Donald Trump's Famous Diet Coke Button Once Left JD Vance Terrified

JD Vance once infamously called his future boss Donald Trump "America's Hitler," so the vice president's initial assumption that the red button on the Resolute Desk triggered a nuclear attack wasn't all that far-fetched in the grand scheme of things. But it also means that he didn't keep up with Trump's past shenanigans, because said red button was on the divisive politician's desk during his first term too. Only, it's not what it looks like. Indeed, Trump brought back his most bizarre Oval Office feature from his first term when he reclaimed the White House in 2025: The Diet Coke button. 

The president's well-established love of the low-calorie beverage is one of Trump's many outdated habits, but ironically, it was Vance who almost suffered a heart attack because of it. While wooing audience members at the 2025 GOP dinner in Ohio, he revealed that, a mere 10 days into his second term, Vance watched the commander-in-chief push the red button on his desk and immediately feared that the world as he knew it was about to end. "We're talking to this foreign leader, and the president looks over at me, puts the foreign leader on mute, and says, 'This is not going very well,'" Vance recalled (via YouTube). "And he presses the red button, and my eyes get really big. I'm like, 'Mr. President, what just happened?' and he looks at me and he goes, 'Nuclear. Nuclear.'"  

Fortunately, instead of bombs dropping on their adversaries, what followed was simply a Diet Coke. Notably, Vance isn't the only one who's been misled by the nefarious-looking button. Two journalists held their breath when Trump pressed it during an interview in 2019, only to witness a Diet Coke being delivered — on a silver platter, no less.

JD Vance might have used the quip about the Diet Coke button on Donald Trump's desk to endear himself to his audience, but he followed the witticism with, "So that's the kind of guy, my fellow Republicans, that we have as the president of the United States." This remark bordered on sounding sarcastic until Vance quickly added, "A guy who can do a good job, but keep a sense of humor." Certain outlets that reported on the bestselling author's speech left out that last bit, making it sound like he took a subtle jab at his boss. 

Vance has an ego big enough to rival Trump's, and it's safe to say that he's learned a political trick or two from him over the years. For instance, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell speculated in July 2025 amid the controversial leader's Epstein file drama that Vance might, in fact, be eager for the public release of the raunchy birthday card that Trump allegedly wrote for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday. He cited the VP's tweet on X, formerly known as Twitter, as proof. In it, Vance decried the allegations as complete balderdash and made it clear that no copy of the letter was shown to the administration prior to the Wall Street Journal publishing its headline-making piece. 

"What JD Vance wrote tonight adds fuel to the fire burning in Trump world about the Epstein files," O'Donnell argued. He added that directly posing the question of where the letter is was the wrong move. As Lawrence asserted, "The worst thing that can happen to Donald Trump is for the Wall Street Journal or anyone else to release publicly a copy of that letter," and Vance's tweet indirectly calls for exactly that.