This story originally appeared on Them.
Being a man in today’s world is a dangerous and sad proposition. There’s a loneliness epidemic to contend with, looksmaxxers are telling you that your jaw is off-kilter by a few degrees from being an isosceles triangle, and now, apparently, eating certain foods in public is a problem? At least, that’s what vice president JD Vance seemed to suggest when he told Joe Rogan that former president Joe Biden’s penchant for a good ice cream cone was apparently … sexual?
While appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience on Thursday, Vance served up two scoops of weird as he started talking to Rogan about Biden’s well-documented love of ice cream, when all of a sudden he seemed to suggest that Biden’s cream-licking technique might have been a bit of a panty dropper.
“The thing I couldn’t get over Biden is … the way that he ate ice cream,” Vance said. “I mean, it’s like, we can bring some of the stuff up, but it’s like they would get him eating ice cream in the most ridiculous, suggestive way imaginable.”
Hmm … suggestive. Not a word I’ve ever used to describe Joe Biden eating ice cream. Much to discuss.
Somehow being the voice of reason in this situation, Rogan responded, “I never even paid attention to that.”
Vance then brings up the particular danger of public corn dog gobbling, an issue that comes up every time a candidate is photographed at the Iowa State Fair — a famous campaign grounds for presidential primary candidates.
“You have to be a very manly man to be able to confidently eat a corn dog,” Rogan said, because that’s what counts for podcast discourse these days, I guess.
“I don’t know that I could do it, Joe,” Vance replied. “Have you been photographed?” Once again, this is the Vice President of the United States, introducing the idea that loving eating a corn dog is fine, but that eating one while being watched is a bastion of shame.
“I try to eat my corn dogs — that’s between me and my kitchen,” Vance said.
Finally catching onto the fragility of their own masculinity, Rogan responds, “I’m not scared to eat a corn dog. I just think it’s funny, people just, they’re so afraid of being … anything that looks like a dick: bananas, corn dogs.”
Shortly after the episode dropped, several pundits spared no time pointing out that Vance seemed dangerously close to admitting he was turned on by Biden’s licking prowess.
“So JD Vance saw Joe Biden eating ice cream and he started thinking about sex?” said The Bulwark’s Tim Miller.
“He got turned on by it,” guest Michael Steele, former chair of the Republican National Committee, said. “I don’t understand.”
Daily Show correspondent Michael Kosta also got a lick in over Biden’s dairy desire.
“Suggestive?” Kosta said after watching the clip. “I mean, I remember seeing Joe Biden eating ice cream, but I don’t remember pitching a tent over it. Ever meet someone with a kink, and they assume you have it too? ‘Man, look at that goat just teasing us.’”
Kosta then played clips of Biden eating ice cream and gave a cogent, unsexy analysis.
“If you actually look at Joe Biden eating ice cream, there’s nothing suggestive about it,” he said, adding, “the man uses his teeth; he’s biting it like a shark.” He continued, “Either JD Vance doesn’t know what he’s talking about or I’ve been giving blowjobs wrong this whole time.”
The Daily Show has previously satirized the fact that, during Biden’s presidency, the GOP and right-wing media had a penchant of Tan Suit proportions for painting Biden’s love of ice cream as effeminate and weak.
A 2022 Daily Show compilation showed Fox News with wall-to-wall coverage of Biden visiting an ice cream parlor in the middle of the day. One pundit calls out Biden by pointing to his “weakness … his feebleness … his love of ice cream.”
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