The release on Monday of the birthday message Donald Trump allegedly sent Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 not only looked bad for the president, but it was really embarrassing for Vice President JD Vance.
The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee posted the message to the disgraced financier on social media.
The letter features what appears to be Trump’s signature with a drawing of a female body around a message that reads, in part, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
The Wall Street Journal reported the letter’s existence back in July, and Trump previously called it fake and sued the publication.
After the letter was made public on Monday, White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich claimed the signature on the note didn’t match Trump’s more recent signatures on official documents.
“Time for @newscorp [the company that owns the Journal and Fox News] to open that checkbook, it’s not his signature. DEFAMATION!” he said on X.
White House press secretary Karoline Levitt also claimed the birthday message was a hoax.
“As I have said all along, it’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it,” she said on X.
However, the signature on the card does seem to match other instances of the president signing only his first name.
As a result, Trump was brutally mocked on Monday after the publication of the letter, and so was Vance, who, back in July when the birthday message story first broke, took to X to declare the Journal’s story “complete and utter bullshit.”
Considering the signed letter was made public on Monday, Vance is in the position of looking ridiculous.
And people piled on the vice president, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who noted that Vance’s original “complete and utter bullshit” post “aged nicely.”
Vance didn’t react to the mockery on Monday. Instead, he commented on Leavitt’s post, where she doubled down on her claim the Epstein message was fake.
The vice president claimed that “the Democrats don’t care about Epstein,” and “don’t even care about his victims,” which is “why they were silent about it for years.”
The birthday drawing attracted other social media reactions as well.