Donald Trump, Famously Beard-Averse, Has Reservations About J.D. Vance’s Facial Hair: Report

There are numerous causes to concern Donald Trump naming Ohio senator J.D. Vance as his 2024 working mate. For one factor, there’s Vance’s regurgitation of right-wing lies about the 2020 election. For one more, there’s the truth that he has not dedicated to accepting the results of the upcoming election. In between, there’s his stance on abortion (he’s compared it to slavery and has said, of exceptions for rape and incest, that “two incorrect don’t make a proper”); his stance on gender-affirming care (he desires to ban it for minors and has launched legislation that may make offering such care to them a felony punishable by as much as 25 years in jail); his views on marriage (he’s urged individuals ought to stay in violent marriages for his or her youngsters and has criticized no-fault divorce); and his views on America’s epidemic of gun violence (he’s referred to as efforts to ban bump shares a “huge distraction”). Amongst different issues!

However for Trump, there seems to be only one factor about Vance to lose sleep over, and that’s the Ohio lawmaker’s facial hair. Sure, actually.

The Bulwark’s Marc Caputo and Tim Miller report that whereas Trump has praised Vance’s “stunning” blue eyes and lengthy lashes, the hair on the senator’s face offers the ex-president pause. “J.D. has a beard. However Trump is a clean-shaven man. He simply doesn’t like facial hair,” an individual acquainted with Trump’s pondering, who helps Vance as VP, advised the outlet. “You simply by no means know.” As for why Vance wouldn’t simply take a razor to his face and by no means look again, effectively, it’s apparently not so easy. “It’s most likely out of the query for Vance due to how younger he’s and appears,” The Bulwark notes, and Trump “desires somebody who’s skilled—or at the very least appears to be like skilled.” Sans beard, a Trump adviser mentioned, “Vance appears to be like like he’s 12.”

Does all of this sound utterly absurd? Sure. However is it utterly consistent with what we’ve lengthy identified concerning (1) Trump’s views on facial hair and (2) the surface-level particulars he cares about when he hires individuals? Additionally sure.

Right here’s The Bulwark once more:

Trump’s aversion to facial hair is known. On Father’s Day in 2020, Trump advised his son Don Jr. to shave his COVID quarantine beard and in contrast it unfavorably to Ted Cruz[’s] and Rand Paul’s. And in 2016, The Washington Submit reported, John Bolton may not have made the lower for secretary of state due to his trademarked mustache. However then Trump’s decide for nationwide safety adviser, Michael Flynn, fell aside. And Trump appeared to beat his facial trichophobia by selecting Bolton as a substitute.

“Look, this mustache factor, effectively, my father had a mustache,” Trump advised Bolton at a gathering [at] Mar-a-Lago, in line with Bolton, who relayed the vignette to The Bulwark. “That was like him saying, ‘Don’t fear about it.’ I’m undecided it was a Freudian factor. However that was the sum whole of the dialog,” mentioned Bolton. [As for] whether or not a full beard could be merely an excessive amount of for Trump, Bolton was trustworthy: “I don’t know.”

As president, Trump reportedly selected to not reappoint Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve chair partially as a result of he thought she was too short for the job. He additionally described Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, two of his Supreme Court docket nominees, as being out of “central casting,” suggesting senators ought to have supported them due to that. Talking to Fox News in 2019, he mentioned he discovered it “powerful” to stay to his weapons on withdrawing from Afghanistan when “great-looking” generals suggested him to not.

So yeah, this beard factor checks out.

They’re afraid of him as a result of they assume he would possibly begin WW III for the f–k of it