Vice President-elect JD Vance is bringing Daniel Penny—the man who was recently acquitted on a charge of criminally negligent homicide in New York after putting Jordan Neely in a chokehold on a subway car, ultimately killing him—as his plus-one to the Army-Navy football game on Saturday.
Vance and Penny, both veterans, will join President-elect Donald Trump in his suite at the 125th anniversary game in Landover, Maryland.
“Daniel’s a good guy,” Vance wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone. I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage.”
On Monday, Penny was acquitted of wrongdoing in a Manhattan courtroom after several days of jury deliberations—a ruling that left some in the gallery applauding and others sobbing.
In May of 2023, Penny boarded an Uptown F train where Neely, a former Michael Jackson impersonator, was exclaiming that he was hungry and thirsty, that he didn’t care if he lived or died, and that he wanted to return to jail, according to witnesses. Some riders described the behavior as frightening. Penny, a Marine veteran, approached Neely and placed him in a chokehold that prosecutors said lasted almost six minutes. A medical examiner in New York City found that Neely died from compression to his neck, resulting from the chokehold.
The New York City Police Department has also come under fire after Sergeant Carl Johnson confirmed in his testimony that officers responding to the scene did not give Neely possibly lifesaving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and didn’t start chest compressions until minutes after arriving. Johnson instructed his officers not to give Neely mouth-to-mouth out of fear they might contract AIDS—which is not transmitted through saliva—or another disease.
After Monday’s ruling, Jordan Neely’s family announced that they are moving forward with a civil lawsuit against Penny.
“I just want to say, I miss my son. My son didn’t have to go through this. I didn’t have to go through this either. It hurts, really, really hurts,” Andre Zachary, Neely’s father, said. “What are we going to do people? What’s going to happen to us now? I’ve had enough of this. The system is rigged.”
Video of the chokehold quickly went viral, sparked weeks of protest, and drew national attention. The case, as NBC reported on Monday, divided people “in some cases along political and racial lines.” Neely was Black, and Penny is white.
“Some people viewed Penny as callous and his actions as criminal on the day he encountered Neely, who had been shouting and acting erratically,” NBC’s Janelle Griffith and Erik Ortiz write. “Others contend Penny was selfless in his attempt to protect fellow passengers.”
Others, the vice president-elect has made clear, like Vance.
On the day Penny was acquitted, Vance lauded the decision, saying that he had “not said much about this case out of fear of (negatively) influencing the journey.” “But,” he continued on X, “thank God justice was done in this case. It was a scandal Penny was ever prosecuted in the first place.”
Vance’s warm invitation to the Army-Navy game comes as others on the right have embraced Penny, too.
Last year, Florida governor Ron DeSantis posted a link to Penny’s legal defense fund, writing, “We must defeat the Soros-Funded DAs, stop the Left’s pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law-abiding citizens. We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny. Let’s show this Marine… America’s got his back.” Another former Republican presidential hopeful, Nikki Haley, wanted New York governor Kathy Hochul to pardon Penny, saying the move would “let people like Penny who really were very brave in that instance, it will let them know that we’ve got their back.”
Charlie Kirk, the right-wing commentator who heads up Turning Point USA, has repeatedly referred to Penny as a hero.
As for Vance, this isn’t the first time he has praised a vigilante whose actions divided the nation.
Back in 2021, when Vance was an Ohio Republican Senate candidate, he defended Kyle Rittenhouse, who had recently been fully acquitted of all charges after he shot and killed two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and wounded a third during the city’s Black Lives Matter protests.
In an interview with Newsmax’s Greg Kelly, Vance said that instead of treating Rittenhouse like a “17-year-old kid who was raised by a single mother” and “made good decisions and decided to be a positive force in his community,” he had been “slandered and lied about.”
“It’s not just about Kyle Rittenhouse,” Vance said at the time. Instead, he continued, it’s a question of what sort of “young men do we want to raise in our communities. What kind of virtues do we want our leaders to promote?”
Rittenhouse, Vance added just days after the acquittal, was displaying “basic manly virtue.”
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