JD Vance’s Navy SEAL Cosplay Backfires as Critics Mock His “Warrior” Makeover

Vice President JD Vance has just handed the internet a gift it won’t soon forget. In what appears to be a carefully staged attempt to rebrand himself as a tough, battle-ready “war fighter,” Vance participated in a highly publicized training session with U.S. Navy SEALs at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. Instead of boosting his image, the stunt detonated into a wave of ridicule, criticism, and accusations of political cosplay.

The moment was so awkward that even mainstream media outlets couldn’t ignore it. The Daily Beast called the spectacle “Navy SEAL cosplay,” noting that the performance immediately backfired. HuffPost went even further, dubbing him “GI Jello JD Vance,” while social media users questioned why the vice president was burning taxpayer dollars pretending to be a commando during the middle of the workday.

As one viral post put it: “While Americans are grinding to make Christmas work, the vice president is cosplaying as a Navy SEAL.” Another commenter added, “Cool, man—but when you’re done playing dress-up, can you do something about housing and grocery prices?”

From Media Darling to MAGA Shape-Shifter

The mockery didn’t stop at the beach workout. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, hosts reminded viewers that JD Vance’s current MAGA persona is a sharp departure from who he once was. Before Donald Trump, Vance was a hedge fund-backed darling of elite East Coast media and Silicon Valley dinner parties. After Trump, he reinvented himself as an anti-elite populist railing against the very institutions that once embraced him.

Most damning is Vance’s own documented history. In leaked text messages from 2016, Vance openly described Trump as potentially “America’s Hitler,” criticizing the Republican Party for becoming the party of “lower-income, lower-education white people” and warning that a demagogue would eventually exploit that base.

Now, years later, Vance claims he was “fooled by the media.” Critics aren’t buying it.

As one Morning Joe host put it bluntly: “You went to the schools you went to, and we’re supposed to believe you were just too dumb to know better?”

Racism, Reinvention, and 2028 Ambitions

The timing of this Navy SEAL stunt is no accident. With 2028 looming, Vance appears to be leaning hard into a Trump-style playbook: grievance politics, culture war rhetoric, and increasingly inflammatory language. Just days earlier, he made remarks at a Turning Point event that many critics labeled overtly racist—statements widely seen as an attempt to mimic Trump’s teleprompter bigotry and energize the MAGA base.

Taken together, the pattern is clear. JD Vance is not transforming into something new; he’s performing. The Navy SEAL training wasn’t about national security or service—it was branding. A photo op designed to inject testosterone into a political résumé increasingly defined by contradiction and opportunism.

The Takeaway

JD Vance wants to look like a warrior, but voters are increasingly seeing a politician playing dress-up. The same man who once warned about authoritarian demagogues now aligns himself fully with one. The same former elite insider now rails against elites. And the same vice president who should be focused on governing instead chose to stage a military fantasy camp—on the public’s dime.

In the end, the stunt didn’t make Vance look strong. It made him look exposed.

And the internet noticed.