Jon Favreau

They refer to black people as monkeys, rape as epic, and slavery as based.

There were jokes about people with Indian heritage not bathing, about how you shouldn't get on a plane flown by a non-white pilot.

And there were slurs, tons and tons and tons of slurs directed towards almost every minority in addition to black people, Hispanics, Chinese, Jews, gay people.

Some of the Republican officials in the chat have apologized.

Some have lost their positions in the party.

And a few Republican leaders who weren't in the chat condemned the chat.

But one very prominent Republican chose to go in another direction.

The vice president of the United States, without being asked, just decided to weigh in on the controversy with a tweet where he dismissed the criticism as, quote, pearl clutching over, quote, a college group chat.

Not a college group chat.

These people were not in college.

He was later asked about his tweet, and here's what Vance said.

Just to put an exclamation point on this entire episode, the day after the story ran, Politico broke another story about an image they obtained from the office of Ohio Republican Congressman Dave Taylor in which one of his staffers has an American flag that's been altered to include a swastika pinned on his cubicle.

Capitol Police are investigating that one.

Dan, thoughts on all the pearl clutching that's going on here?

Well, let's start with J.D.

Vance.

I will.

I think both things are wrong.

Yes, they're both wrong.

I think Jay Jones' texts are horrific.