JD Vance, Donald Trump's Vice President pick, recently revealed that he asked his son to "shut the hell up" about Pokemon Pikachu amid a phone call with the former President and moments before the Republican National Convention. The Ohio senator explained the circumstances on the Full Send podcast.
The politician was speaking to YouTube comedians the NELK Boys and said the incident occurred when Mr Trump called and asked him to be his running mate. Notably, the former president officially named the senator as his running mate during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month.
Mr Vance was flying with his family to Milwaukee for the RNC when he realised that the airplane had no Wi-fi. He landed after an hour and had over a hundred messages. He said that he got one message from the Trump campaign which said, "Hey, you just missed a really important call." He then called Mr Trump and said, "Hey Sir, what's going on?" The 45th US President told him, "J.D., you missed a really important phone call, and now I'm going to have to go with someone else."
Mr Vance continued, "My son, who is seven, is in the hotel room with me. And he is really into Pokemon cards right now. He's going through a Pokemon phase...he's really into it. So he's trying to talk to me about Pikachu and I'm on the phone with Donald Trump and I'm like, 'Son, shut the hell up for 30 seconds about Pikachu.'"
He added, "This is the most important phone call of my life. Please just let me take this phone call." Mr Vance said that because his son "doesn't get what the President of the United States means," he didn't care that Mr Trump was on the phone.
Since being shared on social media, Mr Vance's remarks have been widely criticised.
The Democratic National Convention wrote in a statement on its website, "If there's one thing JD Vance is going to do, it's full send being the weirdest, creepiest, and most unpopular running mate Donald Trump could have ever hoped for."
Representative Wiley Nickel, a North Carolina Democrat, wrote on X, "What a truly horrible human being...J.D. Vance tells his 7 year-old son to 'shut the hell up' because he's talking to Trump. I've got a simple rule in Congress. There's no call that's ever more important than my kids."
"He was on the phone with President Trump. Chill son," said a person.
Another added, "It's even more embarrassing that he thinks this is a flex."
"Better to have no kids than speak to them that way," added a user.
