• JD Vance told a Kansas City crowd to “vote against the crazy leadership in Washington, D.C.” — then quickly tried to walk it back
• The slip went viral as Democrats clipped the moment and posted it alongside images of Trump and Republican leadership
• A local Kansas City columnist also slammed Vance for being unprepared and dismissive of the city’s actual manufacturing community
• At the same event, Vance’s joke about Trump mocking his shamrock socks landed with a thud online
• Vance’s 2028 presidential ambitions loom over the whole trip, with Trump still refusing to endorse him

JD Vance went to Kansas City on Monday to sell the Trump administration’s manufacturing agenda. What he left with was a viral moment that had Democrats cheering and the internet in full roast mode.

Speaking at Milbank Manufacturing Company in Kansas City, Missouri, the 41-year-old vice president was rallying support ahead of the midterm elections when he delivered a line that stopped the room — and not in the way he intended.

“What I will ask you is if you want to make America great, if you want to protect your jobs and hopefully build jobs in this beautiful factory, if you want to make our streets even safer, if you want to rebuild the American dream for the next generation, vote against the crazy leadership in Washington, D.C.,” Vance told the crowd.

The crowd applauded. Then Vance paused. Then came the cleanup.

He quickly reframed the line, telling attendees he was referring to congressional Democrats: “Vote against the congressional leadership that will stand up and say ‘we care more about illegal aliens than we do American citizens,’ and vote for the leaders in Congress who have promised they are going to fight for you.”

But it was too late. The original clip was already out there.

The Internet Didn’t Miss It

Democrats clipped the moment and posted it on X alongside a photo of Donald Trump flanked by Republican lawmakers at the White House, captioned simply: “The crazy leadership in Washington, DC.” The thing spread fast.

“He’s right, Republicans control everything in Washington,” one person wrote. “Yes, vote against the crazy leadership. Who wrote this speech?” said another. A third kept it simple: “Thanks JD…heard loud and clear.”

Others went harder. “JD Vance calls Washington leadership ‘crazy’ and asks you to vote against it. He IS Washington’s leadership,” one user pointed out, before rattling off a list: “Under his watch: A war nobody asked for. Food prices at a four-year high. A president with 3,700 stock trades in three months. 55 midnight posts demanding arrests of political opponents.”

“Einstein not realizing his party controls the White House, the senate, and the house,” someone else added. “For someone who wrote a book, he definitely doesn’t understand the term ‘irony,'” cracked another.

“Is he campaigning for Democrats or Republicans?” was perhaps the most cutting question of the day.

Kansas City Wasn’t Exactly Charmed Either

The online mockery was one thing. But locally, the reception wasn’t much warmer. Kansas City Star opinion columnist Mará Rose Williams wrote a sharp takedown of the visit, arguing Vance had done almost no homework before showing up.

Vance claimed Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe had “moved quickly” to produce a Republican-friendly redistricting map following a Supreme Court ruling — but Williams noted that map was drawn a year ago. He also appeared not to know the name of Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, the Democrat who has represented Kansas City in Congress for over 20 years and won 11 consecutive elections.

“You mean to tell us that you came into our state, our city, and didn’t care enough to find out who represents us in Congress?” Williams wrote. “That would be lazy and dismissive.”

Perhaps more telling: Vance’s team never even reached out to Michael Eaton, the executive director of the Missouri Association of Manufacturers — the actual voice of the state’s manufacturing sector. Eaton said he hadn’t even known the vice president was coming to town.

“If I had JD Vance standing right in front of me, I would tell him we are the voice of manufacturing in Missouri,” Eaton told the columnist. “Where is their voice? You forgot to invite manufacturing to the table. We are never invited to the table. We are not even on your radar.”

Williams was blunt about what the visit actually was: “That plant just happened to be the backdrop for a campaign speech. It was never intended to be a ‘we really care what the workers need’ speech.”

Then There Was the Sock Joke

The “crazy leadership” line wasn’t even the only thing that backfired on Monday. Vance also tried his hand at some light comedy — and the internet had opinions about that too.

After complimenting Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins on his blazer, Vance launched into a story about Trump’s dress code preferences, explaining that the president notices when anyone strays from a “solid navy blue jacket.”

“I learned this the hard way,” Vance said. Last St. Patrick’s Day, as tradition dictates, he hosted Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin at the Naval Observatory before heading to the Oval Office for a meeting in front of roughly 100 TV cameras. Vance decided to mark the holiday with a little festive flair — shamrock socks.

“We’re sitting down in front of God and everybody and probably 100 TV cameras on a live press conference, and the President starts his remarks, and then he looks over and says, ‘What is going on with those socks?'”

The MAGA crowd laughed. The internet did not.

The sock story also fits a broader pattern around Trump’s well-documented sartorial standards — he’s reportedly been handing out $145 Florsheim leather oxford dress shoes to Cabinet members and White House advisers, telling “The Brian Kilmeade Show” in March, “I don’t want my Cabinet members wearing sneakers.”

“He didn’t learn from the ridiculous Home Alone joke that flopped in a crowd full of boomers in Maine,” wrote Mason, a political commentator and Iraq war veteran, on X. “He has the charm of a rattlesnake, and the same sense of humor,” added Paul Healey on X. On Bluesky, former NASA engineer and retired tech executive Lee Phillips put it most succinctly: “I got news for you J.D. The socks and suit aren’t the problem.”

It’s not the first time Vance’s attempts at humor have landed with a thud. Back in February, he tried to joke about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at an event and was met with complete silence from the crowd.

All of This With 2028 Already Looming

The Kansas City trip comes as Vance’s name continues to circulate as a top Republican contender for the 2028 presidential race — a prospect that Trump himself has been toying with publicly, and not always kindly.

During a Fortune magazine interview on May 11, Trump was asked about the 2028 ticket — Vance, Marco Rubio, or Donald Trump Jr. — right as Vance walked into the room. Trump didn’t pick sides. “Whoever gets this job is going to be very important,” he said. “And if you get the wrong person: disaster.”

At a White House dinner during National Police Week, Trump conducted an impromptu audience poll, asking attendees to clap for either Vance or Rubio as their preferred 2028 candidate, then pulled back from endorsing either. “I do believe that’s a dream team,” Trump said. “But these are minor details. That does not mean you have my endorsement under any circumstance.”

Vance has tried to play it cool, likening Trump’s public polling to a reality show and joking that “it doesn’t sound right for the United States to have a televised competition for who would succeed him as his apprentice.” He’s also insisted he’s focused on the job he has now.

“I think the American people are so fed up with folks who are already running for the next job seven months into the current one,” Vance said. “There are a lot of great people. I think if I do end up running it’s not going to be given to me either on the Republican side or on the national side. So I’m just going to keep on working hard.”

For now, though, “vote against the crazy leadership in Washington, D.C.” is doing a lot of the talking for him.

The post JD Vance Tells Crowd to Vote Against ‘Crazy Leadership in DC’ appeared first on Cream.

• Video from Bruce Springsteen’s May 15 Barclays Center show shows him walking past a hand-extended Chris Christie without acknowledging him.
• Christie, a self-described superfan who claims to have attended 150+ Springsteen concerts, visibly pulled his hand back and looked upward in disappointment.
• The clip went viral quickly, with fans and commentators flooding social media with reactions and jokes.
• The two have a complicated history dating back to a 2012 Hurricane Sandy benefit — and Springsteen’s 2014 Bridgegate parody on Late Night.
• Christie has said their relationship improved after a 2015 airport apology from Springsteen, though their political differences have never fully disappeared.

Bruce Springsteen has been known to work a crowd — but at his Thursday night show at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, one particular hand he left unshaken is now all anyone can talk about.

Video captured during the E Street Band’s May 15 performance — first shared on X by journalist Mike Ryan — shows Springsteen, 76, making his way through the crowd, high-fiving fans as he went. Then he turned a corner, and there was former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, 63, arm outstretched, ready for his moment. Springsteen walked right past him. Head down, still in it, still performing. Christie’s hand snapped back. He looked up, shrugged it off, and went back to clapping along to the music.

The internet, naturally, lost its mind.

“HAHAHA Bruce Springsteen WAS NOT HAVING IT with Chris Christie,” one user posted. Another offered a more charitable read: “It looks like Bruce thought he was just a guy showing him which direction to go.” A second clip from the same show also circulated, showing Christie in full superfan mode — fist-pumping, air-guitaring, dancing like he was 19 years old at the Stone Pony. That footage only added fuel to the fire.

Christie’s Complicated Springsteen Story

To understand why this moment landed so hard, you have to understand just how deep Christie’s Springsteen devotion runs. This isn’t a casual fan. Christie has said he’s attended more than 150 of Springsteen’s concerts over the years. His X bio literally reads: “Husband, proud father, former Gov and U.S. Attorney, Springsteen fan.” He has described Springsteen’s music as a defining part of his life since his teenage years, and on The Fifth Column podcast in March, he described their personal relationship as “really good,” saying, “We text, we talk.”

He even recalled a previous concert where Springsteen called him late at night just to confirm he’d spotted Christie in the pit — catching his wife completely off guard.

So yeah. The snub — if that’s what it was — stings a little differently when you’re that guy.

Their history together goes back to November 2012, when former President Barack Obama played matchmaker of sorts. During a phone call about Hurricane Sandy relief, Obama told Christie that Springsteen wanted to speak with him. The two had a brief conversation — and later that same month, they met face-to-face backstage at a Hurricane Sandy benefit concert at Madison Square Garden.

Christie was openly emotional about it. “We hugged,” he told reporters. “He told me it’s official: we’re friends. I told the president today, actually, that the hug was great and when we got home, there was a lot of weeping because of the hug. And the president asked why. I said, ‘Well, to be honest, I was the one doing the weeping.'”

That warmth didn’t last long.

Bridgegate, Parody Songs and a Rocky Middle Chapter

In 2013, Christie’s administration became embroiled in the “Bridgegate” scandal — staff members were accused of deliberately engineering traffic jams near Fort Lee, New Jersey, as political payback against a mayor who hadn’t supported Christie. Christie was never criminally charged, but the controversy shadowed his 2016 presidential run.

Springsteen didn’t stay quiet. In 2014, he joined Jimmy Fallon on Late Night to perform a parody of “Born to Run” skewering the whole mess. “Baby this Bridgegate was just payback / It’s a bitch slap to the state Democrats,” Fallon, 51, and Springsteen sang together. “We got to get out while we can / We’re stuck in Governor Chris Christie’s Fort Lee-New Jersey traffic jam!”

Christie later admitted he was furious. “Then I was p******,” he said on the podcast.

But according to Christie, things eventually thawed. He’s described a chance airport encounter in 2015 where Springsteen pulled him aside and apologized for “piling on.” Christie said he accepted it, and the two agreed to move past the politics. Christie also noted that Springsteen had initially respected his work as U.S. attorney going after corruption in Asbury Park — it was Christie’s Republican governorship starting in 2010 that cooled things between them.

Where Both Men Stand Now

The Barclays moment is getting extra attention because of where both men are politically right now. Springsteen has been one of Donald Trump’s most vocal celebrity critics — in March, he called the Trump White House a “corrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless and treasonous administration.” Trump fired back on Truth Social in April, calling Springsteen a “dried-out prune” and urging supporters to boycott his music.

Christie, for his part, has spent the last several years as one of Trump’s most outspoken Republican critics — a dramatic reversal from the man who endorsed Trump in 2016 and chaired his Opioid and Drug Abuse Commission in 2017. He’s told Bill Maher that Republicans “speak very differently” about Trump behind closed doors, and by 2024 was openly saying that “Make America Great Again has always offended me, because it implies that America wasn’t great.”

So in theory, these two should be on the same page politically. And yet.

TMZ noted that even with Christie’s evolution on Trump, Springsteen may simply not vibe with the former governor regardless. Whether Thursday’s moment was an intentional brush-off or just Springsteen locked into the performance, nobody outside of The Boss himself knows for sure. Representatives for both men had not commented as of Friday.

The show itself was part of Springsteen’s Land of Hope and Dreams stadium tour, and the setlist — which included “Born to Run,” “Dancing in the Dark” and “Streets of Philadelphia” — was everything fans came for.

Christie, for his part, danced through all of it.

The post Bruce Springsteen Walks Past Chris Christie at Concert appeared first on Cream.

• Olivia Wilde went viral after a fisheye lens interview at the San Francisco International Film Festival sparked Gollum comparisons
• She responded on Instagram Stories with her brother Charlie Cockburn, who asked her to address rumors she was a “resurrected corpse”
• Wilde laughed it off, blaming the camera lens and angle — and confirming, emphatically, “I’m not dead”
• The moment comes as she promotes The Invite, her A24 comedy co-starring Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton, out June 26
• The film premiered to raves at Sundance, where A24 acquired it for more than $12 million

Olivia Wilde has seen the memes. She’s read the comments. And she has thoughts.

The actress and director, 42, became an unlikely internet moment last week after video from her red carpet interview at the San Francisco International Film Festival went viral for all the wrong reasons. Shot up close through a fisheye lens by SFGate, the footage distorted her features in a way that sent social media into a frenzy — with commenters comparing her to Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, questioning her health, and speculating about everything from weight loss drugs to cosmetic procedures. One commenter wrote, “She looks as if she had found the one ring.” Another quipped that “the cameraman really doing a disservice here.” Someone even joked the camera operator “is a Jason Sudeikis fan.”

On TikTok, users were less charitable. “Is she… OK?” one pondered. “Bro, Hollywood is STARVING!” wrote another. The pile-on was swift, and it was cruel.

Wilde, to her credit, didn’t let it fester.

Over the weekend, she posted an Instagram Story that included a side-by-side of her viral interview screenshot alongside an image of Gollum — and captioned the whole thing, “Leave it to your little brother to give you the maximum amount of s—.” In the video, her brother Charlie Cockburn, 33, kicks things off with the kind of question only a sibling could get away with: “Olivia Wilde, do you care to address recent rumors that you’re a resurrected corpse?”

Wilde, bundled up in a hoodie and wrapped in blankets, dissolves into giggles.

“Listen, that is a fish-eye lens,” she said. “And I admit, is that my best angle? Was that my best-ever look? No. No, it’s startling. It’s a startling image.”

She kept going, laughing the whole time. “It was a fish-eye lens. I don’t know why I was so close to the camera. I didn’t have to be. That’s not the truth.” Then, after a beat: “Do you have any more questions? I’m not dead.”

She covered her face with a baseball cap as both siblings cracked up.

What Actually Happened at the Festival

Wilde was at the SFFILM Festival on April 24 to premiere The Invite, her third feature as a director, at the Castro Theatre. The opening night reception was held at the Swedish American Hall nearby. By all accounts, she looked perfectly fine — other photos from the same evening, including a more flattering Getty image and shots from the Met Gala just days later on May 4, confirm that much. It was one particular close-up, fisheye-distorted interview clip that did her dirty.

The comments beneath the original SFGate video weren’t all mean-spirited — plenty of viewers pointed the finger at the camera work rather than Wilde herself. But the Gollum comparisons drowned out most of the nuance, as they tend to do.

In the interview itself, Wilde was talking enthusiastically about The Invite and its San Francisco setting. “I do love the city, and it’s so telling when a script sets a very specific location,” she said in the clip. “It really does make sense that this particular group is from here.” The content of what she actually said got almost no attention. The angle got all of it.

The Film Behind the Chaos

The Invite is a remake of the 2020 Spanish film The People Upstairs by director Cesc Gay, adapted for the screen by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack. Wilde stars alongside Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton in a story about a married couple — played by Wilde and Rogen — navigating a rough patch who end up having a very unexpected evening when they invite their upstairs neighbors over for dinner. Wilde previously described the film to Variety as “an incredibly irreverent, playful take” on relationships and the sexual revolution, adding, “Sex is used as a metaphor for something that’s really applicable to everybody’s experience.”

The film premiered at Sundance in January to a standing ovation, with festival director Kim Yutani telling Wilde onstage, “The standing ovation was very well deserved.” IndieWire praised Wilde for knowing “exactly what she’s doing, how to calibrate between big laughs and broken hearts” and urged readers to “accept this invite, and fast.” Variety’s chief film critic Owen Gleiberman called it a “bravura dinner-party dramedy” that “keeps you laughing and never stops surprising.” A24 snapped it up in a deal worth more than $12 million.

It’s her first directorial outing since Don’t Worry Darling in 2022 — a film that got largely buried under the weight of its off-screen drama, between Wilde’s relationship with star Harry Styles and the widely reported tension with Florence Pugh. Sundance 2026 felt like a reset. She also appeared there as an actress in Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex, and the reception to both films was warm enough that Variety wrote she was “returning to the center of the frame, reminding audiences not only of what they’ve been missing, but what they failed to appreciate all along.”

When she wrapped The Invite last year, Wilde posted on Instagram: “I don’t yet have the words to say how meaningful this experience has been. So for now just want to say THANK YOU to every brilliant, kind, hilarious person who made this production happen. I can’t wait to show the world what we all made together.”

The Invite hits theaters in a limited release on June 26.

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