Vance Says The Problem With The Washington Post Lies In Its ‘Journalism,’ ‘Not With The Editorials’

Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance diagnosed the problems with the Washington Post as residing in the paper’s overall “journalism” rather than just on the editorial page.

“The Washington Post might as well be a propaganda outlet of the Democratic Party,” Vance said during an interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast published Thursday. “If you look from the Hunter Biden laptop to any number of stories where they just toe the left-wing line almost instinctively, the problem was with the journalism at the Washington Post. It’s not with the editorials.”

Vance spoke after The Washington Post’s senior leadership ignited a media meltdown last week for their refusal to formally back a presidential candidate this cycle. Vice President Kamala Harris is the first Democrat not to receive an official endorsement from the Post’s editorial board since 1992. More than a dozen opinion columnists for the paper condemned the decision of the Post with a joint statement published shortly after the announcement.

“This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020,” wrote 17 writers for the Post. “An independent newspaper might someday choose to back away from making presidential endorsements. But this isn’t the right moment.”

The paper lost more than 250,00 subscribers in the fallout, according to National Public Radio (NPR). On Monday, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos penned an op-ed explaining the decision behind refraining from a formal endorsement this year.

“No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, ‘I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.’ None,” Bezos wrote. “What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.”

Vance told Rogan “I don’t care, frankly, whether the editorial page endorses Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.”

“I care about whether the journalists are lying about Donald Trump or lying about Kamala Harris,” Vance said. “And frankly, they’re lying a lot in the negative direction about my running mate, and they’re lying a lot in the positive direction about Kamala Harris.”

“So what I would like to see from Jeff Bezos is a commitment to The Washington Post, not just being a Democrat Super PAC,” Vance added. “I don’t give a s**t if he hires a few more conservative columnists. It doesn’t matter. What matters is do they hold their journalism to anything like a high standard?”

On Thursday, the Center for American Rights, a Chicago-based non-profit, filed a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint against the Washington Post over the paper’s ad practices in the final days of the election. According to the complaint, the Washington Post is illegally advertising to support Harris over Trump, even without the official endorsement of the editorial board.

“We’re days from an election, and the Washington Post is pouring cash into social media advertising that exclusively helps one candidate for president and denigrates another,” the group’s president said in a press release. “That sort of last-minute spending is not protected by the FEC’s press exemption; the Post needs to come clean and comply with the law.”

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan's email newsletter here.