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.

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So we learn about five thousand words down to find that Vance left the company board in 2021 and was not named in any of the shareholder lawsuits. That seems kind of important.

Sorry, your lies don’t work here anymore

— Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) August 13, 2024

@CommunityNotes,

This post fails to explain that buried at the bottom of this story is an important contextual paragraph, which says all the allegations in the story occurred *AFTER* JD Vance left the board in April of 2021.

— Election Wizard (@ElectionWiz) August 13, 2024

… but these have nothing to do with Vance

— JD Sharp (@imjdsharp) August 13, 2024

You are such a hack dude, but we all knew that. pic.twitter.com/bm8GTqOLfc

— Abigail Jackson 🇺🇸 (@abigailmarone) August 13, 2024

So you didn’t read the article before you shared it… got it

— 🇺🇸🤟🏻 (@esoryelsnya) August 13, 2024

“Vance was not named in any of the lawsuits. He left the company’s board in April 2021…”

You all are grasping at straws, especially considering the absolute train wreck that Tim Walz and his stolen valor turned to be.

— IT Guy (@ITGuy1959) August 13, 2024

It’s so cute that you got your propaganda presstitutes to do a hit piece and bury the fact that Vance had nothing to do with it allllll the way at the bottom. You really are vile and disgusting.

— Stacey Celebrates (@SunlightShine55) August 13, 2024

It’s so cute that you got your propaganda presstitutes to do a hit piece and bury the fact that Vance had nothing to do with it allllll the way at the bottom. You really are vile and disgusting.

— Stacey Celebrates (@SunlightShine55) August 13, 2024

He wasn’t even at the company at the time. 🤣🤔🤣

— Truth Ninja (@TruthNinja316) August 13, 2024

Except he had literally nothing to do with the company when they happened you mendacious crap stain.

— Yore Friend Whig 🇮🇱 (@WhigJust) August 13, 2024

But the "devastating" part got passed around by the rapid response director for the Harris campaign. Of course he doesn't expect anyone to actually click and read to the end of the article. CNN sets up the hit piece, and the Harris campaign runs with it.

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