CNN Does a 'Devastating Deep Dive' Into JD Vance's Business Ventures

CNN Does a ‘Devastating Deep Dive’ Into JD Vance’s Business Ventures – Twitchy

Last updated: 2024/08/14 at 9:26 AM

While Dana Bash and the other talking heads at CNN are discussing Elon Musk and Donald Trump “blowing off” the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, CNN’s Allison Gordon, Daniel Medina, Curt Devine, and Kyung Lah were doing a deep dive into the devastating business ventures of Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance. But before we get to that, we thought this graph was kind of interesting — it shows how the candidates have spent their lives, with pink representing the private sector. Neither Kamala Harris nor Tim Walz has any experience in the private sector.

Graphic showing how Trump, Vance, Harris, and Tim Walz have spend their adult lives. Striking that the Democratic ticket has literally no private sector experience. pic.twitter.com/IntZb6eLKT

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) August 12, 2024

CNN’s four reporters look into Vance’s investment into AppHarvest, “a startup that promised a high-tech future for farming and for the workers of Eastern Kentucky.” For four years, Vance was an investor and board member. They write:

Last year, facing hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, AppHarvest declared bankruptcy.

The rise and fall of the company, and Vance’s role in it, cuts against his image as a champion for the working class — an image that helped catapult him to the top of the Republican ticket as Donald Trump’s running mate.

A CNN review of public documents, and interviews with a dozen former workers, shows that AppHarvest not only failed as a business after pursuing rapid growth, but also provided a grim job experience for many of the working-class Kentuckians Vance has vowed to help.

Sounds like Bidenomics to us.

By August 2022, the company was fighting multiple lawsuits. Some alleged executives, including Webb, had misled regulators and investors by overstating the company’s hiring and retention figures. One suit filed by the Plymouth County Retirement Association, a pension fund for employees like firefighters, bus drivers and custodians in Massachusetts, alleged AppHarvest made “false and/or misleading statements” to artificially boost its share price.

AppHarvest executives denied the claims and reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with investors this year.

Vance was not named in any of the lawsuits. He left the company’s board in April 2021 and ran for the Senate, though at that time he still had more than $100,000 invested in the company, according to disclosures. His VC firm, Narya, also continued to express public support for the company.