JD Vance on the Reasons Heโs Running for Senate
23 Sep 2021
BUCK: We do have, as promised, Mr. JD Vance with us now. He is the best-selling, ultramega best-selling author of the Hillbilly Elegy book and is running for Senate in the great state of Ohio. JD, thanks for being with us.
VANCE: Thanks for having me, guys. Good to see you.
BUCK: So Iโve been arguing for a while โ and Clayโs right there with me from the very beginning of this โ that freedom is under greater assault in this country right now than it has been in my lifetime. I think itโs worse than anything else that we have seen, because of the response to covid and the way that the government is overreaching all over the place. What do you think is the necessaryโฆ? What would be your prescription for how we start to effectively turn this thing around and get back to not a new normal, JD, but normal?
VANCE: Yeah. So, I think the only way to do it is to basically ignore and try to actively fight against the various orders that comes down. Look, there are red states that are trying to nullify various mandates that are coming down. I think there are gonna be business owners that just ignore the mandates. There are employees who are quitting en masse and I think putting real strain on some of our industries, especially the health care industry.
People push back against the idea that theyโre being told what to put in their body with this vaccine. So I think the only real way to do it is to actually stop complying because the government is trying to enforce these things; of course theyโre using private companies very often as sort of arms of the government.
But if these together are trying to enforce this on one in every 10,000 Americans, itโs gonna be a lot easier than if they have to do it in one in a hundred Americans. And I think to the extent that we can just ignore and fight against you these things through civil disobedience, thatโs a probably the best way to get some of our fundamental rights right.
CLAY: JD, I appreciate you coming on with us. I loved your book Hillbilly Elegy. Iโm curious. Now that youโre running for the Senate in Ohio, obviously you had a lot of fans in Hollywood, people who really enjoyed your book. Have they all kind of turned their back on you now that youโre running as a Republican in the Senate? Have you experienced any sort of freeze from that universe that otherwise had been really favorably disposed towards you?
VANCE: Yeah, most of them knew my politics. Iโd say that the real freeze if there was any, was when the movie came out. I felt like there was this massive backlash from some of the Hollywood critic and elite set. So I think that most of the friends that I had in Hollywood I no longer have anyway.
But Iโm sure that Iโll lose more more along the way. I joke with my wife sometimes that the moment when I know Iโm about to win the Senate race is when Netflix actually deplatforms the movie.
BUCK: (laughing)
VANCE: So, hopefully that doesnโt actually happen, but weโll see. Knock on wood.
CLAY: Itโs funny you mention that because I could totally see it happening, and you canโt even come up with satire or hyperbole hardly now because youโll be like, โHey, this crazy thing could happen,โ like they could pull the word โwomanโ out of an RBG quote โ
BUCK: They just now are gonna do that.
CLAY: Yeah.
BUCK: Theyโve heard this idea, and they may go forward with this. By the way, weโre speaking to JD Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy, running for the Senate of the United States in Ohio, the great state of Ohio for the United States Senate. JD, the border right now, Clay and I are talking about it a lot today.
It feels like weโre not even really have the national conversation that we should, at least in my mind, about this, because I donโt believe the Democrats actually want the laws at our southern border to be enforced. I think thatโs as a party now where they are and thereโs just a fundamental dishonesty at work here where they act like this is something theyโre trying to solve by stopping the inflow of illegal crossings. I donโt believe they actually want to stop it. I want to know what you think.
VANCE: I think thatโs right. My view is that they love this crisis. They know that itโs good for their donors, and they know that itโs good for their effort to fundamentally remake the composition of the United States of America, and so theyโre not trying to stop this at all. One of the most shameful things I think you can do as a leader is to crap on the people who are enforcing your orders, who are doing the things that you tell them to do.
And the way that Biden, that Harris, that Psaki, all of the leaders of the Biden administration basically flipped on Border Patrol agents who are doing an impossible job โ of course, because Biden invited these people in en masse โ itโs just really disgusting. Itโs one of more depressing things that Iโve seen.
You know, the other thing that really worries me about this is it shows how muchโฆ As much as we have rightfully and somewhat successfully pushed back against the power of the mainstream press, they โtil have a lot of influence over the conversation because I think that if our country was being honest with itself, we would recognize this is a large-scale invasion.
This will fundamentally transform the economy and culture of the United States. It will also lead to the worsening of the drug epidemic, which is a really big deal in the state of Ohio. Itโs just one of many stories, and I think that really this should be the story because of the effect it will have on the kind of country that weโre gonna have.
CLAY: JD, your wife, I believe, is a former Supreme Court clerk of John Roberts, and one of the big discussion points of late has been the idea of expanding the Supreme Court. I know you also went to Yale Law School yourself. How serious of a concern do you think this is, and how important is it for members of the Senate โ in which youโre hoping to one day being seated โ to stand up against the idea of a Biden administration court packing?
VANCE: Well, itโs very important. Itโs one of the reasons why I think we have to take back the Senate because right now the risk has sort of been delayed for at least I think the next 18 months. I donโt think theyโre gonna make a real play to try to pack the Supreme Court again. But if they take back the Senate, they sure as hell will and thatโs something we just canโt tolerate.
Look, the Democrats are completely shameless about the acquisition of power. And itโs one thing that, frankly, I think Republicans should learn a hard lesson from the past six months of Democrat governance is that when the Democrats get power, they try to fundamentally remake the institutions and the structure of our government.
Republicans, when we win, we try to pass a good law or two. The Democrats are just playing a totally different game. I think we have to wake up to that fact. To your point, if you fundamentally transform the Supreme Court, itโs gonna be hard to get much of anything done.
You fundamentally transform the Supreme Court, then you fundamentally transform the nature of our elections, then you transform the composition of the country whoโs voting in those elections, and then you have permanent Democratic rule for the rest of our lives.
BUCK: JD, what do you think the next moves are from the Biden administration? One thing that weโve been discussing here pretty regularly, itโs obvious. You look at the numbers; you see what the approval ratings have been. You see the multiple crises, whether the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, whatโs happening right now at the border, the 30% rise in crime.
Which did occur, obviously, in the final year of the Trump administration but occurred because of a Democrat embrace and built movement with BLM. And you have a Biden administration now that seems like itโs just constantly trying to put out fires instead of make any real progress for the American people.
What do you think their next moves are? Do we justโฆ? Are we gonna go into the election year here and itโs gonna be nonstop the insurrection talk? How can they try to convince the American voter thatโs actually up for grabs that theyโre not doing a terrible job?
VANCE: Yeah, itโs a good question. I donโt know how it could get worse. Maybe we should all hold our breath for a plague of locusts and fiery hail falling through the sky. I guess my instinct here is that theyโre really gonna turn it up on the insurrection talk, and in particular on trying to I think censor information about what really happened on January 6th and really, I think, turningโฆ
If you think of the vaccine mandate stuff, if you think of the mask mandates, if you think of the way that, yeah, of course there were some bad people on January 6th with be but there are a lot of people who were being held have committed no acts of violence. I really think the play here is to try to create a second class of citizenship among red America.
And make it hard to live a normal life, go to the grocery store, attend a political protest, go to church, even go to a ball game unless you do the things that the Democrats want you to do. And so I tend to think thatโs where this is gonna go. Thatโs my intuition, at least. But who knows? Who knows what they have in store? Itโs hard to imagine it getting much worse. But of course, it probably will.
CLAY: JD, youโre in a competitive Ohio primary for the Republican nomination. Donald Trump obviously has had a massive impact when it comes to endorsing candidates in the primary. Do you think that he will endorse you or someone else? Do you think heโll weigh in? And do you hope yourself that President Trump runs again in 2024?
VANCE: Oh, I certainly think he will run, and I think heโll win, and I hope that he does. And I think thatโs pretty much up to him. And you hear about other Republicans. I think we do have a great bench. But at the end of the day, I was talking with my dad, who is a big, big Trump guy sort of from the moment he came down the escalator and we were talking about all these other great candidates.
I was like, โWell, Iโm just curious, Dad. Tell me honestly: If any of these guys ran against Trump in the Republican primary in 2024, who would you vote for?โ He said, โOh, Trump.โ I think thatโs how a lot of Republican voters feel. So I think he would win and, frankly, I think heโd win by a massive margin in the general election too. You know, in this race, itโs interesting.
I think obviously Trumpโs endorsement would be huge. The president would immediately change the nature of the game. I think Iโve got a good chance of getting it, but I also thinks thereโs a chance that he completely stays out of it. Iโve heard from the president himself and also people in his inner circle that heโs letting the race develop. I think eventually heโs probably gonna weigh in, and I think Iโve got a good chance when he does, but weโll see how it unfolds.
BUCK: JD Vance, everybody. JD, good luck to you as a candidate for Senate in Ohio โ and, folks, if you havenโt picked up Hillbilly Elegy, go grab a copy. JD, thanks so much.
VANCE: Thanks for having me. Take care, guys.
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