Vice President JD Vance got roasted online after having a joke about the state of Wisconsin fall flat in front of a crowd during an appearance in Milwaukee on Wednesday.
Taking the stage at the Pfister Hotel at an event to hype White House efforts against fraud, Vance told the crowd: “I love Wisconsin. Or as you guys say, Wisconsin.”
The veep appeared to attempt a Midwestern accent and pronounce the second “Wisconsin” as “Wis-CAHN-sin.”
But the joke didn’t land. The crowd stayed silent, not laughing or applauding at Vance’s attempt at humor.
Posters on social media were quick to lampoon the veep.
“JD Vance is a tool, or as they say in Wisconsin, a tool,” one critic wrote on X.
The FactPostNews site of the Democratic National Committee snarked: “JD Vance attempted a Wisconsin accent and gets no reaction from the crowd.”
A White House Press Pool report on X wrote that Vance came on stage to “cheers, chants of USA and a standing ovation.”
Scripps News reported that Vance said that the last time he was at the Pfister Hotel was during the 2024 Republican National Convention, when the then-US senator from Ohio was nominated to serve as vice president.
The hotel was the convention headquarters for Donald Trump and other GOP dignitaries.
Vance said that when he got to the hotel back then, he didn’t know if he was the vice-presidential nominee or not.
He said future White House chief of staff Susie Wiles had joked that he’d missed a very important phone call from Trump “and jokes Trump said now he’d have to pick somebody else, while his son talked to him about Pokemon cards.”
Vance recalled: “I have no idea what’s going on. So walking through the Pfister Hotel” Vance said had a moment of remembrance.
“Here I am, it worked out,” the veep told the crowd.
