June 24, 2024 • 22 mins
In this episode, Lisa interviews Senator JD Vance, delving into his unique background and experiences. Vance discusses his upbringing in an Appalachian town, his Marine Corps service, and his success as a venture capitalist and senator. They explore his memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" and its Netflix adaptation. Vance shares how his diverse experiences shape his beliefs and policy views, particularly on the economy and innovation. The Truth with Lisa Boothe is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I am so excited about this episode's guest. It is
someone who I have been trying to get on the
show and so honored that we got his time and
that he's on this show. It is Senator JD. Vanced
from Ohio. I've been wanting to have him on one.
I just find him very, very smart. He's a brilliant guy,
and he's an interesting guy. But he just has such
(00:20):
a unique background as well. I mean, look, he's a
millennial at thirty nine years old.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
He served in the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
He has also just experienced two entirely different worlds that
most people don't experience. You know, he grew up in
an Appalachian hometown and Middletown, Ohio, where you know, drug
addiction was the norm. You know, grew up in an
impoverished neighborhood. But then you know, went on to get
his law degree for Yale, become a venture capitalist and
(00:49):
now a United States senator. I mean, how many people
have lived in those two extremes. How has that shaped
his belief system and his policyview points?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Now?
Speaker 1 (01:01):
He wrote about his upbringing and his memoir Hillbilly Elegy,
which Netflix turned into a movie. The book was published
in twenty sixteen, The New York Times called it one
of the six best books to help understand Trump's win.
So I woant to ask Senator Vance why does he
think that Donald Trump won in twenty sixteen and what
does that tell him about the twenty twenty four election.
He's also been vocal against Joe Biden's immigration policies. We're
(01:24):
going to talk to him about how he sees that
playing out this election cycle. Also, just this quote from
Chuck Schumer that has been haunting me back in January
of twenty seventeen, when he said about Donald Trump that
if you take on the intelligence community, they have six
ways from Sunday at getting back at you. I'm going
to ask Senator Vance about that. How much of the
law fair we're seeing waged against Donald Trump has to
(01:47):
do with that.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
He's also out with some.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
New legislation trying to dismantle DII programs in the federal government,
so we'll get into that as well.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
So a lot to discuss with Senator JD. Vance.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
We're going to talk about his worldview the twenty twenty
four election and also just some really important issues that
are pertinent to the election, and also that I just
want to hear from him, so stay tuned for Senator
jd Vance. Well, Senator de Vance, it's great to have
you on the show. I've been wanting to have you on,
(02:19):
so it's an honor to have you on the show.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Well, thanks, I've always been a fans, so glad to
talk to you in the context of the show.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Obviously there's a lot to cover, crazy world we live in,
and also your name. Your name has been coming up
a little bit in the press, Senator, I assure you.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, I know, it always does, no matter what I do,
keep on coming.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Up, especially with the you know, the VP talk. But
we'll get into that, you know later. I just I
find you so interesting because you've really just lived in
like two incredibly distinct worlds. You know, you got your
law degree from Yale Venture Capitalists, You've you've kind of
lived in that world. But then you also grew up
at Appalachin hometown with you know, we're poverty existed addiction
(03:02):
as well. You wrote a book about it. You know,
Netflix created that special.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
So I guess you know.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
How kind of those.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Two worlds shaped your belief system and in your policy viewpoints.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
I mean, you know, one, just from where I grew up,
I think I have a particular interest and certainly an
awareness of how people often do struggle, and I think
because of that, I just I care a lot about,
you know, not just sort of the people that you
maybe think of as most associated with the Republican Party
(03:34):
or who have traditionally participated in or even donated a
Republican campaigns, but to a lot of people who just
don't care about politics traditionally. Maybe they came to the
Republican Party through Trump, but otherwise have not been super
engaged in politics at all, and certainly not in Republican politics.
And you know, I do think it's different when you
have sort of a personal exposure to some of these problems.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
So it's like one thing to be aware of the
fact that there are close to one hundred thousand, one
hundred thousand drug overdose tests in our country every single year,
most of it coming from you know, Mexican drug cartel
imported fittanol. I think it's another thing to know people
who are caring for their grandkids because their own kids
died and so their grandkids have been orphaned by it,
(04:17):
and it's another thing to see sort of opioid addiction
tear through your family and realize how briticious it is.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
You know, it's like one thing to sort of recognize
that the cost.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Of food is way too high in my view, because
of the policies of the Biden administration. I think it's
another thing to have witnessed your grandmother, you know, negotiating
with the Meals on Wheels program for more food so
that she could feed her grandkids too. And I just
think you have sort of a certain perspective on these
things when you grow up the way that I did.
And it doesn't mean you can't care about them if
you didn't grow up the way that I did, but
(04:46):
you certainly see it in a different way. And then,
you know, the VC thing is interesting because you know,
one of my very strong views is that just economically,
that our country has sort of gotten addicted to cheap
labor and.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Is not nearly innovative enough.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
So where our economy has seen real innovation is in
things like cell phones, information technology, Google, Facebook, and so forth.
But we're not nearly as innovative in the sectors of
the economy where most Americans work, and I've sort of
seen that from the perspective of a venture capitalists. And
then if you kind of marry those two perspectives, I
(05:23):
think that one of the fundamental problems in our country
is that we don't have an economy that works for
a lot of normal people.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
That if you're like a tech executive or you're.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
A law firm partner who works in Wall Street or
in tech, then you've done pretty well. And yet if
you're like a normal American you're a truck driver, or
you're a nurse, or you know, you grow up in
a community that's been affected by the opioid problem, things
have been, you know, not necessarily easy for you the
last twenty or thirty years. And I think both of
(05:53):
those problems are something I sort of am acutely aware of.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
I've seen very much in my own personal life.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
But I also think are sort of problems in our
country in our politics should be more focused on.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
And that disconnect seems to have grown. You know, why
do you think that? Why do you think that is
and do you agree with that?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I think it definitely has.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
I mean, I think part of it is that the
Democratic Party, very unfortunately, I think it's one of the
most terrible things that's happened in politics is that Democrats
used to sort of see themselves as defenders of the
working man. Now we can sort of disagree about whether
their policies actually worked, like set that to the side,
But there was this general, I think, attachment to an
(06:36):
affection for working people, whether they were white, black, or whatever.
And I think there's this weird idea of the Democratic
Party that if you're white, you're fundamentally privileged. They don't
really you know, they think you're backwards, they don't like you,
and so they don't sort of see these people as
even worthy of respect anymore. And so I think it's
like it made our politics really deranged because you have
(06:57):
a lot of traditional Democratic constitut tuancies who have moved
to the Republican Party, and like, normally you would expect
the Democrats to say, well, how can we get these
people back? And instead the Democrats are sort of saying,
how can we come up with more and more elaborate
theories about how evil these people are. That's just like
a psychotic way to think about your fellow countrymen. And unfortunately,
I think that attitude is way too common in the
(07:19):
modern Democratic Party.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Well, and it's interesting because you know the book that
obviously or remember Hillbilly Elogy. It was published in twenty sixteen.
New York Times said that it was one of the
six best books to understand Donald Trump's win in.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
That election cycle.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
I guess, think, why do you think Trump won in
twenty sixteen and sort of what does that tell you
about twenty twenty four?
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Yeah, I mean, so, one thing that's really interesting is
that if you go back to like public polling in
twenty fifteen and you ask sort of voters what is
their top issue? Right, maybe immigration cracks the trop top
three in twenty fifteen, and certainly trade doesn't crack the
top five.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
And yet if you live in these communities, like.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
You're not necessarily going to tell a polster you're really
worried about like the decline of manufacturing in the fact
that China has stolen our industrial base. But like Trump
like fundamentally got this in an instinctive way. And you know,
I'm sure all the consultants said, well, don't talk about trade.
Nobody talks about trade and cares about trade. And yet
when he comes down to the escalator, he gives this speech,
(08:22):
he talks about integration trade, and the entire party goes wild.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
And so I think one of the things, one of
the lessons.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
To take from it is that sometimes like people should
just trust their instincts and they should not listen to
political consultants, because I think if Trump had allowed the
political consultants to construct his campaign, he would have sounded
like Jeb Bush. He would have lost, not like, you know,
not quite as bad as Jeb Bush.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
He's always going to have his natural charisma.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
But people underweight the extent to which Trump's success was
not just unique to him being, you know, obviously a
very effective spokesperson, but also the fact that he was
substantively tapping into something that is very real, Like isn't
it ridiculous that we let all these people flood into
our country and it's considered a racist to want to
(09:06):
send them back?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
And like, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Ridiculous that we let the Chinese seal seven million manufacturing jobs,
impoverishing whole swaths of the Midwest, and nobody really pushed
back against it.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
We sort of all said this was like a good idea.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
And I just think that if you think of the
themes that really carried him in twenty sixteen made him
a successful president. I think in some ways those themes
are even more alive in twenty twenty four right. It's
like the pandemic and all the supply chain disruptions and
the rising cost of living, and of course the border,
like all of these things are in some ways worse
(09:40):
now than they were in twenty fifteen, and I think
Trump is able to tap into it unlike very basically
like unlike any other politicians in the country.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Well, and it's wild too to see the public kind
of come around to where you know, Donald Trump has
been on even like the border, you know, for instance,
I mean, the swings are pretty remarkable. Now you have
the majority of Americans who support, you know, some sort
of mass deportation program when you know under you know,
and when you know Trump was inhumane right when they
told us during you know, his administration. You know, I
(10:11):
wanted to ask you about this upcoming debate between Joe
Biden and Donald Trump on June twenty six, twenty seventh.
I worry a little bit that the bar is so
low for Joe Biden that really all he has to
do is not a drool on himself. You know, he's
Trump's going to be up against CNNA and anchors Jake
Tapper and Dana Bash. They can cut the mics when
they want. There's no live audience. You know, how do
(10:34):
you think Joe Biden will perform? And how much how
big of a deal do you think this debate is
going to be?
Speaker 3 (10:39):
So I totally agree with you.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
I think that debate format is fundamentally biased towards Joe Biden.
And I think the Republicans like we yeah, okay, it
is kind of weird sometimes Joe Biden just freezes randomly,
but look, he just has to have ninety minutes where
he's serviceable, and the media will treat it as a
wild success.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I'm sure they can medicate him enough to make him okay.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
And so I think we have set the bar too low,
especially given to the format really is biased against Trump
in these profound ways, like certainly the anchors are obviously
more pro Biden than they are pro Trump. But think
about this, Lisa, like a fundamental attribute of leadership is
how people respond to you. So I actually would like
a presidential debate in front of human beings because fundamentally
(11:24):
being president is about leading human beings, but.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
There's no audience.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
But of course we know that Trump would do better
in front of an audience than Joe Biden would or
I've heard, though I haven't seen this confirmed, that they're
supposed to be sitting down as opposed to standing up. Well,
like you know, Trumps has more energy, right, He's just
a livelier guy than Joe Biden. Everybody recognizes that, even
if the Democrats don't want to admit it. So the
fact that they're sitting down really biased against Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
So the deck is really stacked here, and I think
if Trump is able to come away looking good, it
will be a massive victory for him.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
But I think we're setting bar way too low for
Joe Biden given the debate format.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
We've got more with Senator jd Vance. But first, since
the terror attacks in October seventh, anti Semitism has been
on the rise, not just in Israel but here at home,
in the US and around the world. That's why I've
partnered with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. And
today I'm coming to you, my audience, to ask that
you stand with us in IFDJ to raise your voice
just as Oscar Schindler and Corey ten Boom did. This
(12:25):
pledge is asking Christians to stand with their Jewish brothers
and sisters to never be silent, to show the Jewish
people that they are not alone, that they have God
and Christians on their side. For the month of June,
we are asking Christians to sign this pledge, which will
be delivered to the President of Israel, to show that
Christians in America are not only standing in solidarity, but
they're speaking up to let's take a stand with the
International Fellowship of Christians and Jews to let the Jewish.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
People know that they're not alone.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
To sign the pledge, go to support IFCJ dot org.
Support IFCJ dot org to take a stand today.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Biden, we're thirty five.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
He would still be a terrible president and insert any Democrat.
Their policies are a failure. Look at California. You know,
so this isn't the fact that the world is crumbling
in the United States is crumbling. Has less to do
about his age and more to do with, you know,
the Democrat policies and the fact their failures.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
You know, one thing that I just keep thinking about.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Is when Chuck Schumer back in twenty seventeen January twenty seventeen,
so that if you take on the intelligence community, they
have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.
How much of this law fair that we are seeing
being waged against Donald Trump has to do with that?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Oh, it's huge, Lisa. I think this is the This
is a huge, huge, leaper issue for our country.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Even though most people care about Pokaba stuff, most people care.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
About the immigration issue.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
I think a lot of Americans are sort of waking
up to the fact that the government can be weaponized
for political purposes in a way that just makes like
the function of our democratic republic impossible. Like if you
can't participate in American democracy because you're worried you're going
to be thrown in jail, then you actually don't have
a functional republican anymore. You have some weird authoritarian system.
(14:09):
And I fear that that's where we're headed. And look,
I mean the thing about Trump that is like it
has been so revealing to so many of us, right,
and like my enemy is sort of bring this up
all the time that I was critical of Trump in
twenty sixteen, Like what changed?
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I was like, well, one, what changed?
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Is they spied on his campaign and the media said
they didn't, but they did, And they tried to take
down his presidency over a Russian collusion story that was
actually a hoax that was funded.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
By the Hillary Clinton campaign, but.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Sort of migrated its way into the intelligence community of
the country, and we sort of realized all these things
that happened. It's like, well, how can anybody look at
this and not say, Wow, there's a lot of corruption
at the law enforcement level of our federal government. And
I really think that Republicans, even though we're not going
to win or lose a life on this issue. I've
talked to a lot of people about this, including the President. Like,
(15:03):
the good news is most Americans don't care about the lawfair.
The bad news is most Americans don't care about the
lawfair right, They're just.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Not focused on it day to day.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
But if Republicans actually want to have a seat at
the table, we have got to root this stuff out
the next time we get power, or we may never
have a chance at doing it. You know, look like,
I'm a very like to think I'm a very above
board guy. I do things properly, I don't break the law.
I'm very careful about this stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
But given what.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
They got Trump on, I mean literally an alleged bookkeeping
violation for one of his many businesses, and they brought
thirty four counts in New York City. If that's the standard,
then they're going to try to throw every Republican of
significance in prison over the next ten years. Like this
feels very personal to me in a way that some
of these political debates have it in the past, because
(15:52):
like I am a Republican elected official, and I want
to help the country and I want to fix problems.
And if the standard is if you're actually affected, they
try to throw you in prison, then what the hell
are any of us doing? We have to fight back
against this.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
It's really scary, you know what they're what they're trying
to do. I just I hope that, you know, politically
it doesn't work, and you know, we'll see what they
do with the sentencing.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
You know, you'd kind of mention.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
It about sort of the lies that we've been told
by the media, which you know, we don't have enough
time to go through all of them, but you know,
you mentioned immigration previously. You know we were told that
the idea that you know, Democrats were importing a new
voter base, or you know, sort of a new base
of citizens. Like that was racist. You're a terrible person
if you say it. But then people like Democrat conquers
the one you bet Clark has literally stated that her
(16:38):
district can absorb more migrants because she needs them for
redistricting purposes. Or you look at the fact that the
foreign or immigrant population has hit a record high of
almost fifty two million, almost sixteen percent of the US population.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
So like, what else do you call that?
Speaker 4 (16:55):
I mean, it's absolutely election interference in vote buying, and
you're right that they did for a very long time.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Call this a sort of racist conspiracy theory.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
But they're crazy responses to that, right, crazy in that
they're so effective and obvious. I mean, Number one is
that a lot of Latinos and a lot of Black
Americans actually agree with us on the border. It's actually
if you look at sort of Joe Biden, people who
are even planning to vote for Joe Biden, now they
often disagree with him on immigration. Right, that's like one
issue where he loses even a lot of the people
(17:24):
who plan to vote for him. The second thing, of course,
is that it's just true. And what's so funny about
this is that often the media will say something is
a crazy racist conspiracy theory, and then literally three months later,
Chuck Schumer will go on the Senate floor and say
the exact thing that was allegedly a conspiracy theory just
a few months earlier, and you know, you sort of
(17:46):
touched upon this. But the two ways in which this
is very seriously a problem. One is, just for purposes
of congressional apportionment, they count legal aliens in how they
divvy up congressional seats. And so when you know, I
think they're probably twenty to twenty five million legal aliens
in the country right now, well, that means that there
(18:06):
are a lot of people in areas that don't have
large illegal immigrant populations who are going to be deprived
of congressional seats because you only have a certain number
of seats to work with. If more go to legal aliens,
less we'll go to American citizens. The second thing, Lisa,
is Democrats are quite explicit about the fact that they
want pathways to amnesty so that these people can eventually vote.
(18:29):
So that's like an even more direct election theft is
when you import people give them the right to vote,
and that dilutes the voting power of American citizens. Like
that is such a fundamental violation of people's rights to
sort of look at them and say, rather than persuade
you that my policies are better, I'm going to import
(18:50):
people to replace you so I.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Don't ever have to persuade you again.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
It's crazy that this is not the only issue the
media talks about, and instead they pretended some conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Well, you know, I mean I could give you one
hundred ways that the left has you know, interfered with
her elections, from that that you know, Hunter Biden's laptop,
to you know, telling us that these videos of Joe
Biden are cheap fakes when they're just reality, right, like
the lower what they're trying to do to Donald Trump.
But I wanted to get you on this real quick.
I know that you're pushing legislation dismantle DEI Act. It
(19:22):
seems like Americans are kind of awakening to like, maybe
we need to get back to a more merit based system.
And we saw Harvard recently announce that they're no longer
going to require diversity statements for the faculty of Arts
and sciences.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Do you think is the tide shifting on that.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
I think it's shifting slowly least.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
But we have to be honest that a lot of
this comes from public policy, and I don't think you're
ever going to be really able to eradicate this stuff
unless you take away the financial incentives for DEI and
the outright way in which the federal government forces the
stuff on both the private and public sector.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
So what my bill does is actually abolished THEI and.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Hiring and contracting practices, and it also sort of cuts
off the stream of money to promote DII in universities
and so forth, because unless you sort of eliminate that
federal pressure, you're still going to have a sort of core,
you know, cancerous tumor that's growing and keeps on trying
to metastasize in weird ways. I mean, my wake up
(20:21):
for this, by the way, leads and just when I
realized how how bad this was, And look, if you
had asked me ten years ago, you know, was their
discrimination against white Americas? I thought, of course, that's absurd,
Like nobody, like who actually thinks that? And then like
the Biden administration comes in and actually hands out farm
grants where you're not allowed to apply as a farmer
(20:43):
if you're a white person.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
And it's like, wait, wait a second.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
I thought what we were trying to do is like
treat everybody equally regardless of skin color, not explicitly discriminate
against different people, but just a different group of people
than we discriminated against sixty years ago. Like this is
crazy and this is illegal, by the way, But the
BIDE adminstration I think has gotten away from has gotten
away with it for too long because frankly, too few
(21:07):
congressional Republicans have pushed back against it.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Well, it was it was a quality before, but that's
out now it's equity.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
You know, they've changed.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
But I wanted, so are you going to be trump speepe?
Speaker 3 (21:20):
I don't know. I mean you want to get to
asked a question. I really don't know. Uh.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
I mean, look, I I definitely am interested in it,
you know, I want to help him. I think it
can be a very effective advocate for the people that
elected me and for the agenda from the Senate.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
But if he asked me, you know, we'll go down
that path.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
What happens, just saying if you have any news that
you'd like to break we would greatly appreciate.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Trust me, I would. I would love to break the news.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
I'd love to learn something about this that's not just
a public media report.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
But so so far no news.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Well you know where to come and.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
All right, Senator de Vans, I really appreciate your time,
great conversation, very interesting as as a would be, which
is why I was trying to get you on.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Okay, well, I really appreciate it, and let's see it
again sometime. Thanks Lisa.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
That was Senator jd Vance from Ohio. Appreciate him taking
the time to come on the show. Appreciate you guys
at home for listening every Monday and Thursday, but you
can listen throughout the week. I want to think John Cass,
you and my producer for putting the show together.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Until next time.
I am so excited about this episode's guest. It is
someone who I have been trying to get on the
show and so honored that we got his time and
that he's on this show. It is Senator JD. Vanced
from Ohio. I've been wanting to have him on one.
I just find him very, very smart. He's a brilliant guy,
and he's an interesting guy. But he just has such
(00:20):
a unique background as well. I mean, look, he's a
millennial at thirty nine years old.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
He served in the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
He has also just experienced two entirely different worlds that
most people don't experience. You know, he grew up in
an Appalachian hometown and Middletown, Ohio, where you know, drug
addiction was the norm. You know, grew up in an
impoverished neighborhood. But then you know, went on to get
his law degree for Yale, become a venture capitalist and
(00:49):
now a United States senator. I mean, how many people
have lived in those two extremes. How has that shaped
his belief system and his policyview points?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Now?
Speaker 1 (01:01):
He wrote about his upbringing and his memoir Hillbilly Elegy,
which Netflix turned into a movie. The book was published
in twenty sixteen, The New York Times called it one
of the six best books to help understand Trump's win.
So I woant to ask Senator Vance why does he
think that Donald Trump won in twenty sixteen and what
does that tell him about the twenty twenty four election.
He's also been vocal against Joe Biden's immigration policies. We're
(01:24):
going to talk to him about how he sees that
playing out this election cycle. Also, just this quote from
Chuck Schumer that has been haunting me back in January
of twenty seventeen, when he said about Donald Trump that
if you take on the intelligence community, they have six
ways from Sunday at getting back at you. I'm going
to ask Senator Vance about that. How much of the
law fair we're seeing waged against Donald Trump has to
(01:47):
do with that.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
He's also out with some.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
New legislation trying to dismantle DII programs in the federal government,
so we'll get into that as well.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
So a lot to discuss with Senator JD. Vance.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
We're going to talk about his worldview the twenty twenty
four election and also just some really important issues that
are pertinent to the election, and also that I just
want to hear from him, so stay tuned for Senator
jd Vance. Well, Senator de Vance, it's great to have
you on the show. I've been wanting to have you on,
(02:19):
so it's an honor to have you on the show.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Well, thanks, I've always been a fans, so glad to
talk to you in the context of the show.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Obviously there's a lot to cover, crazy world we live in,
and also your name. Your name has been coming up
a little bit in the press, Senator, I assure you.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, I know, it always does, no matter what I do,
keep on coming.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Up, especially with the you know, the VP talk. But
we'll get into that, you know later. I just I
find you so interesting because you've really just lived in
like two incredibly distinct worlds. You know, you got your
law degree from Yale Venture Capitalists, You've you've kind of
lived in that world. But then you also grew up
at Appalachin hometown with you know, we're poverty existed addiction
(03:02):
as well. You wrote a book about it. You know,
Netflix created that special.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
So I guess you know.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
How kind of those.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Two worlds shaped your belief system and in your policy viewpoints.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
I mean, you know, one, just from where I grew up,
I think I have a particular interest and certainly an
awareness of how people often do struggle, and I think
because of that, I just I care a lot about,
you know, not just sort of the people that you
maybe think of as most associated with the Republican Party
(03:34):
or who have traditionally participated in or even donated a
Republican campaigns, but to a lot of people who just
don't care about politics traditionally. Maybe they came to the
Republican Party through Trump, but otherwise have not been super
engaged in politics at all, and certainly not in Republican politics.
And you know, I do think it's different when you
have sort of a personal exposure to some of these problems.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
So it's like one thing to be aware of the
fact that there are close to one hundred thousand, one
hundred thousand drug overdose tests in our country every single year,
most of it coming from you know, Mexican drug cartel
imported fittanol. I think it's another thing to know people
who are caring for their grandkids because their own kids
died and so their grandkids have been orphaned by it,
(04:17):
and it's another thing to see sort of opioid addiction
tear through your family and realize how briticious it is.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
You know, it's like one thing to sort of recognize
that the cost.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Of food is way too high in my view, because
of the policies of the Biden administration. I think it's
another thing to have witnessed your grandmother, you know, negotiating
with the Meals on Wheels program for more food so
that she could feed her grandkids too. And I just
think you have sort of a certain perspective on these
things when you grow up the way that I did.
And it doesn't mean you can't care about them if
you didn't grow up the way that I did, but
(04:46):
you certainly see it in a different way. And then,
you know, the VC thing is interesting because you know,
one of my very strong views is that just economically,
that our country has sort of gotten addicted to cheap
labor and.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Is not nearly innovative enough.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
So where our economy has seen real innovation is in
things like cell phones, information technology, Google, Facebook, and so forth.
But we're not nearly as innovative in the sectors of
the economy where most Americans work, and I've sort of
seen that from the perspective of a venture capitalists. And
then if you kind of marry those two perspectives, I
(05:23):
think that one of the fundamental problems in our country
is that we don't have an economy that works for
a lot of normal people.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
That if you're like a tech executive or you're.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
A law firm partner who works in Wall Street or
in tech, then you've done pretty well. And yet if
you're like a normal American you're a truck driver, or
you're a nurse, or you know, you grow up in
a community that's been affected by the opioid problem, things
have been, you know, not necessarily easy for you the
last twenty or thirty years. And I think both of
(05:53):
those problems are something I sort of am acutely aware of.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
I've seen very much in my own personal life.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
But I also think are sort of problems in our
country in our politics should be more focused on.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
And that disconnect seems to have grown. You know, why
do you think that? Why do you think that is
and do you agree with that?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I think it definitely has.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
I mean, I think part of it is that the
Democratic Party, very unfortunately, I think it's one of the
most terrible things that's happened in politics is that Democrats
used to sort of see themselves as defenders of the
working man. Now we can sort of disagree about whether
their policies actually worked, like set that to the side,
But there was this general, I think, attachment to an
(06:36):
affection for working people, whether they were white, black, or whatever.
And I think there's this weird idea of the Democratic
Party that if you're white, you're fundamentally privileged. They don't
really you know, they think you're backwards, they don't like you,
and so they don't sort of see these people as
even worthy of respect anymore. And so I think it's
like it made our politics really deranged because you have
(06:57):
a lot of traditional Democratic constitut tuancies who have moved
to the Republican Party, and like, normally you would expect
the Democrats to say, well, how can we get these
people back? And instead the Democrats are sort of saying,
how can we come up with more and more elaborate
theories about how evil these people are. That's just like
a psychotic way to think about your fellow countrymen. And unfortunately,
I think that attitude is way too common in the
(07:19):
modern Democratic Party.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Well, and it's interesting because you know the book that
obviously or remember Hillbilly Elogy. It was published in twenty sixteen.
New York Times said that it was one of the
six best books to understand Donald Trump's win in.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
That election cycle.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
I guess, think, why do you think Trump won in
twenty sixteen and sort of what does that tell you
about twenty twenty four?
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Yeah, I mean, so, one thing that's really interesting is
that if you go back to like public polling in
twenty fifteen and you ask sort of voters what is
their top issue? Right, maybe immigration cracks the trop top
three in twenty fifteen, and certainly trade doesn't crack the
top five.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
And yet if you live in these communities, like.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
You're not necessarily going to tell a polster you're really
worried about like the decline of manufacturing in the fact
that China has stolen our industrial base. But like Trump
like fundamentally got this in an instinctive way. And you know,
I'm sure all the consultants said, well, don't talk about trade.
Nobody talks about trade and cares about trade. And yet
when he comes down to the escalator, he gives this speech,
(08:22):
he talks about integration trade, and the entire party goes wild.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
And so I think one of the things, one of
the lessons.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
To take from it is that sometimes like people should
just trust their instincts and they should not listen to
political consultants, because I think if Trump had allowed the
political consultants to construct his campaign, he would have sounded
like Jeb Bush. He would have lost, not like, you know,
not quite as bad as Jeb Bush.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
He's always going to have his natural charisma.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
But people underweight the extent to which Trump's success was
not just unique to him being, you know, obviously a
very effective spokesperson, but also the fact that he was
substantively tapping into something that is very real, Like isn't
it ridiculous that we let all these people flood into
our country and it's considered a racist to want to
(09:06):
send them back?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
And like, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Ridiculous that we let the Chinese seal seven million manufacturing jobs,
impoverishing whole swaths of the Midwest, and nobody really pushed
back against it.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
We sort of all said this was like a good idea.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
And I just think that if you think of the
themes that really carried him in twenty sixteen made him
a successful president. I think in some ways those themes
are even more alive in twenty twenty four right. It's
like the pandemic and all the supply chain disruptions and
the rising cost of living, and of course the border,
like all of these things are in some ways worse
(09:40):
now than they were in twenty fifteen, and I think
Trump is able to tap into it unlike very basically
like unlike any other politicians in the country.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Well, and it's wild too to see the public kind
of come around to where you know, Donald Trump has
been on even like the border, you know, for instance,
I mean, the swings are pretty remarkable. Now you have
the majority of Americans who support, you know, some sort
of mass deportation program when you know under you know,
and when you know Trump was inhumane right when they
told us during you know, his administration. You know, I
(10:11):
wanted to ask you about this upcoming debate between Joe
Biden and Donald Trump on June twenty six, twenty seventh.
I worry a little bit that the bar is so
low for Joe Biden that really all he has to
do is not a drool on himself. You know, he's
Trump's going to be up against CNNA and anchors Jake
Tapper and Dana Bash. They can cut the mics when
they want. There's no live audience. You know, how do
(10:34):
you think Joe Biden will perform? And how much how
big of a deal do you think this debate is
going to be?
Speaker 3 (10:39):
So I totally agree with you.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
I think that debate format is fundamentally biased towards Joe Biden.
And I think the Republicans like we yeah, okay, it
is kind of weird sometimes Joe Biden just freezes randomly,
but look, he just has to have ninety minutes where
he's serviceable, and the media will treat it as a
wild success.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I'm sure they can medicate him enough to make him okay.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
And so I think we have set the bar too low,
especially given to the format really is biased against Trump
in these profound ways, like certainly the anchors are obviously
more pro Biden than they are pro Trump. But think
about this, Lisa, like a fundamental attribute of leadership is
how people respond to you. So I actually would like
a presidential debate in front of human beings because fundamentally
(11:24):
being president is about leading human beings, but.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
There's no audience.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
But of course we know that Trump would do better
in front of an audience than Joe Biden would or
I've heard, though I haven't seen this confirmed, that they're
supposed to be sitting down as opposed to standing up. Well,
like you know, Trumps has more energy, right, He's just
a livelier guy than Joe Biden. Everybody recognizes that, even
if the Democrats don't want to admit it. So the
fact that they're sitting down really biased against Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
So the deck is really stacked here, and I think
if Trump is able to come away looking good, it
will be a massive victory for him.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
But I think we're setting bar way too low for
Joe Biden given the debate format.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
We've got more with Senator jd Vance. But first, since
the terror attacks in October seventh, anti Semitism has been
on the rise, not just in Israel but here at home,
in the US and around the world. That's why I've
partnered with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. And
today I'm coming to you, my audience, to ask that
you stand with us in IFDJ to raise your voice
just as Oscar Schindler and Corey ten Boom did. This
(12:25):
pledge is asking Christians to stand with their Jewish brothers
and sisters to never be silent, to show the Jewish
people that they are not alone, that they have God
and Christians on their side. For the month of June,
we are asking Christians to sign this pledge, which will
be delivered to the President of Israel, to show that
Christians in America are not only standing in solidarity, but
they're speaking up to let's take a stand with the
International Fellowship of Christians and Jews to let the Jewish.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
People know that they're not alone.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
To sign the pledge, go to support IFCJ dot org.
Support IFCJ dot org to take a stand today.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Biden, we're thirty five.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
He would still be a terrible president and insert any Democrat.
Their policies are a failure. Look at California. You know,
so this isn't the fact that the world is crumbling
in the United States is crumbling. Has less to do
about his age and more to do with, you know,
the Democrat policies and the fact their failures.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
You know, one thing that I just keep thinking about.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Is when Chuck Schumer back in twenty seventeen January twenty seventeen,
so that if you take on the intelligence community, they
have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.
How much of this law fair that we are seeing
being waged against Donald Trump has to do with that?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Oh, it's huge, Lisa. I think this is the This
is a huge, huge, leaper issue for our country.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Even though most people care about Pokaba stuff, most people care.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
About the immigration issue.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
I think a lot of Americans are sort of waking
up to the fact that the government can be weaponized
for political purposes in a way that just makes like
the function of our democratic republic impossible. Like if you
can't participate in American democracy because you're worried you're going
to be thrown in jail, then you actually don't have
a functional republican anymore. You have some weird authoritarian system.
(14:09):
And I fear that that's where we're headed. And look,
I mean the thing about Trump that is like it
has been so revealing to so many of us, right,
and like my enemy is sort of bring this up
all the time that I was critical of Trump in
twenty sixteen, Like what changed?
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I was like, well, one, what changed?
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Is they spied on his campaign and the media said
they didn't, but they did, And they tried to take
down his presidency over a Russian collusion story that was
actually a hoax that was funded.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
By the Hillary Clinton campaign, but.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Sort of migrated its way into the intelligence community of
the country, and we sort of realized all these things
that happened. It's like, well, how can anybody look at
this and not say, Wow, there's a lot of corruption
at the law enforcement level of our federal government. And
I really think that Republicans, even though we're not going
to win or lose a life on this issue. I've
talked to a lot of people about this, including the President. Like,
(15:03):
the good news is most Americans don't care about the lawfair.
The bad news is most Americans don't care about the
lawfair right, They're just.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Not focused on it day to day.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
But if Republicans actually want to have a seat at
the table, we have got to root this stuff out
the next time we get power, or we may never
have a chance at doing it. You know, look like,
I'm a very like to think I'm a very above
board guy. I do things properly, I don't break the law.
I'm very careful about this stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
But given what.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
They got Trump on, I mean literally an alleged bookkeeping
violation for one of his many businesses, and they brought
thirty four counts in New York City. If that's the standard,
then they're going to try to throw every Republican of
significance in prison over the next ten years. Like this
feels very personal to me in a way that some
of these political debates have it in the past, because
(15:52):
like I am a Republican elected official, and I want
to help the country and I want to fix problems.
And if the standard is if you're actually affected, they
try to throw you in prison, then what the hell
are any of us doing? We have to fight back
against this.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
It's really scary, you know what they're what they're trying
to do. I just I hope that, you know, politically
it doesn't work, and you know, we'll see what they
do with the sentencing.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
You know, you'd kind of mention.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
It about sort of the lies that we've been told
by the media, which you know, we don't have enough
time to go through all of them, but you know,
you mentioned immigration previously. You know we were told that
the idea that you know, Democrats were importing a new
voter base, or you know, sort of a new base
of citizens. Like that was racist. You're a terrible person
if you say it. But then people like Democrat conquers
the one you bet Clark has literally stated that her
(16:38):
district can absorb more migrants because she needs them for
redistricting purposes. Or you look at the fact that the
foreign or immigrant population has hit a record high of
almost fifty two million, almost sixteen percent of the US population.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
So like, what else do you call that?
Speaker 4 (16:55):
I mean, it's absolutely election interference in vote buying, and
you're right that they did for a very long time.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Call this a sort of racist conspiracy theory.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
But they're crazy responses to that, right, crazy in that
they're so effective and obvious. I mean, Number one is
that a lot of Latinos and a lot of Black
Americans actually agree with us on the border. It's actually
if you look at sort of Joe Biden, people who
are even planning to vote for Joe Biden, now they
often disagree with him on immigration. Right, that's like one
issue where he loses even a lot of the people
(17:24):
who plan to vote for him. The second thing, of course,
is that it's just true. And what's so funny about
this is that often the media will say something is
a crazy racist conspiracy theory, and then literally three months later,
Chuck Schumer will go on the Senate floor and say
the exact thing that was allegedly a conspiracy theory just
a few months earlier, and you know, you sort of
(17:46):
touched upon this. But the two ways in which this
is very seriously a problem. One is, just for purposes
of congressional apportionment, they count legal aliens in how they
divvy up congressional seats. And so when you know, I
think they're probably twenty to twenty five million legal aliens
in the country right now, well, that means that there
(18:06):
are a lot of people in areas that don't have
large illegal immigrant populations who are going to be deprived
of congressional seats because you only have a certain number
of seats to work with. If more go to legal aliens,
less we'll go to American citizens. The second thing, Lisa,
is Democrats are quite explicit about the fact that they
want pathways to amnesty so that these people can eventually vote.
(18:29):
So that's like an even more direct election theft is
when you import people give them the right to vote,
and that dilutes the voting power of American citizens. Like
that is such a fundamental violation of people's rights to
sort of look at them and say, rather than persuade
you that my policies are better, I'm going to import
(18:50):
people to replace you so I.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Don't ever have to persuade you again.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
It's crazy that this is not the only issue the
media talks about, and instead they pretended some conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Well, you know, I mean I could give you one
hundred ways that the left has you know, interfered with
her elections, from that that you know, Hunter Biden's laptop,
to you know, telling us that these videos of Joe
Biden are cheap fakes when they're just reality, right, like
the lower what they're trying to do to Donald Trump.
But I wanted to get you on this real quick.
I know that you're pushing legislation dismantle DEI Act. It
(19:22):
seems like Americans are kind of awakening to like, maybe
we need to get back to a more merit based system.
And we saw Harvard recently announce that they're no longer
going to require diversity statements for the faculty of Arts
and sciences.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Do you think is the tide shifting on that.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
I think it's shifting slowly least.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
But we have to be honest that a lot of
this comes from public policy, and I don't think you're
ever going to be really able to eradicate this stuff
unless you take away the financial incentives for DEI and
the outright way in which the federal government forces the
stuff on both the private and public sector.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
So what my bill does is actually abolished THEI and.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Hiring and contracting practices, and it also sort of cuts
off the stream of money to promote DII in universities
and so forth, because unless you sort of eliminate that
federal pressure, you're still going to have a sort of core,
you know, cancerous tumor that's growing and keeps on trying
to metastasize in weird ways. I mean, my wake up
(20:21):
for this, by the way, leads and just when I
realized how how bad this was, And look, if you
had asked me ten years ago, you know, was their
discrimination against white Americas? I thought, of course, that's absurd,
Like nobody, like who actually thinks that? And then like
the Biden administration comes in and actually hands out farm
grants where you're not allowed to apply as a farmer
(20:43):
if you're a white person.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
And it's like, wait, wait a second.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
I thought what we were trying to do is like
treat everybody equally regardless of skin color, not explicitly discriminate
against different people, but just a different group of people
than we discriminated against sixty years ago. Like this is
crazy and this is illegal, by the way, But the
BIDE adminstration I think has gotten away from has gotten
away with it for too long because frankly, too few
(21:07):
congressional Republicans have pushed back against it.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Well, it was it was a quality before, but that's
out now it's equity.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
You know, they've changed.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
But I wanted, so are you going to be trump speepe?
Speaker 3 (21:20):
I don't know. I mean you want to get to
asked a question. I really don't know. Uh.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
I mean, look, I I definitely am interested in it,
you know, I want to help him. I think it
can be a very effective advocate for the people that
elected me and for the agenda from the Senate.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
But if he asked me, you know, we'll go down
that path.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
What happens, just saying if you have any news that
you'd like to break we would greatly appreciate.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Trust me, I would. I would love to break the news.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
I'd love to learn something about this that's not just
a public media report.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
But so so far no news.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Well you know where to come and.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
All right, Senator de Vans, I really appreciate your time,
great conversation, very interesting as as a would be, which
is why I was trying to get you on.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Okay, well, I really appreciate it, and let's see it
again sometime. Thanks Lisa.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
That was Senator jd Vance from Ohio. Appreciate him taking
the time to come on the show. Appreciate you guys
at home for listening every Monday and Thursday, but you
can listen throughout the week. I want to think John Cass,
you and my producer for putting the show together.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Until next time.
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