed with his boss's comments, saying it doesn't "matter that much" who the VP is.

The president said it's 'virtually never mattered' who the VP is. (Image: Getty)

He told ABC News: "They’re voting for Donald Trump or for Kamala Harris, not for JD or Tim Walz. I also think that he’s right that the politics of this really don’t matter that much."

However, the pair have not always seen eye to eye. Mr Vance once savaged Mr Trump as a "cynical a**hole" and compared him to Adolf Hitler in a furious rant before he became vice-president.

The former Ohio senator was publicly vocal in his distrust of the now president, calling himself "a never-Trump guy" who refused to vote for him. He also called Mr Trump an "idiot" and "reprehensible" during his 2017-2021 term in the White House.

He wrote on social media: "Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us." And: "My God what an idiot."

Privately, his comments were far stronger. The Republican wrote to an associate on Facebook in 2016: "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a**hole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler."

The VP has come under heavy fire for calling the UK "some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years", though he maintained he was not referring to the country.

He said: "If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine.

"That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years."

Mr Vance appeared to forget that British troops have been active in a number of military engagements since 1980, including US-led campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.