JD Vance ‘Felt Terrible’ for Woman After Viral Donut Shop Encounter

Senator JD Vance said he “felt terrible” for the worker featured in the viral video showing his stop at a Georgia donut shop last week.
Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential race, faced ridicule over the video, which critics deemed “awkward.” The video shows him visiting Holt’s Sweet Shop in Valdosta, Georgia, a crucial battleground state Republicans hope to flip after it narrowly voted for President Joe Biden in 2020.
During the visit, Vance attempted to make small talk with the employees, one of whom asked not to be recorded while at work. Vance asked the camera crew not to film her, but footage showing her still circulated across social media last week.
Vance addressed the video during an interview with NBC News published on Wednesday.
“I just felt terrible for that woman. We walked in, and there’s 20 Secret Service agents, and there’s 15 cameras, and she clearly had not been properly warned, and she was terrified, right? I just felt awful for her,” Vance said.
He said he enjoys speaking with voters in non-scripted events but that the campaign may reconsider its approach in the future.
“I like to get out there and talk to people, and we want to make sure we’re doing it, but definitely make sure that people are at least OK with being on camera, or we’re going to walk in and you’re going to have a person who has, practically, a panic attack because she’s got 15 cameras in her face,” he said.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign for additional comment via email.
Videos of the encounter were viewed tens of millions of times on X, formerly Twitter. The left-leaning news outlet MeidasTouch posted, “JD Vance had a very awkward visit to a donut shop in Georgia earlier. Trust us, it’s worse than you even think.”
Vance has struggled in the polls since former President Trump picked him as his running mate. However, recent surveys show that Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, are locked in a tight race.
FiveThirtyEight’s polling aggregate of Vance’s favorability showed unfavorable opinions of him at 43.9 percent and favorable opinions of him at 34.2 percent on Wednesday. Vance said he does not believe these polls during a campaign stop in Philadelphia last week.
A YouGov poll conducted among 1,555 registered voters from August 25 to August 27 found that 49 percent of respondents viewed Vance unfavorably, compared to only 41 percent who viewed him favorably.
A Morning Consult poll conducted among 2,202 registered voters from August 23 to August 25 found that 44 percent of respondents view him unfavorably, while 44 percent view him favorably.