Vice President JD Vance reportedly objected to being labeled "intellectual" – albeit jokingly – during a live event Tuesday that was hosted by a conservative think tank.
After welcoming Vance to the stage, American Compass founder Oren Cass said he was "in awe" of the work the vice president is doing "because there are politicians out there who are – they've just been politicians."
"But you are someone who was an intellectual first," Cass said, according to The Hill. "Some people don't like the word 'intellectual.' But I mean it in the good sense of the term. You were writing for National Review. You were at the bar late at night arguing about and helping shape these ideas that you are now – "
"I come here for free, and you insult me, and you call me 'an intellectual,' remind me that I wrote for National Review," Vance laughingly cut in.
"What an (expletive) this guy is," he said, as the audience laughed and applauded.
"That's fair," Cass said. "I will admit that I, too, wrote for National Review."
Meanwhile, in an interview in May with Newsmax, Vance said he rejects the idea that the Trump administration's clawback of federal research grants for higher education institutions and its emphasis on revoking some student visas will lead to academic brain drain in the United States.
"First of all, I've heard a lot of the criticisms, the fear that we're going to have a brain drain," Vance said in an exclusive interview on "Greg Kelly Reports." "If you go back to the '50s and '60s, the American space program, the program that was the first to put a human being on the surface of the moon, was built by American citizens — some German and Jewish scientists who had come over during World War II, but mostly, by American citizens who built an incredible space program with American talent.
"This idea that American citizens don't have the talent to do great things ... do you have to import a foreign class of [students] and professors to do these things? I just reject it. I just think we should invest in our own people. We can do a lot of good."
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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