What to Know
"Pod Save America" host Jon Favreau said Vice President JD Vance acted "f—king smug" by not apologizing for his inflammatory comments about Alex Pretti.
In a Daily Mail interview earlier this week, Vance refused to apologize to Pretti's family for labeling the slain 37-year-old nurse as an "assassin." He argued, without evidence, that Pretti showed up to the protest in Minneapolis with "ill intent" before being fatally shot by Border Patrol officers.
"For what?" Vance said when asked by The Daily Mail if he planned to apologize for backing White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller's "assassin" comment.
Favreau, a former aide to President Barack Obama, blasted Vance for his comments in Friday's episode of "Pod Save America."
"He's so f—ing smug," Favreau said. "It's the smugness that just takes it to a whole new level for me.
Co-host Dan Pfeiffer said Vance was the "most obnoxious high school debate nerd you can ever possibly be."
"He just uses nonsense logic to run circles around these reporters, or at least get out of answering questions is incredibly frustrating, but he is missing something fundamentally human. Donald Trump is also missing it," Pfeiffer said.
"There is no shame. There's no inherent decency," Pfeiffer added.
Favreau then tore into Vance again over his comments.
"He really combines like the smugness of the most annoying coastal elite you know, with the soul of Stephen Miller, with the charisma of a shoe," Favreau said. "That is JD Vance."
"He does not have what Trump has. I think Ron DeSantis looks better than him," he said.
"He's f—ing smug and weird. He's an odious individual," Favreau added.
In the Daily Mail interview, Vance also did not say whether the officers responsible for fatally shooting Pretti should face criminal prosecution.
"You asked me to engage in a hypothetical. I'm not going to prejudge these guys. I think that everybody is deserved the presumption of innocence in the American system of justice. That's how it's going to work. They're going to investigate," Vance said.
"Let's do the investigation. Let's figure out, did these officers have a reasonable fear of Alex Pretti given what happened? Did they engage in lawful conduct or unlawful conduct? Let's let the investigation determine those things," he added.
The Justice Department opened a federal civil rights investigation into the killing of Pretti last week. Videos of the incident widely circulated online, which prompted criticism of the actions taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol.
Videos showed that Pretti did not appear to brandish his weapon during the confrontation with officers. The footage showed that Border Patrol officers disarmed Pretti as they wrestled him to the ground before an officer began firing shots into his back.
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Lauren Sforza; nj.com; (TNS) | ©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit nj.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
