Washington: US Vice President JD Vance and Indian-origin Congressman Ro Khanna indulged in a war of words on X as Tesla CEO Elon Musk reinstated a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer, who resigned earlier this week after his previous social media posts emerged where he made racist comments.
On Thursday, Marko Elez, 25, resigned from the Musk-led DOGE after a Wall Street Journal report linked him to a now-deleted account on X, where he posted the racist comments. In one post last September, Elez reportedly said, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” and in another one, he wrote, “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.”
In his tweet, JD Vance said the 25-year-old DOGE staffer should be brought back and blamed “journalists who try to destroy people”.
The account also included a post that said, “Normalize Indian hate.” JD Vance’s wife Usha is the daughter of Indian immigrants.
In a tweet on Friday, Musk said “He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine” after the Vice President called for Elez to be rehired.
The Vice President’s tweet, however, did not go down well with Ro Khanna.
“Are you going to tell him to apologize for saying ‘Normalize Indian hate’ before this rehire? Just asking for the sake of both of our kids,” he said in response to JD Vance’s tweet.
Soon after, Vance and Khanna engaged in a heated war of words.
Replying to the California Congressman, the Vice President said, “For the sake of both of our kids? Grow up. Racist trolls on the internet, while offensive, don’t threaten my kids. You know what does? A culture that denies grace to people who make mistakes. A culture that encourages congressmen to act like whiny children.”
To this, Khanna replied, “No one is denying grace to people who make mistakes. I respect Usha (praised her publicly) & defended your family from some of the vicious attacks. But if you are going to rehire someone to represent you & the USA, why not insist he apologize for saying ‘Normalize Indian hate?'”
The war of words did not stop here. JD Vance suggested Khanna not to worry about his children or about them developing views which they might regret later.
“I don’t even worry that much about trolls on the internet. You know what I do worry about, Ro? That they’ll grow up to be a US Congressmen who engages in emotional blackmail over a kid’s social media posts. You disgust me,” he added.
Taking a potshot at the Vice President, the Indian-origin Congressman said, “Saying I am ‘whiny’ & ‘you disgust me’ maybe your way of showing strength. Personally, I don’t think you have to hurl insults or be mean-spirited to have a free exchange ideas. Our country, at its, best (Lincoln/Douglass) was not like that and you at your best JD were not either.”
The White House is yet to officially confirm Elez’s reinstatement. The administration on Thursday had confirmed his resignation.
Addressing a press conference on Friday, President Donald Trump said, “I’m with the Vice President”, after JD Vance called for the DOGE staffer to be rehired.
Also on Friday, Musk polled his X followers about whether the DOGE employee should be brought back. Seventy-eight per cent responded yes and 28 per cent no.
Musk lashed out at the Wall Street Journal reporter who reported on Elez’s posts and resignation and said the journalist “should be fired immediately”.
Elez was among two DOGE employees who were at the centre of a controversy this week when they accessed the U.S. Treasury Department’s payment system, prompting a court challenge and a judge’s decision to restrict their access.
