Sen. J.D. Vance (D-D.C.) stops by the Aspen Institute to talk about what it's like being on the campaign trail and what it s like running for re-election in 2020. He also talks about why he s drinking Mountain Dew, and why he thinks the country s at war with itself. And he tells a story about how he almost got run over by a car in a parking lot. And he talks about his new book, which you should probably listen to if you ve been on the road since the Democratic National Convention, which is a good thing because it s a good book. And, of course, there s a song about the crock pot you forgot to turn off, and it s about to blow up in the middle of a 1970s pop song. You know, like a classic Leonard Skinner song. You know the kind of song you love to hate on the middle-era Leonard Skinner s song? Well, it might be kind of like that, but I m not sure if it s going to be as bad as Leonard Skinner's song, but it s kind of good as you think it s gonna be, anyway. Thanks to our sponsor, Perrier! for sponsoring this episode of the podcast, and thanks also to our patron and supporter, Sarah Abdurrahman ( ) for being a rockin' out in Aspen with us. . If you like the show, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and tell us what you think of the episode on Apple Music by clicking the link below. We lllllllll. We re listening to it on your favorite streaming platform, and sharing it on Anchor.fm/tweet us your thoughts, and we ll be looking out for you in the next episode of this podcast. Thank you! . . . Thanks also to my good friend John Rocha ( ) and , and , too, & , on Insta: Thanks for listening to the podcast! and Good Morning America . Thank you for listening, John R. Vance Thank You, Jon T.V. and Jon Taffer ( ) and Jon Mccartan ( ) Thank you, Jon M. ( ) Thanks, Jon, too, for being here, Jonny ( ) & Jonny, too! Jonny
00:00:10.000Thank you. I'm very psyched to be here. I was just, I was coming in backstage. This is our 11th city we've been in this month. And you have a kind of formula for how things work. And I'm standing backstage and I see this ice bucket full of green bottles.
00:00:30.000And I reached my hand, I don't know what it was. It's Mountain Dew. And I said, I said to the person I was walking with, like, why do we have Mountain Dew? J.D. Vance drinks Mountain Dew. Actually drinks Mountain Dew.
00:00:48.940And I know J.D. Vance very well. And I know that he's, like, the most authentic person in politics. But you often hear people say, and you can feel it on him, he's not, he went to Yale Law School. You know, he's not really from Appalachia.
00:01:05.000I found the Mountain Dew. That's for real. You're not, you're not drinking this. They don't have this at the Aspen Institute. Trust me. I was so impressed.
00:01:18.060And I'm very sympathetic to, I love, actually, his politics, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to try that. Sorry. I'm going to have my little Perrier. I'm not a man of the people. Anyway, thank you so much for coming. I'm sorry it took so long to get in.
00:01:34.680This is what happens when your security is run by your opponent, I think. It's kind of hard to have an event. It's sort of a, it's a funny system that we have. No other country does that, I don't think. We'll just, we'll take care of security. Don't worry.
00:01:55.740And just to make it super efficient, we're going to let the TSA handle it. Because when you want things to work smoothly, like when you're late for your flight on Memorial Day weekend. Anyway, so I'm sorry about that. We have no control over it. I'm not alleging anything other than what's totally obvious.
00:02:17.280Oh, that's just amused to me. And I heard the media are here. I don't know. I know. Boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo. And I, I heard even the New York Times, Politico. They're all here. No, I don't know. I just want them to stand up and announce who they're voting for, if they would. I don't know. I don't have my glasses on, so I don't know where they are.
00:02:42.400I can't hear what you're saying, but I know I agree with you. If, if you are trying to express loathing, I'm on your side. And by the way, I would know, having spent over 30 years in their lair, and no amount of sauna cold plunge, hot bath combinations can scrape off the moral stain of us all the time that I spent there.
00:03:08.880But anyway, thank you so much. So I'm going to, because we're running a little late, I want to get to the interview with Senator Vance pretty quickly.
00:03:18.820But I just wanted to say, and it's much more interesting than anything I'm going to say anyway, but I just want to say something that he knows really well, because he's been on the road since the convention.
00:03:27.520But I'm just remembering, since it's been a long time since I've been on the road, which is that if you experience your country, the one that you were born in, and that you love, and that your ancestors built, and you will die in, America, if you experience it through your phone, which I hate to admit is mostly the way I do experience it,
00:03:45.980you really get a distorted picture of it. And it feels like a country at war with itself. And in fact, we're told that very often, this country is on the brink of civil war, and everybody hates everybody else, on the basis of some immutable characteristic, on the basis of race, primarily, but also of sex, and then political affiliation, and basically, America is about to explode.
00:04:08.660It's the crock pot you forgot to turn off, and it's about to just blow up and wreck your kitchen.
00:04:18.160I love that. You know, it might be kind of an unsequitur, like scream out a 1970s-era Leonard Skinner song in the middle of a pause, but to me, I'm grooving with you, baby. I know exactly what you mean. That's right. I can't quite articulate what you mean, but I know what you mean.
00:04:36.540Freybird. Anyway, the point is, you really get the sense that the country is at war with itself, and that people really hate each other.
00:04:45.440And when you travel it, and we're going coast to coast for a month, we already have been coast to coast, that's not the experience you have at all. Like, at all, actually.
00:04:55.920I can just tell you, as officially, and the New York Times has chronicled this at great length, as one of the most hated people in the world, I kind of expected to be yelled at, you know what I mean?
00:05:07.020At like an airport, or a Starbucks, or the lobby of a hotel. Not one time.
00:05:12.520And I, no, it has nothing to do with me. It's not because I'm so great, or people secretly love me.
00:05:18.020It's that Americans, secretly, don't really hate each other, which is kind of amazing.
00:05:24.200When was the, no, it's true. They don't.
00:05:28.240And yet, they have been convinced that they do, and they have, in fact, been inspired to hate each other, systematically, for decades.
00:05:35.960And I've watched this. The entire presentation of American history, again, driven by the New York Times, I've got to say, wherever the correspondent is.
00:05:44.060The entire presentation of American history is designed to make you believe that this is a country based on hate, the hate of Americans for each other.
00:05:53.780And they have been telling us, well, I'm 55, so they've been telling it for at least the 50 years I can remember going to school.
00:17:05.920the story of basically the last 30 years in my view is that our leadership has turned the American people into paupers in their own country,
00:18:00.220it's that we're going to get lazy and we're going to rest on our laurels and we're not going to get out there and actually pound the pavement and vote.
00:18:07.020There are way too many people who know that the country is broken,
00:18:10.380who know that Kamala Harris would make a terrible president,
00:18:13.180but they have to actually get out there and do the thing that all of us have to do,
00:21:54.240Well, I think there are a couple things going on.
00:21:56.140So first of all, if you spend any time in professional Washington, which I've spent a couple years there,
00:22:01.620you realize that one of the things that gives a lot of people meaning is like playing a chess game with the lives of other people's children.
00:22:48.860But, and I think so, that's one thing that's going on, is if you don't think the United States should get involved in every stupid war in the world,