Resurfaced Footage: Vance Warned About Refugee Program Used By National Guard Shooter in 2021, RINOs Cried Racism
“Prescient.”
That’s a word you’d love to see Elon Musk drop beneath your post in most cases. But when the post dates back to 2021 — when you’re J.D. Vance, a Senate hopeful yet to secure your seat, warning of a potential terror attack by poorly vetted Afghan migrants — it lands more as a grim vindication than a triumph.
At the time, that stance drew fierce backlash. Democrats and Republicans alike, including then-Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, branded Vance a “racist” for prioritizing American citizens’ evacuation over rushing in refugees.
Vance’s Aug. 23, 2021 message is going viral again after 29-year-old Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal — who was let into the United States shortly after the video was recorded — allegedly shot two National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., killing at least one. The other remains in critical condition.
UPDATE: DHS confirms my reporting that the suspect is an Afghan national who entered the US on 9/8/2021 as part of the Biden admin’s Operation Allies Welcome.https://t.co/5KR0z6oaP8
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) November 27, 2025
According to The Washington Post, Lakanwal, who was with “CIA-organized counterterrorism squad” in the Middle East nation until it fell, will likely face first-degree murder charges now that West Virginia National Guard Spec. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, has died.
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In the wake of the shooting, President Trump has already promised to look into “every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden” — something that Vance proposed in the wake of the Afghan withdrawal and which earned him significant backlash.
For context: At the time, Vance was a pundit and venture capitalist best known for his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.” He’d announced a run for U.S. Senate in Ohio, but that was considered mostly quixotic at the time, with former state Treasurer Josh Mandel, businessman Mike Gibbons, and state Republican Party chair Jane Timken considered the front-runners for the GOP nomination.
(It wasn’t until a last-minute endorsement by Trump that Vance pulled ahead of the field.)
In a tweet (they were called that once upon a time), Vance said that he saw Sen. Ben Sasse “went on national television yesterday and attacked me for suggesting that we should focus on getting our own citizens out of Afghanistan rather than the Afghan refugees.”
“He said that great countries honor their word. Of course, nobody disagrees with that; it’s a ridiculous platitude,” Vance continued, “The question is not whether we honor our word, the question is who we make promises to.”
He derided Sasse’s “open arms” rhetoric as “very sweet,” predicting liberals would praise it. The real issue, Vance argued, was admitting refugees “in a way that doesn’t destroy our own sovereignty.”
“I’m sure a lot of liberals will say very nice things about him because he said that,” Vance continued, but he noted that the key was accepting refugees from Afghanistan “in a way that doesn’t destroy our own sovereignty.”
“So, let’s have an honest question about what exists in Afghanistan. According to Pew, 40 percent of people there believe that blowing yourself up, committing a suicide bombing, is an acceptable way to solve a problem,” Vance said.
“So yes, let’s help Afghans that helped us, but let’s ensure that we’re properly vetting them, so that we don’t get a bunch of people who should blow themselves up at a mall because somebody looked at their wife the wrong way,” he continued.
“Real leadership is accepting the tradeoffs of the situation, putting our own citizens first, and not dealing with fake platitudes because it gets people in the media to say nice things about you.”
Here is my message to Ben Sasse and other establishment Republicans who seem to care more about bringing 30,000 unvetted Afghan refugees into our country than getting our own people out safely. pic.twitter.com/PSfoc2swdC
— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 23, 2021
Today, that gets comments like Musk’s:
We need to make a new hat that says: “JD Vance was right about everything”
— Matt Van Swol (@mattvanswol) November 28, 2025
Back in 2021, it was a different story.
Disgusting lies in this video. The refugees are not unvetted.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 23, 2021
I live like a mile from you. I’d take any of the 30K here & now if we can catapult you out to live among your fellow fascist Taliban brethren, you cretinous jack in the box. They’re more American than you’ll ever be
— Cliff Schecter (@cliffschecter) August 23, 2021
JD vance going full anti-Muslim bigot. He warns that refugees from Afghanistan will blow themselves up at US shopping malls. I think he is confused with white MAGA bomber who drove his truck filled with explosives to DC last Thursday to start a “revolution.”
— (((DeanObeidallah))) (@DeanObeidallah) August 23, 2021
You’re not only xenophobic, but also anti American.
Every patriotic American would support rescuing the people who fought alongside us. Shame on you!
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) August 23, 2021
Nobody wants to take ownership of these positions now that two National Guard troops have allegedly been shot by one of these Afghani migrants.
It’s not as if the writing wasn’t on the wall; concerns were raised about the logistics of this from the very start, and a February 2022 report from the Department of Defense’s inspector general indicated that dozens of individuals let in were “potentially significant security concerns,” including numerous refugees authorities had lost track of.
What Vance knew at the time was an unpopular reality: not if, but when, these ugly realities came home to roost. Wednesday’s horror suggests when arrived— and those who amplified the “xenophobe” label for media applause are, predictably, silent. Funny, that.
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