A Conversation with JD Vance

course hey hey we [Music] will Senator Vance thank you so much for doing this I appreciate your time uh before we get into policy I do want to sort of ask you a few questions about how you got here sure and your worldview a little bit you know one of the things that many people said to me in advance of this interview is which JD Vance um is going to show up and I think that speaks to sort of this persistent question that people have about you sure which is they saw you on the debate

stage and you seemed more empathetic more moderate and then there's the JD Vance we've seen on The Campaign Trail the JD Vance we've heard on right-wing podcasts who can sound more grieved more Angry how would you explain that contrast well wasn't that how most people are right they're sometimes they're frustrated with what's going on of the country sometimes uh they are a little bit more optimistic sometimes it's both right you're maybe optimistic about the country about its people about its resources about its beauty but also frustrated by its leadership and I think it's sort of

the nature of being an American in 2024 at least in my political persuasion is that you know you have some I think deep and Abiding Love for this this this nation you have a certain at least I have a certain optimism and hope rooted in my trust and faith and its people but I am very frustrated by what's going on uh with our with our leadership and some of our public policy so I think it's just all of these things that you know all these things are true uh at at once and I think that's

just how most people are so you went frustrated at the debate um well sometimes I got frustrated right I criticize KLA Harris's immigration policies I got a little frustrated at the uh you know what I thought was the artificial fact check there and uh but get again I mean that that frustration I think coexists with uh a lot of other feelings too and I try to sort of you know try to show that to everybody I think that if you watched you know a 5minute JD Vance rally um you would not have been surprised by

the debate performance I think what happens is that if you take a clip out of context from four years and that's the only way you've ever been introduced to me then sure the debate performance might have been surprising but I don't think most people were surprised by it your own campaign though said that you were doing Minnesota nice to sort of throw off Tim Waltz who was expecting perhaps a more combative version of you so it was a tactic well I I mean look I I I guess that's a distinction to me without a difference

is again sometimes you're you know G to going to try to discuss the issues of the day sometimes you're going to be pushing back a little bit more aggressively I think what was interesting about how we did the debate is I try to be conversational with Tim wals because let's be honest I don't know Tim wals that well I don't have a strong view of him there's a lot of disagreements I have policy-wise but uh my my real disagreement is with KLA Harris with the way that she's led the country with some of her views

and some of her opinions and so in some ways I was I was I don't know combative is the right word but I was certainly disagreeable VV kamla Harris's policies but I I I didn't feel this need to sort of go in and light into to Tim Waltz that's just not how I feel about him wh why do you think though so many people have that thought about you that they don't know which version of you they're going to get and you know there's been think pieces about this there's been podcasts about this um people

who are trying to understand who you are sure well I I I think a lot of it I mean who knows um but my my best guess on this is that if you're a New York Times reader or you're broadly Center left most of what you've read about me has come from some version of um something that was planted by a political opponent now let's say I do a two-hour podcast interview and you see the 45 seconds where I say the most contentious thing that I said in that entire two hours interview but I think

if you watch the entire two-hour interview you wouldn't be surprised with you know what I've said on the debate stage with what I've said at my rallies with what I've said during my press conferences and so forth so I think that it's the nature of political media in 2024 is is because you can sort of take a clip make it go viral on social media where you can write a news story about that that Viral clip um we we're just not sort of digesting the long form conversation that I think most people again if if

you were to ask the you know normal middleclass American whether they agree with me or disagree with me 2hour conversation about politics and he went through a dozen different issues I think that you'd see well sometimes they'd be pissed off about something sometimes they'd be you know pleased with something sometimes they'd agree or they disagree but I I just think that the the way that we do political media is really built around sound bites maybe that's always been true but it's certainly true in 2024 yeah I mean I do think that there's something else going

on though which is you have obviously shifted some of your viewpoints you've acknowledged that I mean yeah like look I there's certainly the I was anti-trump and now obviously I'm running as Donald Trump's running M but it's something that again if you watched it to our podcast interview you wouldn't be surprised about because I talk about it and I know that's you know part of what we're doing today yeah it is um I mean just for to remind people you called Trump um America's Hitler and I'm sure you possibly don't like that quoted back at

you at every single moment and I read a really fascinating interview that you gave um to the American conservative in 2016 okay where you said Donald Trump and I'm quoting here um he has dragged down our entire political conversation he spent way too much time appealing to people's fears why do you feel more comfortable with his approach today well I think there are a few reasons I mean one is I was pretty optimistic right after Trump's election so you sort to go back a little bit you know I was the the book really took off

right before he was elected hology yeah Hill bology and it had kind of like this second wind that was somehow even bigger than the first one and I remember I was doing all of these interviews you know the night of the election I think I I I I think it was ABC where I spent most of that night and I was talking to people sort of privately but then of course I was going on TV and the biggest takeaway that I had from that moment is that it was genuinely a shock to the senses for

most of America's political and media class they really were certain that he was going to lose I mean to be fair I I I didn't think he was going to win I thought he had a better chance than most people but in in the immediate aftermath there was this sort of sense of okay well we misunderstood something we got something wrong maybe we should try to understand where this like underlying frustration and sense of grievance is in the population r large and that lasted for all of about a month and then it was like very

quickly it was the academic studies that that said that well Donald Trump's voters were not motivated by any sort of legitimate concern they were only motivated by racism and then of course the media kind of laundered that in to the mainstream discourse and then of course there was the Russia Russia Russia cycle where it was well the only reason Donald Trump won is because he was like you know collaborating with Vladimir Putin which you know even when I was anti-trump I thought that narrative was absurd and I and I guess that what I I slowly

learned learned is that if you believe the American political culture is fundamentally healthy but maybe biased towards the left then Donald Trump is not the right solution to that problem if as I slowly developed a Viewpoint that the American political culture was like deeply diseased and the American Media conversation had become so derang that it couldn't even process the frustrations of a large share maybe even a a close to majority of the country then when you say well I don't like Donald Trump's language well Donald Trump's language actually maybe makes a whole lot more sense

if you assume that the institutions are much more corrupted than than they were before so the the the point that I got to was if Donald Trump didn't talk like this and if Donald Trump wasn't going direct directly at the institutions then he wouldn't be able to get anything done and most importantly he wouldn't be able to illustrate how broken the American political and media culture is right now and so what I I saw in 2016 as as a fault of Donald Trumps by 2018 2019 I very much saw as as an advantage that's interesting

so what I'm hearing you say is that in 2016 you felt that the divisiveness and the language was um a symptom of perhaps a problem with Donald Trump and by 2018 you saw it as the solution to to to the problem I I put it slightly differently I think that in 2016 I saw the divisiveness in American politics as at least partly Donald Trump's fault and by 2018 2019 I saw that divisiveness as the the fault of an American political and media culture that couldn't even pay attention to its own citizens and Donald Trump was

not driving the divisiveness he was merely responding to it and giving voice to a group of people who had been completely ignored and he was doing it in a way that really did poke his eye at that diseased media culture and I think Donald Trump is you know not just I put it this way I don't know that anybody else in 2016 possibly could have done what Trump did and I think his rhetoric actually was a necessary part of it I mean one of the reasons I am focusing in on this initially which sort of

comes out is because earlier uh this year the times published a series of email and text exchanges um from 2014 to 2017 between you and your y Law School friend Sophia Nelson uh who is transgender and that friendship eventually ended in her telling U because of your support for a ban on gender firm and care for minors in Arkansas yep the tone of that early correspondence was respectful it was affectionate even even though you didn't always agree with her were you more open to differences at that time in your life no I don't think so

I mean look I I I think you know I'd like to think we're having a respectful conversation but you know when I disagree with people sometimes I'm a little sarcastic but that was true 10 years ago right sometimes I like to make fun of the political and media environment that we're in but that was true 10 years ago too again all of these things exist at the same time most people are complicated they're not just like happy gock or really engaged in dialogue right sometimes they're making jokes sometimes they're more serious I just think that's

how I am I think it's how most people are too but look I mean Sophia I'm not going to sit here and criticize Sophia I love Sophia I'm am very sad about what happened between me and Sophia um I think that what what you know go going back 2013 2014 you know she's my friend she's transgender you know I didn't fully understand it I just thought I love this person and I care about her and I don't have to sort of agree with every medical decision that she makes or even understand it to say well

I love you I care about you I'm still going to hang out with you we're still going to talk about football and um you know sort of be friends and I and I think you know we had this conversation I I I I can't remember when it was maybe around the time my Senate campaign it was maybe before but you know I had children at that point and we're talking about gender affirming care for minors I think a a more honest way to do to to to say is is not gender affirming care but chemical

experimentation on minors and you know my affection for her didn't mean that I thought this was a reasonable thing to do to 11-year-old children who are confused sometimes confused by social media uh sometimes confused because it's really hard to be an 11-year-old certainly in today's media environment and yeah we had a very strong disagreement about whether the proper response to that was humility I would say it's humility don't give life-altering care to these kids potentially life destroying care to these kids and she disagreed with me she thought it was sort of a front to transgender

rights now what I would have done normally in that situation is to say you know we can agree to disagree I mean Sophie and I disagreed about a whole host of issues over our long friendship and and sometimes we would do it aggressively But ultimately we're we're going to be friends despite that and I think it was to be clear I mean yeah she leaked my emails and I think it's a violation of trust and I'm frustrated by that but I would still be Sophia's friend today even though I feel very strongly that she's not

just wrong but very dangerously wrong about chemical experimentation on minors I guess what I'm asking is have you like you came to see Donald Trump's approach as a necessary means to an end did you come to see that as a necessary approach roach for yourself I mean you talked about in hill elery and the power of persuasion through empathy but you also bring a much different approach to many of the things that you do now so I again I think it was very jarring for people to see those emails and see a JD Vance that

frankly hasn't been on display well they say it's jarring to see the emails but they say it's jarring to see some of my rally performances and then it's jarring to see my debate maybe the problem isn't that you know but do you see it as necessary now to be more abrasive so I don't answer that question but maybe the thing that they're actually noticing is that if you see somebody in all their complexity they don't fit the caricature that it's not some big change that I've made and yes I've changed my views I be honest

about that on certain things but there's not some like major change it's just that they're seeing sometimes they're forced to see the non caricature version of me and I think that's that's certainly going on um but no I mean look I I I think look president Trump's approach is President Trump's approach his style is his style do I think that his style and his approach is a necessary corrective to what's broken about American society yes I do that that doesn't mean I'm going to try to be Donald Trump because one nobody can be Donald Trump

I think he's a uniquely um you know interesting and charismatic figure but it's just not who I am right fundamentally he and I are going to have different styles but I think if you were to say take you know Donald Trump's style and the way that he criticizes the media and the way that I'm criticizing the media to you right now I think those criticisms are actually pointing at the exact same direction we're just putting it in slightly different ways in our own sort of distinctive perspectives but I I've never felt like I need to

somehow copy somebody else's style I mean it wasn't just the tone of those exchanges though you did express some beliefs that are different than the ones you hold today I mean you said like what do you mean I hate the police and so I'm wondering did you write that why did you write that what did happen to make you feel that way sir F first of all um have you ever said something in a private conversation that out of context wouldn't necessarily translate to a public conversation I think a 100% of people would say yes

uh I don't exactly remember when that that I sent that email but I I strongly suspect that what happened is so when when you know us I lived in San Francisco for a couple of years and when we first moved uh this is such I get frustrated even thinking about it right now when we first moved there was a Breakin in the car that I had and it was stupid I shouldn't left I shouldn't have left her suitcase in the car to begin with but I did and it had a ton of like completely Priceless

things I'm not talking about Priceless is and we paid a lot of money but like the necklace her grandmother gave her that she bought in India that she gave her on like the morning morning of our wedding things like that that were stolen and I went to the police in San Francisco and it was it was have you ever seen the movie The Big Labowski when the guy's car is STO okay so I love the big big Labowski when like the dude has his car stole and he says hey are you like investigating it and

the cop kind of Chuckles and says yeah we got a couple detectives down at the crime lab that was kind of the response that I got to are you guys going to try to recover this stuff I was frustrated at the police I fired off a frustrated email to a friend and again this is why I think it's like a violation of trust is do I think that it that is at all representative of My Views in the police do I think it was representative of my views of the police RIT large in 2016 or

2014 or whenever I sent that email no of course not you send something to a friend hey I'm pissed off about this I think it's very ridiculous for the media to say well JD used to be like a defund the police guy because in a private email I expressed some frustration about a distinctive police officer come on so just to be clear Senator Vance the reason we ask about this is because it is a window into your evolving views and that is important for people to know who they're going to be voting for I think

it's totally reasonable for you to ask about it I I'm saying the the political certain political members who have said oh this reveals like somehow JD didn't support police officers 10 years ago I just think it's a Preposterous argument after you left Yale you went to Silicon Valley the world Adventure Capital you worked for and became close with Peter teal in 2016 2017 he had an enormous influence on on you a dear friend um by 2021 you were running for Senate as a support of trump and right in between that in 2019 you converted to

Catholicism yeah I'm a fellow Catholic I find this great very interesting and I would love for you to describe what appealed to you about the Catholic faith yeah so one before I answer that question I just offer a caveat out there so what I really hate and I've seen with some converts is they come into the faith they act like they know everything they speak for all Catholics I'm never going to do that I never want to do that look I mean I think there were a couple of things that really appealed about it to

me I mean first of all generally Christianity I was thinking about the big questions think about 2019 but but you know 2017 to 2019 when I was thinking about re-engaging with my faith I became a father during that period you know I was very successful professionally you think about the workingclass family that I'd grown up in I had a lot more money than I ever thought I would have I had my own Venture Capital firm and there there was this weird way where I felt like I had succeeded at climbing the ladder of meritocracy but

I'd also found the values of the meritocracy frankly deeply wanting and deeply lacking and when I start think about like the big things like what do I actually care about in my life like I really want to be a good husband I I really want to be a good father I really want to be sort of a good member of the community I wanted to be a virtuous human being in other words that was sort of the thing that I kept on coming back back to was how to be virtuous and I thought the Christianity

that I discarded as a young man answered the questions about being a virtuous person better than the logic of the American meritocracy and then you know that sort of led me on a journey of okay well I'm going to be a Christian again what what church do I actually want to raise my children in what church do I want to be a participant of and I just kept coming back for very personal reasons um you know friends of mine who I thought you know were just good people they you know not all them but a

lot of them were Catholics and I talked to them about their faith and about what appealed to them about their faith and uh that eventually led me to getting baptized in 2019 and the other thing I'll say about is you know Usha was raised in kind of a Hindu household but not especially religious household and um she was like really into it meaning she was she thought that like thinking about the question of converting and getting baptized and becoming a Christian she thought that they were good for me like in in in sort of a

good for your soul kind of way and I don't think I would have ever done it without her support because I felt kind of bad about it right you didn't sign up for a weekly churchgoer I feel terrible for my wife because we go to church almost every Sunday unless we're on the road and and did she go with you I mean she do yeah she does you knowed no she hasn't no that's why I feel bad about it is you know she's got three kids um obviously I help with the kids but because I'm

kind of the one going to church she feels like more responsibility to keep the kids quiet in the church and I I just I feel felt kind of bad like oh you didn't sign up to marry a weekly churchgoer and are you okay with this and she was sort of more than okay with it and that was a big part of I guess the confirmation that this was the right thing for me so I'm I'm really interested about your conversion also because you wrote a lot in Hill bology about the chaos of your family life

sure as a child your mother was an alcoholic and a drug addict she's been sober for nearly 10 years now we should say um you talk about being raised by your grandmother and your older sister and having a rotating sort of cast of untrustworthy parental figures um specifically men in your life how much of your draw of Catholicism do you think is related to the appeal of the strong family values of the focus on the nuclear family that's a big part of it especially the stability of it I'm not just talking about the stability of

the nuclear family but the stability of an institution that has endured over 2,000 years right I mean I'm think like most people very aware of my mortality and I kind of like the idea of being part of something that's existed over many generations and hopefully will endure for many many generations to come but yeah I mean when I talk about being a good husband being a good father you know the way I've often put it is the American dream to me was never making a lot of money buying a big house driving a fast car

it was was having what me and Usha have right now right like it's strange that you went into Venture Capital then but go on no sure I mean look that like I I wanted to make money I'm not I'm not saying I'm I'm anti-m money but like when I thought about what I really wanted out of my life what I really wanted was it what usan I have right now and then I wanted to raise our kids in stability I wanted our kids to know like something that really bothered me when I was a kid

was like people would ask me my address and I would give them my address not knowing if like if they wrote me a letter a month from like then whether I would still have that same address like I hated the fact that I had these different addresses which is something that really bothered me as a kid and I think it was sort of reflective of the broader instability in my life um you know our kids have had you know their my my son Y and I guess has had a couple but the other two have

pretty much only had their Cincinnati address their entire lives and that's like a very very important and good thing for me and yeah that's certainly part of the appeal of of the Catholic faith um your position on those Family Values have gotten a lot of scrutiny lately sure uh you've talked about childless cat ladies um you've called childless people sociopathic psychotic deranged and I know that you've said that those comments were sarcastic but it's hard to hear those words entirely as a joke what do you actually think of childless women in society well as I

said when when I made those comments and look they were dumb comments uh I certainly um you know I think most people probably who watched this have said something dumb have said something that they wish they had put differently and you said it over several in in several different venues a very very short period of time it was sort of a thing that I picked up on I said it a couple of times in a couple of interviews and look yeah I mean I I I I certainly wish that I had said it differently I

mean what I was trying to get at is that look I'm not talking about people who it just didn't work out right for medical reasons for social reasons like set that to the side we're not talking about folks like that um what I what I was definitely trying to illustrate in you know ultimately a very inarticulate way is that I do think that our country has become almost pathologically anti-child I put this in a couple of different ways right so there's one it was actually when I was in law school it was on a train

between new work in New Haven I think I was doing like Law Firm interviews or something and obviously didn't have kids then and there's this young girl gets on the on the on the train she's probably 21 or 22 she's you know young black female clear like tell by the way she she was dressed she didn't have a whole lot of money she had a couple of kids with her and you know I remember like just watching her and thinking like this is a really unbelievably patient mother I mean for for being literally younger than

I was what I was the reason I sort of noticed her is because her kids like a lot of kids that age are complete disasters especially on public transportation they turn it up to 11 but she was being so patient but then like everybody around her was also noticing the kids being misbehaved and they were so angry and you know they were and sighing and staring every time her 2-year-old made a noise and I that was sort of a moment that kind of stuck with me and then of course I've had similar experiences writing with

my own kids on various modes of public transportation and again it just sort of hit me like okay this is really really bad this thing that we do where we make motherhood or fatherhood or we just there's this again I do think there's like this pathological frustration with children that just is a new thing in American society I think it's very dark I think you see it sometimes in the political conversation you know people saying well maybe we shouldn't have kids because of climate change you know when I've I've used this word sociopathic like that

I think is a very deranged idea the idea that you shouldn't have a family because of concerns over climate change doesn't mean you can't worry about climate change but in the in the focus on childless cat ladies we the substance women who don't want to have children of what I said sorry sorry I just want to clarify something so women who don't have children because they're worried about climate change that's sociopathic I think that is a bizarre way of thinking about the future not to have kids because of concerns over climate change um I think

the more bizarre thing is our leadership who encourages young women and frankly young men to think about it that way you you I mean bringing life into the world has totally transformed the way that I think about myself the way that I think about my wife the way that I think I mean you watch your grandparents interact with grandchildren it is like a transformatively positive and good thing for there to be children in the world and if your political philosophy is saying don't do that because of concerns over climate change yeah I think that's a

really really crazy way to think about the world I I mean we don't know why kamla Harris did not have children but do you include kamla Harris in the category of women that you're talking about no I mean look it was everything I know about KLA Harris is that I've learned about KLA Harris is that she's got step family she's got an extended family she's a very good stepmother to her her stepchildren I I I would never accuse kamla Harris along these lines what I would say is that sometimes KLA Harris she hasn't quite jumped

over the you shouldn't have kids because of climate change but I think in some of her interviews she she's suggested there's a reasonableness to that perspective that again I don't think that's a reasonable perspective I think that if your political ideas motivate you to not have children then that is a bizarre way of looking at the world now again sometimes it doesn't work out sometimes people choose not to have children I'm not talking about that I'm talking about the political sensibility that's very anti-child and again I think that what I what really bothers me about

um the the childless cat ladies common aside from the fact that of course it offended a lot of people and I understand that but it it actually distracted my wife had made this point distracted from the core point of what I was making which is that there is something very anti-am and very anti-child that has crept into American society and you see it I think if you take your kid on an airplane you see it if you take your kid to a restaurant and people you know huff and puff at you you see it in

some of our political policies I mean go back to 2020 and I I don't talk about this this much because most Americans don't care about it but when those of us who had children were really reacting to the what I would call the co tyranny but you know three three-year-olds being forced to wear masks and not even asking ourselves well okay the main way that three-year-olds pick up on language development is they see the non-verbal expression that comes along with it like are we completely obliterating the language and Social Development of children a lot of

parents were thinking that a lot of our elected leaders were not taking that parental that parental perspective and I think because of it we responded to it in a disastrous way for our kids our education system pretty pretty much everybody will tell you that our public schools in particular you know we our kids fell behind in Reading they fell behind in mathematics our toddlers fell behind when it comes to language development we have become anti-am in this country I believe that I think the data is very clear about that and yeah I should have put

this in a better way but the point Still Remains I want to talk about another big issue when it comes to women and families and it has been hard to figure out uh what you former president Trump would do when it comes to Reproductive Rights sure um Trump has said he believes abortion law should be left up to the states he sometimes supported a six-week ban sometimes he's not supported a six-week ban uh he supports exceptions for rape and incest you have previously come out in favor of federal restrictions in your campaign for the Senate

um with no exceptions except to save the life of the mother you said Trump wouldn't sign a national abortions ban but then he said you JD Vance don't really know what he'll do and in the last week's debate you did try to appear some somewhat more moderate on the issue it is all painting I think a very confusing picture well I don't think it should paint a confusing picture I mean look let me just be clear of course on abortion policy president Trump's view is leave it to the states uh his view is you know

he wants any state to have the three exceptions he he cares very very much about that and na policy should focus as I said in the debate on expanding the optionality because again I I knew a lot of young women who had abortions almost always it was motivated by this view that that was the only choice really available to them that if they had had the baby it would have destroyed their relationships their family their education their career and I think that we want to be Pro-Am in the fullest sense of the word we want

to promote more people choosing life and I say this as a person who wants to encourage young women and Young families to to choose life but I think that there has to be a balance here a balance between states that are making their own abortion policies of course California is going to have a different policies from Georgia as we've already seen and then at the federal government promoting and increasing the optionality the choices available which is going to make it easier for women to choose life in the first place and that that you know look

you talk about being confused I I never came out for a National Abortion ban no restrictions what I did to be clear in my Senate campaign is I endorsed the Lindsey Graham bill that had exceptions and that would have after a threshold I think it was 15 weeks said with with reasonable exceptions you know after 15 weeks that's a reasonable place to kind of draw the line you you said in a podcast I'm just going to quote here that you'd like abortion to be illegal nationally that was on the podcast very fine people in 2022

and you've discussed the fact that people might be able to get abortions in other states and you said you would need some federal response to prevent that from happening I'm pretty sympathetic to that actually well what Trump has said and what we've said on this campaign is states are going to make these choices now yes I said in in a podcast I mean I I don't have the podcast in front of me but I'm sure that I said uh what what you said I said but that's just reflective of my my view expressed in 2022

that I want to protect as much vulnerable life as possible but we're in a different world than we were in 2022 number one of course uh we now have this decision primarily thanks to the Supreme Court left to the states I think that's again that's where Donald Trump and I think it should be but also look I've I've learned a little bit about this and I I talked about this in the debate when the Supreme Court threw this back primarily to the states what all Republicans should have learned is when you see people voting sometimes

even people who describe themselves as pro-life voting for increased access to abortion the conclusion that we should take from that is we've lost the trust of the American people and you know again in 2023 I guess we had a big referendum in the state of Ohio I campaigned on one side the people of Ohio not like a super right-wing state by any means but you know a center center right State certainly the state of Ohio voted 60 40 to go in the other direction and to implement I think a much more liberal abortion regime than

certainly the people on the other side were campaigning for well what do you take from that right you can take the lesson that well you know we just didn't Campaign hard enough we didn't make the case hard enough I don't think that's right I think the proper thing to take from that is we have lost the trust of the American people when we went out there and campaigned for our position they instinctively mistrusted us and we need to get trust back what does that mean though I've heard you say that but I I I don't

understand what that means I think it's by pursuing these pro- family policies I think it's by making it easier it's not by moderating your position on abortion rather no ra rather than trying to say that we're going to take options away from women we want to make it easier for young women to choose life but I think the the way that you're going to do that in 2024 in the United States of America is to let the states determine their own abortion policy now again part of that is protecting the ability of the states to

make these decisions K Harris wants to nationalize the ab renationalize the abortion conversation go in the exact opposite direction president Trump are saying yes president Trump and I are saying yes sometimes these issues are messy sometimes it's going to be a little unusual for say California to have a different abortion policy than Alabama but democracy is sometimes messy we want to preserve the the right of the states to so are okay with women traveling to another state to get an abortion that is something that you would like to see preserved in this country it okay

yes or no it's a it's a I I'm saying I'm okay with the states making these decisions now are the you talk about what I'm okay with do I think that the voters of California are going to enact a more liberal policy than I might like to see yes in fact I'm I'm certainly um I I I accept that as the reality of the state level State focused regime that President Trump and I are encouraging people to take am I okay with it I don't think that's the right way to look at it I'm okay

with the states making these decisions even if they make decisions that JD Vance or Donald Trump might not make I want to move on to immigration sure um it's another place where you have had a bit of a conversion uh you wrote a piece in 2012 while you were still at Yale criticizing the gop's immigration position and in it you said and I'm quoting here uh think about it we conservatives rightly mistrust the government to efficiently administer business loans and regulate our food supply yet we allegedly believe that it can Deport millions of unregistered aliens

the notion fails to pass the laugh test what changed well three and a half years of Comm Harris didn't help right you have 25 million people illegally in the country I think when I wrote that piece we were probably hope we were at six or 7 million yeah I mean look it's an estimate right I think DHS has said it's probably 20 million I think they're undercounting it for a whole host of reasons but whatever it is it's a hell of a lot higher than it was 12 years ago and I think that what we've

learned is that unless you're serious about deportations you are never going to meaningfully enforce the Border it's just too easy to come here right so you need two things fundamentally you need whether it's physical or technological ideally both you need some sort of physical barrier a wall to make it harder for people to come here illegally in the first place and you need to be willing to deport people I think pretty substantially when you have numbers that are as high as they are today how long do you think it would take to deport 20 million

people because president Trump has promised to deport as many people uh undocumented people in this country as there are so so what does that timeline look like for you well I don't think you even have to deport every single one of them because a lot of them will actually leave the country willingly if you make it harder for them to work right so I I think that you have to combine and again president Trump and I really think this is necessary you have to deport a large number of of people there are way too many

legal aliens in this country you have to reestablish some deterrence and law enforcement for people coming here illegally I think it's certainly reasonable to deport around a million people per year in the United States of America now of course we have 25 million so uh that would take a long time 25 years if my math is is correct but again I don't think that you have to support everybody because if you reestablish some semblance of a reasonable order policy a lot of those people are going to go home willingly if you make it harder for

American companies to undercut the wages of American workers by hiring illegal labor a lot of those folks are going to go home I've introduced legislation to tax remittances because a lot of what goes on is that people come into the country they make money they send a lot of it home to whatever country they came from if you tax the remittances then people aren't going to come here to sort of try to work under the table to begin with so again I I think the focus here is like somewhat off because people talk about the

logistical difficulty of making this happen well again we have had largescale deportation efforts in the United States I mean look Barack Obama to his great credit deported a hell of a lot more people than kamla Harris has so you can Deport people in this country who are here legally you just have to have the political willpower to do it but if you don't do this Lulu I mean what what are you you're basically saying the United States doesn't have meaningful border policy I think Mexican drug cartels have become the wealthiest criminal organization maybe in the

entire world because of what K Harris has done at the border not to mention like I'm a big believer in the social contract in this country like I I I benefited sometimes from a generous United States government meaning a generous United States taxpayer that made it possible for us to afford things that we wouldn't have always been able to afford so when you bring in millions upon millions of people you degrade and destroy the social trust that's necessary to support any kind of a modern support for poor people food assistance housing assistance you are not

going to have that stuff if you allow Millions upon millions of people into this country illegally and then they get to take advantage of it well let's say you were successful in carrying out those Mass deportations one thing that everyone agrees on is that more housing is necessary in this country right um the reason that there is a housing crisis is that not enough houses have been built and that we have 25 million people who shouldn't be here I mean this is the thing I mean I think it's both um I I know you do

I I don't think that many um people who look into this agree with you but about a third of the construction Workforce in this country is Hispanic of those a large portion are undocumented so how do you propose to build all the housing necessary that we need in this country by removing all the people who are working in construction well I think it's a it's a fair question because we know that back in the 1960s when we had very low levels of illegal immigration Americans didn't buy houses didn't build houses but but of course they

did and I'm being sarcastic of course in service of a point Lulu the assumption that because a large number of home builders now are using undocumented labor that that's the only way to build homes I think again the country is much bigger the need is much bigger I mean I'm not arguing in favor of illegal immigration I'm asking how you would deal with the knock on effect of your proposal to remove millions of people who work in a critical part part of the economy well I think that what you would do is you would take

let's say for example the 7 million prime age men who have dropped out of the labor force and you have a smaller number of women but still millions of women prime age who have dropped out of the labor force um you you absolutely could re-engage folks into the American labor market this is I think to work in construction of course you could as long as you the unemployment rate is 4.1% most people unemployment rate Lulu this this is important most people who don't work can't work in the regular economy they're in the military their parents

they're sick they're old they might not want to work in construction the unemployment rate is not does not count labor force participation dropouts and again this is one of the really deranged things that I think illegal immigration does to our society is it gets us in a mindset of saying we can only build houses with illegal immigrants when we have 7 million just men not even women just men who have completely dropped out of the labor force people say well Americans won't do those jobs Americans won't do those jobs for below the table wages they

won't do those jobs for non-living wages but people will do those jobs they will just do those jobs at certain wages think about this from the perspective of an American company okay I want them to go searching in their own country for their own citizens sometimes people who may be struggling with addiction or trauma get them re-engaged in American society we cannot have an entire American Business community that is giving up on American workers and then importing millions of illegal laborers that is what we have thanks to KLA Harris's border policies I think it's one

of the biggest drivers of inequality it's one of the biggest reasons why we have millions of people who have dropped out of the labor force Why Try to re-engage an American citizen in a good job if you can just import somebody from Central America who's going to work under the table for poverty wages it is a disgrace and it has led to the evisceration of the American middle class so this is brings us to another point because the way that you discuss um immigrants has has gotten a lot of scrutiny the Springfield situation in particular

um where you talked about the Haitian immigrant Community which we should say they are legally here and allowed to work and you spread a rumor uh or helped spread a rumor that they were um eating pets which turned out to be completely false off the back of that there has been an enormous amount of hate turmoil in that um Community bomb threats kids not being able to go to school was the trade-off worth it to you well there's a lot there that I want to respond to but I want to pick up on the overall

attitude because when we talk about of course we can have a conversation I think we've had a a nice respectful conversation here but you know sometimes you can feel happy about the direction of this country happy about its people and very frustrated with American leaders this issue more than any other makes me extraordinarily frustrated at American leaders because American leaders who are talking about Haitian immigrants who have no right to be in this country and we'll get to that in a second they talk with such compassion about what's happened to the schools about what people

have been unable to do where is their compassion for American citizens in Springfield Ohio who now a community of 60,000 people there are a thousand children in Springfield schools who do not speak English for years I have heard from the American citizens of Springfield Ohio that their lives have gotten worse have we talked about the fact that many of them have been evicted from their homes and then Haitian migrants are moved in four families to a home massively violating zoning laws they get sub they they get subsidies they have been attracted there because they're working

they've been attracted there to violate zoning laws Lulu they're subsidized by the local authorities by the federal authorities by your tax dollars so now four families are living in a home Republican run City State your St four families are living I'm talking about Federal authorities Federal housing right now four families are living in a home they are paying way more for rent than an American citizen in Springfield can pay so the American citizens have been evicted from their homes they are finding housing unaffordable they are waiting longer at hospitals their children are going to schools

that are stressed because there are too many kids there who don't even speak the native language I am so much more concerned by the American citizens of spring Field Ohio and I think that it is disgraceful that American leaders pretend that they care about these migrants more than they care about the people they took an oath of office to actually look after and when you say that these Haitian migrants in Springfield are legal what you're doing is I think making an intentional bait and switch because what most people think when they say legal resident they

think about somebody who comes to America they get a green card they come through the proper channels they wait to but what happened it's not just TPS it's Mass parole which by the way has been challenging court and is likely illegal Kamala Harris has facilitated a massive amount of migration into American communities and it is my job as a United States Senator and hopefully as the next vice president to look after the people who are affected when you flood their Community with Millions the national Community I'm talking about with Millions upon millions of people who

shouldn't here that is our responsibility and I really don't understand the perspective of an American leadership class that seems to have so much compassion and look a lot I mean the 20, those Republicans too I mean Mike dwine came out and criticized you um the governor of your home state I'm not talking about I'm not talking about Mike dwine right now by the way he endorsed us but I'm talking about okay you got 20,000 Haitian migrants a lot of them I'd say most of them are probably very very good people but my compassion and my

focus and my efforts as a political leader in this country it is not for people however good they might be who don't have the legal right to be in this country it's for American citizens last few questions in the debate you were asked to clarify if you believe Trump lost the 2020 election do you believe he lost the 2020 election I think that Donald Trump and I have both raised a number of issues with the 2020 election but we're focused on the future I think there's an obsession here with focusing on 2020 I'm much more

wored about what happened after 2020 which is a wide open border groceries that are unaffordable and look Senator yes or no did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election let me ask you a question is it okay that big technology companies censored the hunter Biden laptop story which independent analysis have said cost Donald Trump millions of votes Senator Vance I'm going to ask you again did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election did Big technology companies censor a story that independent Studies have suggested would have cost Trump millions of votes Senator I'm going to ask you again

did Donald Trump lose the 2020 question with another question you answer my question and I'll answer yours I have asked this question repeatedly it is something that is very important for the American people to know there is no proof legal or otherwise that Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 election you're repeating a slogan rather than engaging with what I'm saying which is that when our own techn techology firms engage in industrial scale censorship by the way backed up by the federal government in a way that independent studies suggest affect the votes I'm worried about

Americans who feel like there were problems in 2020 I'm not worried about this slogan that people throw well every court case went this way I'm talking about something very discreet a problem of censorship in this country that I do think affected things in 20120 and more importantly that led to kamla Harris's governments which has screwed this country up in a big way Senator would you have certified the election in 2020 yes or no I've said that I would have voted against certification because of the concern that I just raised I think it when you have

technology companies the answer is no when you have technology companies censoring Americans at a mass scale in a way that again independent studies have suggested affect the vote I think that it's right to protest against that to criticize that and that's a totally reasonable thing so the answer is no and the last question will you support the election results this time and commit to a peaceful trans of power well first of all of course we commit to a peaceful transfer of power we are going to have a peaceful transfer of power uh I of course

believe that peaceful transfer of power is going to make Donald Trump the next president of the United States but if there are problems of course in the same way that Democrats protested in 2004 and Donald Trump raised issues in 2020 we are going to make sure that this election counts that every legal ballot is counted we've filed almost a 100 lawsuits at the RNC to try to ensure that every legal ballot has counted I think you would maybe criticize that we see that as an important effort to ensure election Integrity but certainly we're going to

respect the results in 2024 and I feel very confident they're going to make Donald Trump the next president Senator Vance thank you so much thank you that was my interview with Senator JD Vance after our conversation we checked with the Department of Homeland Security on the immigration numbers he cited DHS says there were 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US in 2022 which is the most recent official estimate there was an increase of illegal migration after 2022 but there are no official numbers yet we also asked Senator Vance's campaign for credible sourcing for his claims

about Haitian migrants and Zoning law violations in Springfield Ohio it did not provide any and an additional note Senator Vance's comments about the police were made in the context of a conversation about body cameras in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown by a police officer in 2014