Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Sunday said former President Trump should swap out his “incredibly bad choice” of Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, as his running mate.

During an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Schumer was discussing the upcoming presidential election when he decided to address “the addition of JD Vance” to the GOP ticket.

 “It’s an incredibly bad choice,” Schumer said. “I think Donald Trump, I know him, and he’s probably sitting and watching the TV, and every day, Vance, it comes out Vance has done something more extreme, more weird, more erratic. Vance seems to be more erratic and more extreme than President Trump.” 

“And I’ll bet President Trump is sitting there scratching his head and wondering, ‘Why did I pick this guy?’ The choice may be one of the best things he ever did for Democrats,” Schumer said. 

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Referring to Trump, the former president and 2024 Republican presidential nominee, Schumer said “the president has about 10 days – 10 days before the Ohio ballot is locked in.” 

“And he has a choice: does he keep Vance on the ticket?” Schumer said. “He already has a whole lot of baggage, he’s probably going to be more baggage over the weeks because we’ll hear more things about him, or does he pick someone new? What’s his choice?” 

The left has gone after Vance in recent days over a 2021 interview in which the Ohio senator appeared to disparage “childless cat ladies” in the Democratic Party.

“We are effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable, too,” Vance said three years ago, specifically calling out Vice President Harris and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., as being part of that group. 

On an episode of Fox News’ “The Brian Kilmeade Show,” Trump 2024 senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita said Vance’s interview is being “blatantly taken out of context,” adding that the Trump-Vance campaign is not against “childless women” as the liberal media is saying.

Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” a memoir adapted into a Netflix film about his time as a Yale Law School student reflecting on growing up in Appalachia, was propelled into national headlines when Trump announced him as vice presidential running mate at the start of the Republican National Convention. 

Sen. JD Vance introduces former President Trump during a rally at Herb Brooks National Hockey Center on July 27, 2024, in St. Cloud, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

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Republicans have billed Vance, whose mother is 10 years sober, as speaking to forgotten working class Americans. 

But the Harris campaign has attempted to counter that messaging. 

In a video shared weeks ago, Harris claimed Vance would be “loyal only to Trump, not to our country” and a “rubber stamp for [Trump’s] extreme agenda.”

But Vance, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq, shot back during a campaign rally with Trump in Minnesota Saturday. 

Vice presidential candidate JD Vance speaks during a campaign rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on July 27, 2024. (Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images)

“Now, I saw the other day Kamala Harris questioned my loyalty to this country. That’s the word she used, loyalty. And it’s an interesting word. Semper Fi, because there is no greater sign of disloyalty to this country than what Kamala Harris has done at our southern border,” Vance said. “And I’d like to ask the vice president, what has she done to question my loyalty to this country?”

“I served in the United States Marine Corps. I went to Iraq for this country. I built a business for this country. And my running mate took a bullet for this country. So my question to Kamala Harris is, what the hell have you done to question our loyalty to the United States of America?” Vance added. “And the answer, my friends, is nothing.” 

Asked about how Harris should handle Republican criticism of her immigration policy, Schumer told CBS host Robert Costa that Democrats in Congress and the Biden-Harris administration “put together the toughest border policy that would have stopped the flow from the border that we’ve seen in a very long time.” 

He said the plan was initially supported by Republicans but claimed Trump wants chaos at the border so he can run on it during the election.

“We’re happy to bring that up. And case after case, when we bring that up, the voters side with us, not with their policies. We were willing to fix the border. Trump and his Republican minions said, ‘Don’t fix it, we want chaos for political purposes.’ Who do you think’s going to win the argument?” Schumer said. 

Fox News’ Garbriel Hays contributed to this report.

Republicans have been urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to pick up a key legislative proposal that would require states to verify proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. 

They argue the bill is critical to ensuring election integrity in November, but it has so far stalled in the upper chamber.

Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., co-chair of the House Election Integrity Caucus, spoke to Fox News Digital about this on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wis.

She described election integrity as the “premiere issue” of the 2024 election cycle, noting that only five Democrats voted in favor of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which was introduced by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. The bill aims to require states to obtain proof of citizenship – in person – when registering an individual to vote and require states to remove non-citizens from existing voter rolls. 

“Everyone should be talking about the SAVE Act and the fact that 198 Democrats voted for non-citizen voting in our elections,” Tenney said. “Nothing interferes more with our elections and our democratic process than to allow people who have not created and given up the responsibilities of citizenship, but are receiving the benefits of citizenship. And I think that’s really important. One citizen, one vote.” 

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“Make sure that no one’s vote is diluted, that that’s sacred, the right to vote. The most profound expression of our self-governance is that sacred right to vote,” she said. 

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., also criticized Schumer for not calling the bill for a vote in the Senate given there have been more than 10 million known encounters of people illegally crossing American borders during the Biden administration and another estimated 2 million known “got-a-ways” who evaded Border Patrol and escaped into the U.S. interior. 

“We’ve been urging Chuck Schumer to take a lot of Republican legislation up over the 118th Congress. I mean, you rewind back to last April when we passed H.R.2, the Secure the Border Act. It would have given us the ability to secure our border. It was a border security bill. And it would have, probably avoided the over 10 million people that have come into this country illegally, the over 2 million known got-a-ways that are now in this country and millions more,” said D’Esposito, who sits on the House Administration Committee, which oversees the Federal Elections Commission and got the SAVE Act to the floor to pass.

“That is sitting on Chuck Schumer’s desk collecting dust,” D’Esposito said. “The SAVE Act says it all. And, you know, if there’s people that are wondering and they lay in bed at night as so often I do and think to yourself, ‘Well, why do the Democrats keep allowing all these people to come into this country illegally?’ Well, the fact that nearly 200 people voted against the SAVE Act, the fact that Chuck Schumer still has yet to take it up in the Senate and probably won’t, is an indicator as to exactly why that border’s wide open.” 

Democrats have been scrambling after President Biden made the bombshell announcement Sunday that he was discontinuing his bid for a second term and endorsing Vice President Harris.

As Harris heads out on the campaign trail for the first time since entering the race, and with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing Congress last week, the election integrity bill has fallen to the back burner. 

“My senator, one of my senators, Sen. Chuck Schumer, should be taking this bill up immediately,” Tenney told Fox News Digital. “If he really cares about democracy, and he really cares about the rule of law, and he really cares about the citizens that we represent in the state of New York and across this nation. He should tell every Democrat to vote for the SAVE Act in the Senate.” 

Fox News Digital reached out to Schumer’s office seeking comment, but they did not respond.

Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y. is co-chair of the House Election Integrity Caucus.  (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Schumer, who initially held off on doing so when the charges were first brought, called on Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., to resign after being convicted in a federal corruption case, and Menendez complied on Tuesday, revealing he would resign from the upper chamber after Aug. 20. Tenney suggested that the change in balance of power could result in the SAVE Act coming to a vote after all. 

“That could tip the balance of power in the Senate and could maybe make Chuck Schumer recognize that a couple of vulnerable Democrats are not going to want to vote against the SAVE Act,” Tenney said. 

Biden had promised to veto the legislation if it passes. Doing so, Tenney argued, would be the “death knell” for the election of Democrats. “If you’re going to undermine citizens of this great country by saying that their vote is not important in a democracy, which the Democrats decry all the time, then you are going to undermine our system of government,” she said. 

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President Biden in 2021 signed Executive Order 14019, which was billed by the White House as “promoting access to voting.” But Republicans argue the order’s broad interpretation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993 essentially mobilizes the federal government apparatus to become voter registration agencies. 

“That executive order tasked federal agencies to become vote collection sites,” Tenney said. “I think it’s a violation of the Hatch Act, which is undermining an election as well.” 

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., is seen in the Fiserv Forum at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wis., on Wednesday July 17, 2024.  (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican, has been sounding the alarm about how state agencies receiving federal funding are required under Biden’s executive order to send out voter registration information to anyone who comes into contact with those agencies without any verification of citizenship. 

Essentially, Allen told Fox News Digital at the convention, the order “really weaponizes and federalizes the entire federal government apparatus to be voter registration agencies.” 

“I just don’t believe the federal government has any role in voter registration that should be left to the states,” he said. “Voter file maintenance is the foundation of election integrity.” 

“We have reached out to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and asked them, please send us a list of your legal non-citizens that you have on file so we can run them against our voter file to make sure no one slipped through the crack,” he said. “But unfortunately, they have denied access to that data. But we’re going to keep pushing. I think there’s a crack in the door, hopefully, for us to get our hands on that data. That’s data that is funded by you as a taxpayer, me as a taxpayer. Everyone funds those lists. And it just makes common sense that only American citizens should be voting in our American elections.” 

Allen said he had a chance to visit with House Speaker Mike Johnson while at the convention to discuss the SAVE Act. 

“That 198 Democrat members of Congress would vote against giving us, as secretaries of state around the country, the tools to verify citizenship is just beyond me. I don’t understand it. But I told Speaker Johnson, keep pushing. That’s why we need to get Trump back in the White House. That’s why we need to have a Senate GOP majority and a House GOP majority,” Allen said. 

As for Schumer, Allen urged the Senate majority leader to reconsider calling the bill up for a vote. 

“Only American citizens should be voting in our elections,” Allen said. “Give us the tools, the secretaries of state around the country, to verify citizenship. Allow us to do that, and to make sure we have clean voter files.”

Not long ago, a millennial father of two in the Midwest whom I interviewed was convinced that many of our elected leaders like to feast on the flesh of children. He feared that the world was at the mercy of a depraved club of the richest and most powerful among us, one armed with space lasers and clones.

Most shocking to those who knew him weren’t the conspiracy theories themselves. It was that he had come to believe them. Nearing 40 years old, he was a college-educated, upstanding guy with friends, a family and an established career. How, they wondered, had this perfectly sane person gone crazy?

It’s a question more and more Americans are asking about their own loved ones. As disinformation permeates our culture, the road to QAnon-type territory is getting shorter. Healthy skepticism easily gives way to undue suspicion. The dizzying public reaction to Donald Trump’s near-assassination was a perfect illustration: Observers across the political spectrum raced to fill the information void with baseless assertions that have gained momentum despite mounting evidence to the contrary, revealing a nation increasingly at odds with reality.

The statistics are as stunning as the falsehoods. Millions of people now believe that the government, media and financial worlds are “controlled by Satan-worshiping pedophiles,” according to recent polling. These aren’t loosely held views. While reporting for my book “The Quiet Damage,” I talked to people all over the country who had tried until they were blue in the face to make the conspiracy theorists in their lives accept the truth.

But the truth is almost beside the point.

It seems entirely sensible to fight fiction with fact. In spite of passionately professed allegiances to “the truth,” however, ardent conspiracy theory adopters seldom have a desire to be accurately informed. Belief in the unbelievable, in many cases, stems from desperation to meet fundamental human needs, such as feeling valued and having a purpose. Over the last three years, while interviewing hundreds of disinformation-splintered families, it has become clear to me that facts alone can’t fix this. The solution begins with treating conspiracy theory obsession not as a sickness but as a symptom.

For the Midwestern father, the trouble began after an injury largely robbed him of his mobility — and, in turn, much of his life’s meaning. Once an active family man, he was suddenly stuck in a chair. His wife took up solo hobbies and completed the housework alone; his children played with friends instead of with their dad. If he couldn’t fulfill his role as a husband and father in the ways he always had, who was he?

In the QAnon quagmire, which he eventually stumbled into online, he was a patriot helping to bring “deep state” corruption to light. One of the good guys fighting the good fight. Someone who mattered again. During his gradual journey from QAnon-curious to feverishly embracing the most crackpot claims, his critical thinking skills didn’t mysteriously vanish — they were overpowered.

Human needs are just that: needs. Our innate need for things such as meaning and belonging is superseded only by what the body requires for subsistence, and not by any thirst for accuracy or truth. When these needs go unmet, we can become desperate to satisfy them by whatever means necessary. And the conditions that leave people deprived of what they need and susceptible to irrational conspiracy theories are common — and commonly overlooked.

In movements such as QAnon, the lonely find belonging, the aimless find direction and the angry find validation. Consider baby boomers, who share an alarming amount of fake news online. Many people believe that some mix of cognitive aging, poor digital literacy and too much Fox News is to blame. But this overlooks a bigger issue. Conspiracy-theory-entranced seniors have described to me how, before adopting a QAnon-like brand of what some called “activism,” they felt as if society no longer valued or had use for them. Facing what experts have identified as an “epidemic of loneliness,” they yearned for purpose, community and fulfillment.

By their nature, conspiracy theories provide all of the above. They give supporters an enemy to oppose and a cause to rally around. It’s not difficult to see how churning out Facebook posts (errantly) warning about killer COVID vaccines could have felt like a gratifying self-appointed job in retirement. Or how latching onto delusions that offer convenient answers and clear villains in times of debilitating uncertainty can restore feelings of agency and security.

There’s no singular mold of conspiracy theorists or set of circumstances that shapes them. In my research, I’ve encountered people of all generations, classes, races and political leanings. All had their own reasons for believing and their own needs to satisfy. A political psychology study published on factors that predispose people to conspiracy theories shows that those less capable of “bouncing back” from hardship are more susceptible, suggesting that espousing these views can be a crutch. At the deepest level, then, it doesn’t necessarily matter to believers whether Taylor Swift is truly a psy-op or chemtrails are poisoning the skies. What matters is how clinging to such convictions serves the believers’ underlying needs.

In the end, it wasn’t the truth that saved the Midwestern father, though he has come to see it clearly again. After badly damaging his life at rock bottom of the rabbit hole, he carved a long, sometimes bizarre and profoundly difficult path toward recovering his sense of purpose as a parent and partner. Only then did the ludicrous lies he’d been so consumed by lose their hold over him. He no longer needed them.

Success stories like this will remain rare if we don’t shift our approach to this crisis. We’re living in a moment where a slew of critical stressors, including an unprecedented election season and an artificial intelligence boom, are fueling a tsunami of disinformation and leaving many of us mentally and emotionally compromised. As more Americans turn to conspiracy theories to cope, we must remind ourselves that we can’t do away with delusions that meet people’s fundamental needs by simply debunking them. We need to focus on the cause, not the symptom — to look past the lunacy and probe the roots of our collective vulnerability — because none of us is as immune as we would like to think.

Jesselyn Cook is a reporter and journalism lecturer. Her new book is “The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family.”