Never let it be said that Team Trump misses an opportunity to connect with its base. Even on the weekends.

Daniel Penny's week will end a lot better than it began, thanks to J.D. Vance. The VP-elect has invited the man acquitted of homicide by a Manhattan jury of subway-riders to attend the Army-Navy football game tomorrow as a guest of Donald Trump:

Daniel Penny, the man recently acquitted in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, will be the personal guest of Vice President-elect JD Vance at the Army-Navy football game scheduled for Saturday.

Penny is expected to join Vance and President-elect Donald Trump in his suite at the game set in Landover, Maryland, according to a report shared by Vance Friday. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is also expected to join Trump and Vance in the same suite for the annual grudge match, per multiple reports.

“Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone,” Vance wrote on X. “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.”

Cue the media outrage! It hasn't erupted yet, but we can probably predict that it will at some point. The news of Penny's acquittal created all sorts of hysterical nonsense from "news" sources as well as the progressive commentariat. It might erupt before I finish with this post, or at least before its scheduled publication time. I'm standing by ...

In the meantime, the coverage is somewhat amusing. USA Today reports that it's part of a Trumpian "show of force," or something:

Penny's attendance adds to what will be a show of force by the incoming Trump administration at the annual sports showdown between two branches of the U.S. military, which will take place at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md., outside of Washington.

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to attend the game, where he will meet with Pete Hegseth, his embattled nominee for Defense secretary. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Navy veteran who Trump has considered as a fallback option to replace Hegseth, will also reportedly join Trump as well.

Er ... whatever. Both Hegseth and DeSantis are veterans of the two branches and are political allies; Penny is a Marine who will undoubtedly root with DeSantis for Navy. Hegseth's nomination as SecDef is part of this, sure, but it's not exactly a "show of force" to show up with politicians. That's an even more amusing construct given the two teams competing in the game, who are all well-versed in what "force" actually means. 

Politically, it's a brilliant move, and not just because it really is a huge middle finger to Alvin Bragg. It certainly does highlight just how political Bragg's prosecution of Penny was, and that directly relates to Bragg's prosecution of Trump too. The media coverage of Penny at the game will become a constant reminder of Bragg's failure this week.

But it also provides a clear contrast between the elite clique running the media and the rest of the country. Penny might have looked like a "vigilante" to the radical Left, but to everyone who has to live in progressive utopias where the dangerously psychotic are free to attack and intimidate the citizenry, Penny looks like a hero. The media and the Left keep trying to portray Jordan Neely as a charismatic street performer, but to do so, they have to skip over the actual testimony in the case where Neely repeatedly threatened to kill people on that subway car until Penny and others intervened:

Another subway rider, Alethea Gittings, said she was “scared s—tless” when she heard a loud and raving Neely from further down the subway car on the uptown F train.

Gittings, a daily subway rider who’s lived in New York City for her entire adult life, said she heard Neely say, “I don’t give a damn. I will kill a motherf–ker. I’m ready to die.”

Gittings — who couldn’t fully see the encounter between Neely and Penny — said afterward she thanked the Marine veteran for stepping in. ...

A third straphanger, Dan Couvreur, 29, said he was “terrified” by Neely that day and knew things were “going to be bad” as soon as Neely kicked off his alarming display by aggressively throwing his jacket on the floor.

Or this:

Caedryn Schrunk was on the subway while the deadly incident was happening. She said she was planning to meet a coworker for coffee when she heard Neely threatening his own life and the lives of others.

"He was saying, 'I don't care if I die. Kill me, lock me up, I don't care if I go to jail for life,'" Schrunk said.

She described Neely's rant as "satanic."

"There was a moment where I truly thought I was going to die," Schrunk said.

One can easily see why the jury finally acquitted Penny. Under the law, people have the right to use potentially lethal force to protect themselves or others from reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm. This testimony (as well as that of others) shows that Penny was not alone in having that level of fear from Neely's actions on the subway that day, but that others also feared for their lives and safety. That satisfies the requirements of justifiable homicide and debunks the idea that Penny was a vigilante -- and is why this case should never have been brought in the first place. 

No doubt the same media will get angry by Vance and Trump treating Penny as a hero for stopping Neely from fulfilling his threats. The Left prefers their heroes to be back-shooting cowards who kill class enemies, apparently:

A GiveSendGo fundraiser created to aid Luigi Mangione has raised over $70,000, with donors calling Mangione "a true American Hero" and "a modern-day Robin Hood, if he did it."

Mangione is the chief suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was shot and killed in New York on December 4.

He has been praised for his actions by some who say they understand how dealing with the healthcare system in the United States could lead someone to commit an extreme act of violence.

Mangione actually is a vigilante, and the Left loves him for it. He shot an unarmed man in the back and then ran away and hid like a coward, and progressives can't get enough of his abs. 

The more that Trump and Vance can highlight this contrast, the more popular they will become -- and the more ridiculous the Left will look in attempting to equate Penny and Mangione. Let's call this the kickoff of a very large campaign to win back the culture.