JD Vance Wants Everyone To Know He Has Friends

Vice President JD Vance spent part of a Thursday press briefing reminding everyone he definitely has friends.

Asked about the departure of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who held the role for 18 months, Vance sidelined the question to talk about friendship.

“Dan is obviously a very good friend of mine,” Vance said. “I think he was a great secretary of the Army.”

But Driscoll’s not his only friend!

“Pete [Hegseth] is also a very good friend of mine, and I think he’s an amazing secretary of war, and fundamentally, there are a lot of issues where I agree with Pete on. The issue where I’m in the most strident agreement with Pete is that we needed to have a culture shift at the Department of War,” Vance elaborated.

Asked later in the briefing about his relationship with conservative pundit Tucker Carlson ― who has called for US President Donald Trump to be removed from office — Vance jumped at the opportunity to extol the power of friendship.

“What a travesty it is, that in the United States of America, we let our political disagreements define who our friends are going to be and not going to be,” Vance said. “So yeah, Tucker is a friend of mine. Tucker is a friend, despite the fact that we disagree on a number of things, and I’m not going to play the game where I throw friends under the bus because I disagree with them.”

Asked about news anchor Maria Bartiromo’s sudden departure from Fox News on Thursday, Vance jumped at the opportunity to name another friend.

“She’s a very, very dear friend,” Vance said. “I haven’t even talked to her, so I don’t know the backstory about why she’s decided to leave Fox News.”

But of all Vance’s friends, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is his number one buddy.

“Marco is my best friend in the administration, and he and I work a lot together,” Vance said during a 2025 podcast.

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