Trump supporters’ signs behind JD Vance accidentally send a different message

Former US president Donald Trump and his vice presidential running mate JD Vance’s campaign to win the November presidential election hasn’t gone all too well in recent weeks.

Trump had a disastrous interview with the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) on Wednesday, while Ohio senator Vance only ramped up the countless memes about him and couches the day before when he said the one word he shouldn’t have during a rally in Nevada.

Now, in the latest gaffe to hit the Trump/Vance ticket, Vance was seen delivering a speech at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday, with the usual crowd of Republican supporters behind the lectern holding up campaign signs – except these ones contained the two-word phrase, “you’re fired” (with "lyin' Kamala" just above it, though less visible from a distance as it's not bold like the rest of the sign).

This is, of course, a reference to Trump’s time heading up The Apprentice, and intended as a message to the incumbent Democrats that they’ll lose come November (although national polling data earlier this week suggests likely Democrat nominee Kamala Harris is leading over Trump).

The only problem is, is that it can also be construed as Trump backers telling Vance he’s out, which wouldn’t be too out of place seeing as he continues to face unsubstantiated claims and memes that he had sex with a couch/sofa with an inside-out latex glove. Not ideal.

Twitter/X users have been quick to point out this fact:

One said it was a “surreal level of incompetence” on display:

While another compared it to the US sitcom, Veep:

And this blunder comes just over a week after the Trump campaign denied reports that the convicted felon was having second thoughts about picking Vance as his running mate, what with Trump announcing the decision before President Joe Biden stepped aside, and his vice president Harris became the new presumptive nominee.

Ben Shapiro, the controversial conservative commentator, has also expressed his “doubt” that Trump would have picked Vance as his running mate again if he had the chance (or, more specifically, a “time machine”).

He said: “I think he probably would have picked somebody like Glenn Youngkin from Virginia, in an attempt to broaden out their base. But instead, he went with JD Vance feeling – because he was right – that Trump had a very solid advantage in the race against Joe Biden.”

And in addition to the campaign mishaps, past comments from Vance about abortion, and Harris and Democrats being a “bunch of childless cat ladies with miserable lives”, have resurfaced in recent weeks.

At the end of July, Trump told Fox & Friends he was still “100 per cent behind JD Vance” and that he thought his running mate was “fantastic”.

“He’s doing a great job and has been very well received,” he said.

Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, added in a statement to The Independent: “President Trump is thrilled with the choice he made with Senator Vance, and they are the perfect team to take back the White House.”

Yet during the NABJ event this week, Trump appeared to put down his running mate, by saying vice presidential candidates have "virtually no impact" when it comes to the election.

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