Former MSNBC anchor Joy Reid is confused why Vice President JD Vance would waste his time trolling her on Twitter instead of handling the slew of other issues plaguing the Trump administration — not the least of which being the current government shutdown.
Vance tweeted Thursday about a video of Reid in which she speaks about her family’s experience with racism in the U.S., arguing that the former MSNBC anchor should be grateful for her life here.
“My honest, non-trolling advice to Joy Reid is that you’d be a much happier person if you showed a little gratitude,” he wrote on X of the video.
Reid responded to his tweet just hours later, writing in a lengthy Substack post that she was shocked the vice president cared enough to respond directly to her comments.
“I have to admit, I am surprised that the vice president of the United States has so much time on his hands that he’s scrolling old interviews of mine,” Reid wrote, also adding: “Tweet less and govern more, James David; you are wasting our time and tax money.”
“We are, after all, just one day into a Republican government shutdown, Trump’s disastrous tariffs are wreaking hell on our economy, likely prompting yet another Trump bailout of the farmers who largely voted for him and those tariffs too,” she continued. “Unemployment is on the rise, prompted by Trump’s frenetic dogeing of any government agency, state or city he doesn’t like or that doesn’t sufficiently like him. Our health agencies are in the shaky hands of a former heroin addict/vaccine truther and a TV doctor from Oprah’s former show. And the former weekend TV host in charge of our military just forced our entire military leadership to watch him do a creepy, manosphere TED Talk.
“With all of that going on, the vice president of the United States is spending his time trolling me on Twitter??? And not even for the first time???” she said. “For this, we’re paying this guy $235,000 a year???”
Last week, the vice president responded to a clip of Reid on a panel, saying Vance likely benefitted from affirmative action when he got into Yale.
“Maybe the way JD Vance got into Yale is because they were tired of just letting in white men from New York from Choate, from all the elite schools. They wanted an Appalachian white. That’s how that man got into Yale, I promise you,” Reid said on Don Lemon’s show Sept. 24. “That’s also affirmative action and DEI.”
Vance replied with a meme of himself bald with a bloated face.
https://t.co/agmI0CLpQs pic.twitter.com/NuCp7NfiqS
— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 24, 2025
Reid responded directly to Vance’s claims that she should show some gratitude on Thursday, stating that “men like JD who believe themselves to be our betters will either assume that you stole your success from a more deserving white person or they’ll demand that you show them some ‘gratitude.’”
In her Substack kiss-off, the best-selling author thanked civil rights activists, interned Japanese Americans and her mother, to whom she credits her success.
“I’m grateful to the abolitionists and civil rights heroes who showed us the meaning of resistance,” she wrote. “And most of all, JD, I’m grateful to my mom, Philomena Augustina Carryl Lomena, who came to this country all by herself and built a life. Who sacrificed her own health to keep a roof over her children’s heads, and who fought with the headwinds of anti-Blackness in her face to be somebody of account in this country.
“I’m grateful that she died knowing her baby was gonna earn a Harvard degree. And I’m especially grateful that she made her way in this country so foreign to her, despite people like you,” she concluded.
Read Reid’s full response to the vice president on her Substack here.
