Texting Buddies

Amazing stuff.

The day after JD Vance was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022, he received a congratulatory text from Charles Johnson, a blogger and entrepreneur who has zealously promoted right-wing conspiracy theories.

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In the messages, Vance pushed back on Johnson’s accusations that he was beholden to donors and other allies, including his law school mentor, Yale professor Amy Chua. When Johnson suggested that Vance was channeling Chinese and Israeli interests, Vance replied, “Chua doesn’t tell me anything.” He added: “I am pretty sure I don’t even know another Chinese american.” Chua declined to comment.

At times, the conversation was one-sided, with Johnson repeatedly texting Vance his social media posts without eliciting any response. Late last year, they argued after Johnson challenged Vance’s criticism of the sale of U.S. Steel to a Japanese corporation. “Stop sending me weird messages,” Vance told Johnson. “I find your threatening tone enraging.”

But occasionally, Vance took the initiative with Johnson, reaching out last fall to ridicule the mental state of a pro-Ukraine activist. In a nod to Johnson’s purported work for the U.S. government, Vance suggested he should “have the spooks up the doses of Xanax among the rank and file,” an insinuation that Washington was engineering popular support for Ukraine. The following month, he asked for Johnson’s take on a former intelligence official’s claims that the U.S. government had evidence of alien spacecraft.