Another day, another JD Vance speech that didn’t land. During a recent speech, the vice president compared election fraud deniers to his six-year-old son, and it did not go over well on social media. According to Vance, those who deny election fraud are like his six-year-old saying he didn’t take any cookies.
Vance seemed to be trying to make the point that if someone denies doing something and protests “so aggressively” when they weren’t even asked about it, that just makes them look suspicious. The comparison backfired immediately because, in a way, Vance inadvertently implicated his boss again.
Vance was talking about a letter he received from the mayor of Milwaukee.
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson has criticized the Trump administration’s renewed probe into the 2020 election. The mayor sent Vance a letter that said, “Elections in Milwaukee and in Wisconsin are conducted with diligence, honesty, and scrupulous attention to the law. Yes, President Donald Trump won elections in 2016 and 2024. He lost Wisconsin and the national election in 2020. That fact has been confirmed through multiple reputable reviews.”
But during a speech in Milwaukee on Wednesday, July 8, Vance tried to suggest that the mayor’s letter seemed “a little odd.”
He compared the mayor to his six-year-old son.
JD Vance: "My 6-year-old gives me a big hug and says, 'Daddy, I didn't steal any of the cookies!' Well of course he stole the cookies. So when I hear a guy protesting out of nowhere, 'I did not do any election fraud! I did not do any election fraud!' It makes me wonder, why is… pic.twitter.com/E9j4YIrKw1
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 8, 2026
“It was a little bit of a ‘He doth protest too much,'” Vance said of the letter from the mayor. “Because I came here to talk about financial fraud. I came here to talk about the fraud against our prenatal program for our young moms. And some guy sends me a letter, the mayor of Milwaukee, and says, ‘We don’t do any election fraud. If we don’t do any election fraud, we don’t do any election fraud.'”
He then compared the mayor to his six-year-old son, Vivek, who is “a little mischievous” and greeted him when he got home from work a couple of weeks ago.
“He gives me a big hug. He says, ‘Daddy, I’m glad you’re home. I didn’t steal any of the cookies!'” Vance claimed. “I said, ‘Huh, that’s interesting that you volunteered that when I wasn’t even talking about that.'”
The analogy didn’t really work, because election fraud is not something that no one has been talking about.
Listen if your six year old did an audit of the cookies and they were all there and you still kept yelling at him about stolen cookies I’m sure he would also loudly protest https://t.co/CCwry9E401
— Jessica Huseman (@JessicaHuseman) July 9, 2026
Although Vance argued that he didn’t visit Milwaukee to talk about election fraud, it’s not like the mayor’s letter came out of nowhere. In May 2026, a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) visited the Milwaukee County elections director’s home. Additionally, President Donald Trump has continued to insist that elections are “rigged.” He has actually made that claim more than 100 times within six months.
But Vance tried to act like the letter was suspicious in the same way his child’s comments about cookies were. “Well, of course, he stole the cookies,” Vance said of his son. “So when I hear a guy protesting out of nowhere, I did not do any election fraud. I did not do any election fraud. It makes me wonder, why is that guy protesting so aggressively? It’s a little odd.”
On social media, people found tons of flaws within this analogy. “Listen if your six year old did an audit of the cookies and they were all there and you still kept yelling at him about stolen cookies I’m sure he would also loudly protest,” one person wrote on X.
Someone else sarcastically said, “Oh yes, denying election fraud is totally out of nowhere. Why would anyone have any reason to think Donald Trump is out there accusing people of election fraud?”
People argued that Vance was actually implicating his boss.
Kinda like when trump denies being friends with Epstein when he wasn’t asked about it? pic.twitter.com/MUSyVrxHD1
— Mason (@masonisonx) July 8, 2026
Because Trump is the person who won’t stop talking about election fraud, which perhaps seems a bit suspicious according to Vance’s logic?
“So, by this logic, the people who scream the loudest about ‘election fraud’ are…committing the election fraud,” one person responded. And someone else said, “Using Vance’s logic, the loudest voice claiming he didn’t steal anything, did steal something & the loudest voice claiming he doesn’t steal is Trump.”
Unsurprisingly, the Epstein files were also mentioned in the comments. “Kinda like when trump denies being friends with Epstein when he wasn’t asked about it?” a critic questioned. Another person added, “What does he think when someone says out of nowhere, ‘The Epstein files are a hoax?'”
Several critics also slammed Vance’s parenting and accused him of using his six-year-old son to try to make a point, which they found kind of “despicable.”
“OMG first off let’s talk about that poor 6 year old since his father will never believe him,” one critic commented before adding, “how many times do you have to prove that there was no election fraud?”
“This analogy is going to come back and bite you in the a–,” another person warned Vance. “Does anyone look over your speeches before they’re given?”
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