WAS VANCE FOLLOWING TRUMP'S ORDERS WHEN HE REFUSED TO APOLOGIZE TO CAITLIN UPTON?

While waiting for CNN to air its interview with Kamala Harris on Thursday, J.D. Vance tweeted a cruel and dated meme:

Caitlin Upton was 18 and competing in the Miss Teen USA 2007 pageant when her stumbling response to a question about why some Americans couldn’t find their own country on the map became an early viral sensation....

So bad was the mockery that followed, she told New York Magazine in 2015, that she contemplated suicide.

But on Thursday, 17 years after Upton’s moment, Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance posted a video of Upton’s humiliation with the caption, “BREAKING: I have gotten ahold of the full Kamala Harris CNN interview.”

Upton -- now 35, a mother of two, and a Trump supporter -- tweeted this, then deleted her X account:

It’s a shame that 17 years later this is still being brought up. There’s not too much else to say about it at this point. Regardless of political beliefs, one thing I do know is that social media and online bullying needs to stop.

Asked about this on CNN, Vance refused to apologize:

“Politics has got way too lame. You can have some fun while making an argument to the American people about improving their lives,” he said. “I’m not going to apologize for posting a joke but I wish the best for Caitlin and hope she’s doing well.”

He said a lot more than that, and most of it was not empathetic:

"Look, I've said a lot of things on camera, I've said a lot of stupid things on camera. Sometimes when you're in the public eye, you make mistakes and, again, I think the best way to deal with it is to laugh at ourselves, laugh at this stuff, and try to have some fun and politics. I posted a meme from 20 years ago, and I think the fact that we're talking about that instead of the fact that American families can't afford groceries or health care, young families can't afford to buy a home to raise their families, and those are the real crises that we should focus on, and there's nothing that says that we can't tell some jokes along the way while we to deal with a very serious business of bringing back our public policy."

Somewhere in there was a shred of humanity -- "I wish the best for Caitlin and hope she’s doing well." But an apology? Vance said, "I’m not going to apologize."

I assume he's not allowed to apologize.

Vance is Donald Trump's running mate. We all know that one of the principles Trump learned from his mentor Roy Cohn was "Never apologize." Years ago, Trump acknowledged this in a conversation with Howie Carr, a right-wing columnist and radio host: "Whatever you do, don’t apologize. You never hear me apologize, do you?"

When Trump was considering Vance for the VP slot, I assume that the two of them didn't have many deep conversations about policy. But I'm sure Trump told Vance never to say he's sorry. A story in The New York Times tells us that Trump is watching Vance respond to controversies, many of them self-inflicted, and the former president likes what he sees:

Mr. Vance’s relentless pace of full-throttle performances as Mr. Trump’s well-trained attack dog has pleased the former president....

Mr. Trump had instructed his young sidekick to fight forcefully through those initial attacks, and later said Mr. Vance’s execution exceeded his expectations, according to three allies who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations.

It's hard to measure up to Trump's sheer lack of empathy -- we saw that recently when Trump posed with a grin and a thumbs-up while standing over a grave at Arlington National Cemetery. Vance seems almost as cold and unfeeling as Trump, but he did know enough to wish Caitlin Upton well. It would have been a short step from there to an apology, even a perfuctory one. But Vance is an ambitious guy who knows how to follow the rules set down by his patron of the moment. Right now, that patron is Trump. I think Trump ordered Vance never to apologize on the campaign trail -- and I think Vance is following orders.