VP JD Vance on Deportations, Greenland, and Don Lemon, PLUS Latest on Savannah Guthrie's Mom's Abduction, with Ashleigh Banfield and James Fitzgerald Ep. 1245
J.D. Vance is the Vice President of the White House, and he's in rare form. He's funny, smart, and in depth, and we cover everything from Iran to affordability to immigration and what's real to Don Lemon.
00:01:03.180And we are officially in the old executive office building, which houses a bunch of different offices related to the presidency, including this office that we're in right now, which is the vice president's ceremonial office.
00:01:30.780And we cover everything from Iran to affordability to immigration and what's real to Don Lemon.
00:01:38.980So I had to subject the poor man to that.
00:01:42.020It's sort of a coming home for the two of us in a way in that it was nine years ago that I went out to Ohio and interviewed back then just a regular old J.D. Vance, who didn't have the title senator, wasn't even running for Senate, never mind vice president.
00:01:55.560And he had just left a stint with Peter Thiel out in San Francisco, which was not for J.D., he told me at the time, Sam Fram.
00:02:15.640I think you're going to enjoy this exchange.
00:02:18.060Without further ado, Vice President J.D. Vance.
00:02:21.880You know Pure Talk's favorite holiday?
00:02:23.620Today, President's Day, because they believe wireless service should only cost you a couple of presidents, just a Jackson and a Lincoln, to be exact.
00:02:31.940For just 25 bucks a month, Pure Talk gives you unlimited talk, text and plenty of data.
00:03:26.720This is my ceremonial office, which I use mostly for interviews, but it's actually the most, I think, the most beautiful office in the complex,
00:03:35.260which is, it's sad that I never use it, but I'm glad I got to show it to you.
00:03:39.660I'm a long way from the holler, that's right.
00:03:41.460How's it feeling? How are you enjoying it?
00:03:43.080It feels good. I mean, look, it's the coolest job in Washington because I always joke with the president that I get to be involved in everything,
00:03:50.520but he's the one who actually has to make the decisions.
00:03:52.780And so I get, like, all of the benefit, but not nearly the same level of pressure as the president.
00:04:29.200I mean, the thing that's absurd, just from our personal perspective, is that whenever I go anywhere, I'm surrounded by a motorcade of, like, 20, 30, 40 cars, right?
00:04:39.560And so just, you get, like, this amazing mixture of people, like, tourists from Kansas or Ohio, who are so sweet and nice as you're driving through Washington, D.C.
00:04:50.280And then you get, like, the really angry, kind of crazy radical who's running after your car, flipping you off.
00:04:56.000And just, like, the performative politics of Washington and a lot of the people who live in Washington is very weird to me.
00:05:03.940I think it's a town of people where it's like everything is kind of transactional, but people try to pretend that it's not.
00:05:14.040And then just not from our perspective, not from the perspective of the administration or from us personally, but if you think about Washington, it's a place that almost nobody is from, right?
00:05:23.660So there's, like, you know, historically middle class black population.
00:05:27.580It's small and it's getting smaller because most of them are sort of selling their houses now that they're inflated and moving out to the burbs, right?
00:05:35.200So what you have is most of the residents here are not actually from here.
00:05:39.780And I think it just has, like, a psychologically warping effect.
00:05:42.360So you go to a Nationals game and everybody's rooting for the Nationals, but they don't actually care if the Nationals win.
00:05:48.380Whereas if you go to a Reds game, every person there is going to sob at the end of the game if they don't win.
00:05:54.060It's just a weird, it's like a placeless place.
00:05:57.420And I think that's the most bizarre part of Washington.
00:06:13.300Well, it's definitely true that you have people who are sort of super huge egos.
00:06:17.700So a friend of mine, he's actually like a think tank intellectual.
00:06:20.160He told me once about the United States Senate when I was thinking about running for the Senate.
00:06:23.600He said the thing you have to realize about the United States Senate is that it's 100 people who wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and think to themselves they're going to be the president of the United States.
00:07:12.860No, I mean, the president, he is just, if Washington is an insincere place, I think you said that and said it well, he is like the polar opposite.
00:07:54.420I mean, like there was a moment in the Oval Office, I wasn't even in there, but, you know, I was in the West Wing and somebody sent me where he was talking to Caitlin Collins, who's the CNN anchor.
00:08:03.860And I have like a decent relationship with Caitlin Collins, which is unusual given that she's from CNN.
00:08:07.880But the president, she's asking a question.
00:08:10.980The president says, why don't you ever smile?
00:08:13.160And it's actually like so perceptive, even if you're asking a tough question, even if you take your job very seriously, like why does it always have to be so antagonistic?
00:08:22.660Well, I laugh because I saw online everybody was calling him sexist for saying that.
00:08:25.580And I literally said the same thing about Caitlin Collins a year ago on my show.
00:08:41.460And that's too much of the Washington press corps.
00:08:44.060And of course, they don't act like that when the other guys are in power.
00:08:46.800So it is there is a political bias angle to it.
00:08:49.760But I just I think that the press would have a much higher like the media is one of the least trusted institutions in the United States of America.
00:09:27.100So just on this one lowest crime rate in 120 years, a massive drop in murders.
00:09:34.780That is human beings who are fellow citizens, in some cases our family and friends, who are walking around America's cities who, but for the pro-law and order policies of the Trump administration, would literally not be with us.
00:09:47.840Like that's one of those things where when you measure it in human lives, you realize how powerful and important this is.
00:09:54.000There are many, many dozens of people in most of America's major cities who are walking around right now, who get to go home to their kids, who get to play with their dog because we have actually brought some common sense back to our crime policies.
00:10:09.540So I remember this question I got from a New York Times reporter.
00:10:13.340I was doing one of these long-form interviews.
00:10:14.860And she asked me, you know, she said, well, you know, sometimes you give these speeches and you're like happy-go-lucky and, you know, you play around with your kids and you're obviously very happy when you're doing that.
00:10:25.660And but sometimes you're like really annoyed or really angry.
00:10:30.340And I remember thinking to myself, what human being isn't sometimes pissed off at what's going on in the country but also can laugh about it?
00:10:38.460What human being doesn't enjoy playing with their kids but maybe gets annoyed when they're dealing with some bullshit at work?
00:10:43.940Like, the idea that you have to be, like, one-dimensional is, I think, one of the reasons why the media is so broken.
00:10:50.720And it's one of the reasons why they can't tell the true stories that are out there.
00:10:54.040I mean, you talked to us about the crime.
00:10:58.560One is that we've empowered local law enforcement.
00:11:00.780Another reason is because we've deported a lot of criminals in the United States that should have never been here in the first place because they were illegal aliens.
00:11:07.940So the media cannot even express an ounce of nuance.
00:11:12.820It's never, oh, well, maybe this, we disagree with this.
00:11:18.260But, like, let's tell the truth about the fact that there are Americans who are alive today because of Donald Trump's crime and immigration policies.
00:11:33.520And it does the American people a real disservice.
00:11:35.360It's frankly why, you know, you probably have, I don't know, five times as many viewers, a hundred times as many viewers as the average CNN show because people are fed up with the bullshit.
00:12:11.040Because the people who are willing to take the deal are going to take it now and go.
00:12:14.240So, unfortunately, it could be that that number could go down.
00:12:16.660And people who really want those 10 to 12, could be as many as 20 million illegals who are here, most of whom came under Joe Biden, they want them all gone.
00:12:27.260But at this pace, it's not going to happen.
00:12:29.220So, to those people who think this is going too slowly, what do you say?
00:12:54.660Number two, all of the immigration enforcement officers that we hired because Biden gutted immigration enforcement, most of them are in training right now.
00:13:02.440Most of them have not even hit the streets.
00:13:04.120There are a lot of ways in which we are doing a slow ramp of immigration enforcement because we inherited a deportation operation that was so broken.
00:13:12.420And then the third thing that I'd say is the left has fought us so aggressively, but many of our victories are starting to bear fruit.
00:13:19.280I mean, like just yesterday or the day before, you had a left-wing judge who said that we could not end temporary protected status for illegal Haitian immigrants.
00:13:28.400Now, this is a program that was put in place illegally, I believe, in the Obama administration.
00:13:33.060And now a judge is saying that we can't end it.
00:14:24.560Sometimes, we'll exchange messages, and it's like, can you believe this judge did this?
00:14:28.100It's going to delay this thing another three months or another six months.
00:14:31.160But then you realize, okay, three months, six months, but we keep on winning these cases, right?
00:14:36.720So, yes, you have radical judges who are slowing things.
00:14:39.560They're not going to be able to stop things so long as we in the administration maintain our posture on it, and we're going to.
00:14:46.040Do you find it shocking, like the judge who issued that order saying you cannot end temporary protected status is the same judge who tried to stop Trump's ban on transgenders serving in the military.
00:15:14.220And there was the one judge who was like, the administration should read the Declaration of Independence.
00:15:18.700I guarantee you that our president and the Trump administration is aware of the Declaration of Independence and has actually read it.
00:15:24.920I don't think Biden could have cited the first ten words of the Declaration of Independence.
00:15:28.440So there is this weird judicial animosity towards the administration.
00:15:32.700But we kind of knew we were going to do this.
00:15:34.640I mean, I remember during the transition, we talked through, OK, we know there are some far left judges who are going to do nationwide injunctions, which, by the way, I think are illegitimate, but set that to the side.
00:15:44.940And we know we're going to have to power through this stuff.
00:15:46.840We're only a year into a four year term.
00:15:50.400But this animus point is really interesting because I think to the extent that there are still, and I'm fundamentally optimistic about human nature, there are still some good faith people on the far left who are trying to, who hopefully would try to understand where we're coming from.
00:16:07.960So I got an email from a classmate of mine a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't respond to it, but I did read it.
00:16:13.360And it was basically like, you know, it was a plea to sort of stop the chaos and to calm down the chaos.
00:16:19.640And I read it and I thought, OK, this is a good human being, even though I disagree with his politics.
00:16:24.040And, of course, we don't want immigration enforcement to be chaotic.
00:16:26.720It's one of the reasons why we've encouraged state and local officials to work with us.
00:16:30.660But fundamentally, the question is, are we allowed to do what the American people elected us to do?
00:16:36.960Biden lets in, call it 20 million illegal aliens.
00:16:39.580If the courts tell us that we're not allowed to deport the people that the American people elected us to deport, that's fundamentally not about even immigration anymore.
00:16:50.080Are the American people still sovereign if one administration can do something and the other administration can't do what the American people elected them to do in order to reverse it?
00:17:01.880And you think about even there's another layer to it, which is nobody elected Joe Biden to open the border.
00:17:07.400If you actually look at what Joe Biden said on immigration during the 2020 campaign, he sounded a lot more like a moderate, even conservative Republican.
00:17:16.580And then, of course, they got into power and they opened the border.
00:17:19.500So doesn't it cast into doubt the legitimacy of our system if one president running on reasonable immigration enforcement opens the border and then another president is not allowed to close it and deport all those people who came?
00:17:32.840I think that's fundamentally what's at stake here is do judges control, does the far left control American, the American constitutional republic or do the people?
00:17:43.720And I believe the people are sovereign, which is why we pursued the policies that we have.
00:17:47.460The example of Minneapolis has been troubling to both sides.
00:17:51.680The left has used it to say ICE is out of control and the Trump administration is out of control.
00:17:56.320And the right is frustrated that, by some accounts, we appear to have bent the knee there.
00:38:35.160We're going to go to war with our enemies.
00:38:37.000And we're going to be, you know, we're going to give our friends everything without asking questions.
00:38:40.920His attitude is, we're about alliances.
00:38:43.420And you could have a country where we have a 90% aligned interest, but we're going to disagree on 10% of issues.
00:38:48.920Meanwhile, we may disagree with Russia on a lot, but we may agree on some things.
00:38:53.100And I do think that is a fundamental reorientation.
00:38:55.760The other thing that's much different, Megan, about the President's foreign policy and just the way that he does business.
00:39:00.600And it's, look, there's a lot that I've learned from him, but this is nearly at the top of the list of the things I admire about the President of the United States, is he will talk to anybody.
00:39:11.920Like, you know, when he was thinking about who to make his vice president, he was talking to the gardener at Mar-a-Lago.
00:39:33.380We're going to actually conduct diplomacy.
00:39:35.160If we have to use the military, he's obviously not afraid to do it when he feels like he needs to.
00:39:39.780But the willingness to just communicate and break down barriers is very important.
00:39:44.040This is, by the way, Megan, one thing I would say about the Iranians that is just really weird to me, and I don't understand their system.
00:39:50.380And I frankly think that it makes diplomacy with them extraordinarily difficult, is the person who makes the decisions in Iran is the supreme leader, okay?
00:39:58.920The president, our sense is, doesn't have a lot of juice.
00:41:00.260Look, the president's view is we don't want to create an unnecessarily antagonistic relationship with China.
00:41:06.360Like, there are certain, some disagreements.
00:41:08.100There are some things where our interests collide.
00:41:10.260But we can protect our intellectual property, in the president's view, without creating an unnecessary conflict with the Chinese.
00:41:18.100Every slot filled by one of these Chinese students is one lost by an American.
00:41:21.120What the president is trying to do is, I think, create the situation where we can have good relations.
00:41:27.640Now, we're not radically, and this has been misreported, I think, we're not, like, radically increasing the number of visas that we give to China.
00:41:56.200Well, we're working very hard right now to get the Senate to approve it because if the Senate approves it, we think the House would approve it, too.
00:42:02.700Now, that would require, I think, some Republican senators who maybe they're a little too attached to the filibuster.
00:42:08.820Maybe they're a little too attached to Senate procedure.
00:42:11.260This is about the integrity of American democracy.
00:42:13.620Like, do the people control who they elect?
00:42:20.200Who actually controls the people who cast the ballots or the people who count the ballots?
00:42:24.440We want the sovereignty to be with the people who cast the ballots.
00:42:28.860And that's why we have to get the Save Act passed.
00:42:30.820So you'll hear people say all the time, and I love this argument, they'll say, well, if you look at this precinct, only three illegal aliens voted in this election.
00:42:40.120Number one, that's three illegal aliens, too many.
00:42:42.600And number two, if it's not a big problem, then why not just allow us to check ID and exercise some basic precautions to prevent illegal aliens from voting?
00:42:52.480I never quite understand the person who says, on the one hand, this never happens.
00:42:57.100And on the other hand, your effort to prevent it from happening is a threat to American democracy, which is fundamentally the Democrats' argument.
00:43:06.660Most Democrats want voter ID because they want to protect their own vote.
00:43:11.940But the elected leaders don't want to vote for it.
00:43:13.480But the elected leaders don't because they know that the more control they give to the people who are counting the ballots, as opposed to those who are casting the ballots, the more control they will have because the deep state is the left.
00:44:13.380President Trump says, look, we've made a lot of progress, but, you know, the average American sitting at home doesn't feel it.
00:44:18.840Because the polls show that the numbers are not good for the administration on the economy, and that just reflects what people are feeling.
00:44:25.540So what can actually happen, let's say, between now and November, speaking of the midterms, so that people actually feel better about what's happening in their wallet?
00:44:47.840But here's the way that I think about it, Megan, is if you go just dollars and cents, the average American household lost about $3,000 of net wages during the Biden administration.
00:45:38.380You know, we really worry about beef in particular that we're working very hard to bring down, not for the midterms, but just because we want the American people to buy some ground beef and to buy some steak, if they so choose.
00:45:49.800You know, there are things like cars and houses where we're seeing some real progress.
00:45:54.180Rents have now declined five months in a row.
00:46:27.800They want to know what the administration is going to do to get their arguments out more strongly on immigration and on the progress that they've made.
00:46:37.120I think there's a frustration, actually, amongst the GOP base that there have been a lot of wins, but people don't know it.
00:46:43.000And that there actually is a sound immigration policy, but they let the left run with this narrative.
00:46:47.340And the media is only too happy to spread lies about the five-year-old boy who is wrongfully deported and all that, right?
00:46:57.700I mean, one is the president and I are just going to get on the road a lot more in the next eight, nine months.
00:47:02.320And, you know, part of this is you've got to, look, CBS, NBC, ABC, there's always going to be an editorial slant to those networks, but they're also declining in power.
00:47:35.200I think we were very good about this in the campaign in 2024.
00:47:37.860It's something we want to get back to in 2026 is actually taking the message to people.
00:47:42.380You know, going on a lot of podcasts and a lot of the nontraditional media, which, frankly, I think has more narrative power than the traditional media does.
00:47:50.720You know, that's part of what we just have to do.
00:47:52.920I think the first year we're so focused on governing, now we've got to go out there and talk a little bit more about what we've achieved.
00:47:58.680I do think there's a lot to hang our hat on, to be proud of, that the American people should be proud of.
00:49:18.880And all I can tell you is the truth is, look, I think that if we take care of business, the politics in 2028 will figure itself out.
00:49:26.620And if we don't take care of business, there is no amount of salesmanship that is going to change that.
00:49:31.180You've just got to actually do a good job at the job that we have right now.
00:49:35.060And I think the American people, hopefully, in two, three, four years, say, you know what?
00:49:38.860We want another term of the governance of this agenda.
00:49:43.760We don't want to go back to the crazy, woke Democrats.
00:49:45.700We want to double down on reinvesting in America, on rebuilding the American middle class.
00:49:50.560I think that's ultimately what they're going to decide.
00:49:52.380I can't predict the future, but it's why I'm focused on the job that I have now.
00:49:56.280The thing, Megan, is I made this observation, and I think that it would be so warping.
00:50:01.760And because of that, very bad for the American people if I woke up every day and thought to myself, how do I maximize my chances in 2028?
00:50:09.780Because sometimes the answer to that question, in fact, probably most of the time, is going to be a little bit different than how do I maximize the chances of giving the American people a win, right?
00:50:20.500I've got to focus on this job, or I'm going to hurt a lot of people who really depend on me.
00:50:25.920Can I just ask you about the personal considerations that go into it?
00:50:53.840And I think our eight-year-old struggles more with it than our two younger kids because, you know, they're both, you've met them, but the two younger kids are extroverts, right?
00:51:02.500He just says the two younger kids are like me and the other kid is like her.
00:51:08.780He doesn't like that people are always offering to do special things for him.
00:51:11.440Even when the special thing is nice, he just kind of wants to blend in a little bit.
00:51:15.240But so I think the question is going to be, can the family support it happily?
00:51:21.520Can we keep our, you know, our family healthy?
00:51:24.400And if the answer is yes, then obviously that's a notch in favor of doing it.
00:51:27.840If the answer is no, I'd say that's pretty dispositive towards not doing it.
00:51:30.940But again, we'll have that conversation in a few years when we've actually done a good job here and can have that conversation with, I think, a little bit more of, first of all, it's there staring you in the face.
00:53:08.640I'll share with the audience, I don't think you'll mind, that we were with you guys personally at one point and your kids were outside and you just sort of called from afar, please don't create any ruination and despair.
00:53:36.520And, you know, she was fundamentally just such a patriotic person.
00:53:39.440I think she'd be in this room right now looking up at the molding and the beautiful imagery and just saying, what a blessing it is to be here.
00:53:46.540But I think the thing that she would just most like about our life is the kids.
00:53:54.100And she loved the weird little things that they would say.
00:53:57.120She loved how, you know, they were at one minute super caring and affectionate and at the other minute completely rebellious.
00:54:03.260And I think that's what, you know, as much as she'd be impressed by the pomp and the circumstance of the professional role, if Mamaw were alive right now, she'd probably be living with us.
00:54:13.260And she'd be much more worried about the kids than anything I was doing at the White House.
00:54:45.540Just wanted to give you the chance to comment on it because the White House sent out a tweet yesterday asking people to call in if they have any information.
00:54:51.300Well, obviously thinking about her and praying for her, and I believe it's her mother-in-law.
01:16:31.480When I first met Savannah Guthrie, it was at the Supreme Court, because she was doing high court coverage for NBC, and I was doing it for Fox, or she was an MS at the time.
01:16:41.200And now, all these years later, it's very strange.
01:16:43.220I was just back down here covering the Supreme Court for the big argument on boys and girls sports two weeks ago, and here I am covering this terrible tragedy for her.
01:16:50.920And it's like, at this point, Ashley, it's like, I don't know if there can be a good outcome.
01:16:55.140If they can find Nancy Guthrie and she's fine, that's it.
01:16:59.280And by the way, we do have a soundbite on that.
01:17:01.960The sheriff says he's holding out hope that that could still happen.
01:17:06.140This is played on the Today Show this morning.
01:17:11.100This morning, the desperate search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie now entering its fourth day, with the Pima County sheriff saying he's holding out hope Savannah's mom is alive.
01:17:20.260We have nothing else to go on but the belief that she is here, she's present, she's alive, and we want to save her.
01:17:28.180NBC News is aware of two reports of ransom notes sent to news organizations that reference Nancy Guthrie.
01:17:34.560NBC News has not seen those notes, and so far, no law enforcement agency has substantiated them.
01:17:40.340The Pima County sheriff's office saying it's also aware of the reports, adding, we are taking all tips and leads very seriously.
01:17:46.500The leads we've got coming in are critical to us.
01:17:49.960They're valuable, and we're sharing those with the FBI and others.
01:17:55.280FBI agents are now working closely with local authorities.
01:17:58.760The sheriff's department says Guthrie had several cameras at her home, but it's still unclear if there's any footage from the overnight hours when she was believed to be abducted.
01:18:06.760They're also still trying to find any usable video from neighbors' homes.
01:18:10.400And he seemed to speak to Sheriff Chris Nonos whether they did find any usable video from Nancy's home or elsewhere.
01:18:54.720So, and I'm not a tech guru, but I know about Nest cams.
01:18:57.780And my source said they were Nest, specifically.
01:19:00.860Said they were smashed and said they were Nest.
01:19:03.460And so my conversation on Monday with Sheriff Nonos was that they are working with the tech companies to get what's in the cloud, but that there were warrant issues.
01:19:11.700And it was taking a long time and he was very frustrated working with the companies.
01:20:21.900He kept saying, well, we're still leaving it open, a wide window.
01:20:24.080I'm not going to narrow that window down for the public here.
01:20:25.920But my source said, oh, no, it is the separation of the pacemaker from the Apple devices that we believe is the moment she went out that doorway and was spirited away.
01:20:41.020And so can you just reiterate, was there any sort of caution given to you about saying Savannah's brother-in-law is or may be the prime suspect?
01:20:52.140Like, is that as good as saying, you know, Savannah may be, I may be, you may be.
01:22:21.480The only color I surmise is because they've gone to the point where they've towed the vehicle of somebody very prominent or connected to somebody very prominent in a very prominent, widely viewed case.
01:22:32.680I think you've, I'm trying to figure out, look, yes, you've got to get a warrant if you're going to tow it against their will.
01:23:03.440The sheriff, Chris Nanyos, the one that we've been discussing, actually issued a statement, apparently in response to your news, that reads as follows.
01:23:12.000At this point, investigators have not identified a suspect or person of interest in this case.
01:23:17.780Detectives continue to speak with anyone who may have had contact with Mrs. Guthrie.
01:23:22.940Detectives are working closely with the Guthrie family.
01:23:25.260While we appreciate the public's concern, the sharing of unverified accusations or false information is irresponsible and does not assist the investigation.
01:23:33.920No suspect or person of interest has been identified at this time.
01:23:37.820Which is not exactly a denial of what you reported, but seems aimed at you.
01:24:35.660A maniacal, random murderer who slaughtered four children using a knife, K-Bar knife, was out there for over five, six weeks.
01:24:44.380And so to say we don't get, and this is how the answer was from the Pima County Sheriff's Office, to say that we don't have somebody out there, you know, kidnapping 84-year-old ladies every day.
01:24:58.800And we don't believe that that's happening.
01:25:01.240We don't think there's some sort of serial event happening.
01:25:04.140But, you know, we want to figure out what's going on.