What to Know
People are still trying to figure out what President Donald Trump meant to say during a rant about Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on Tuesday, December 2. Some are convinced that the president called his own vice president, JD Vance, “incompetent.” Meanwhile, others have argued that Trump meant something else entirely and was just struggling to express himself clearly.
During a cabinet meeting, a reporter asked Trump about the fraud scandal in Minnesota, which Trump has blamed Walz for. When answering the question, Trump called Walz “grossly incompetent.” But people got pretty confused when Trump added that his man was incompetent too.
Trump mentioned the debate between Vance and Walz.
And though he said Vance “destroyed” Walz in the debate, he also seemed to suggest that he couldn’t figure out which one of them was more incompetent — which is a bold comment to make about your own VP pick. “Look, I think the man’s a grossly incompetent man. I thought that from the day I watched JD destroy him in the debate,” Trump said, referring to Walz.
Then, in a rant that was hard to make sense of, he added, “I was saying, who was more incompetent? That man or my man? I had a man and he had a man. They were both incompetent.”
This comment made people think that Trump was referring to Vance when he said “my man.” Someone on Reddit wrote, “Yes we all know Vance is incompetent.” Another person reacted to Trump’s comments with, “Huh, something we agree on. Neat.”
But others argued that he was talking about former president Joe Biden.
Some people took Trump’s comments to mean that both Walz and Biden were incompetent. By his “man,” he meant his debate opponent, they argued. “I hate Trump, but he’s saying Biden was incompetent with his terrible speaking,” one Redditor wrote. “He had a man (Waltz), I had a man (Biden). Also, I hate that I can translate this.” Another person agreed, adding that, “He seems to think ‘I had a man/woman’ is a good way of communicating who the opponent was.”
For a moment, Trump seemed to forget about, or purposely exclude, former vice president Kamala Harris. He later added, “I had a man and he had a man. They were both incompetent. And uh, I had a man and a woman. I thought she was very incompetent too.”
I was not looking forward to this afternoon until this cherry popped up! Trump trashing VANCE to a room full of "conservative" outlets LAUGHING when he calls JD "incompetent" multiple times!
— Mark Bland (@markbland) December 2, 2025
Obviously Trump is losing it worse than Biden ever did and now Vance is a moron. pic.twitter.com/EprrBoSgco
Some people thought he left her out on purpose. “It’s poorly worded, but it seems like he was talking about their respective debate opponents,” someone explained. “‘I had a man (Biden) and he had a man (Walz)…’ Though Kamala mostly made Trump look foolish in their debate, so I can see why he’d be hesitant to bring her up.”
Another person argued that the way Trump spoke did make it sound like he was calling Vance incompetent — but that was probably not his intention. “Vance is incompetent, and he did seem to imply it, although I don’t think it’s what he was trying to say. Bad senior moment there,” they wrote.
After all the confusion, the White House later confirmed that Trump was trying to say that both he and Vance had “incompetent” debate opponents, per Snopes.
