JD Vance
Appearances
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And by the way, just not to wade back into January 6th territory, like what is a bigger threat to American democracy? Is it that we had a big fight about some of the
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
some of the certification in January the 6th, and of course you had some rioters at the Capitol, or is it that, for example, the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn't obey the President of the United States on troop redeployments in Syria, which actually happened during Trump's administration?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Like, if we're going to talk about threats to democracy, we need the government to be responsive to the American people's elected president. If you don't have that, you don't have a real democracy.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Well. At a high level, certainly, I'm one of the co-chairs of the transition team. There are a few others of us who are working on it. You just sort of think about, I mean, look, the way the founders set up our government, whether you like it or not, there are certain things, especially when it comes to budget and appropriations, you just have to go through Congress, right?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
You fundamentally have to. Now, I do think that Congress is willing to work with us at least the first couple of years of an administration. You can largely get the budgetary and appropriations things that you need. But there's a lot that you can do through EO. And by the way, in a lot of ways, I think the enlargement of the president at the expense of Congress is a bad thing.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
But fundamentally, there is a lot that happens in our government purely through executive orders, through EOs. And yes, we're thinking very deliberately about all the things that you could do through EOs on day one.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
or in the early parts of the administration, and again, not to make this too partisan, but one of the ways that Biden and Harris opened up the American southern border was through executive orders, right? It was an executive order that submitted deportations, an executive order that ended the Remain in Mexico policy. So you can screw up a lot through EOs.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
You can also fix a lot through EOs, which is certainly something that we're focused on.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And now I find myself agreeing with everything the Democrats said in 2008. Right. Total coincidence.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Yeah, I mean, look, one way to think about it is that we traded Dick Cheney for Bobby Kennedy, and that's an upgrade I'll take every single day. Look, I mean, one way of understanding is you have to ask yourself who has benefited and who has harmed from the last 30 years of the bipartisan consensus in this country, right?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
So you want to talk about a manufacturing policy that I think promoted the offshoring of millions of good American manufacturing jobs and in the process, by the way, made us less self-reliant as a country. That really benefited people like Dick Cheney and Kamala Harris and their donors. It didn't benefit the people that I serve in the state of Ohio, okay?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
If you ask yourself, who actually went off and fought these ridiculous wars? It was very often working and middle-class kids in communities like mine it wasn't the family of our current leadership class by and large, though, of course, there are exceptions. And you go through each of these issues, and what you find is increasingly Republicans are the party of working and middle-class people.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
You know, Bobby Kennedy has talked about this a lot, and I think he puts it better than I ever could, but that, you know, you go back even 30 years ago, and approximately 80% of the counties that represent, sorry, 80% of the wealth in American counties went in places that voted Republican and about 20% of the wealth went to places that voted Democrat.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Now it's 70% of the wealth goes for Democrats and about 30% of the wealth goes for Republicans. And you saw this in a big way. I mean, just one illustration is I believe that in 2012, Wall Street, which I think Wall Street fundamentally has been the main beneficiary of globalization of a lot of the policies that I pushed back against and criticized over the last 30 years.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Wall Street went three to one for Romney over Obama in 2012. I believe they went four to one for Trump for Clinton over Trump in 2016, and then like nine to one for Biden over Trump in 2020. So there was a massive shift in who makes up these parties. Wealthy people direct their money to Democrats as well.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Increasingly, wealthy people direct their money to Democrats, working and middle-class people direct their money to Republicans.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Again, because I think their policies have benefited, look, the Uniparty, the Kamala Harris's and Dick Cheney's, their parties have benefited a certain group of people. Those people are increasingly Democrats. Donald Trump has been pushing back against that consensus in his party, in his policies, I think benefit the majority of the country.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
So increasingly, I think the working middle class heart of the country is going for Republicans. Like another spin on this, because I know we're, you know, focused on tech in this conference is big tech has become increasingly pro-Democrat, little tech has become increasingly pro-Republican, right? So if you're an upstart, if you're in crypto, if you're
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
If you're like a small AI company, I think you're much more likely to be pro-Republican. If you're a monopolist in big tech, I mean, look at Facebook, Google, how they're putting their resources. It's much, much more pro-Democrat. So there are a lot of different spins on it. But fundamentally, I think the people who've benefited from the American decline are becoming Democrats.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
The people who have suffered from it and are pushing back against it are Republicans.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Yeah, so this is obviously very complicated. Jason, you probably understand this better than I do. But as somebody, by the way, who's defended Lena Kahn against some of her critics from the right, I think what Lena Kahn fundamentally gets correct is that big tech really is a threat. It's a threat to free speech. It's increasingly oligarchic. It controls too much of what we're allowed to say.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And also, it controls a lot of the ways in which capital gets invested in these various ecosystems. But But where I think Lena Kahn goes wrong is that you're exactly right. You need the singles and doubles. You need sometimes a medium-sized company to buy a smaller company for $300 million. That liquidates founders. That gives the venture fund some money to go back into the system.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And I think that... I don't know her super well, but my basic read on Lena is that she is so anti-monopoly as sort of a baseline bias, and that becomes anti-merger and acquisition as a baseline bias, that Google buying YouTube is a much, much different thing from a $2 billion market cap healthcare company buying a $500 million market cap healthcare company.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And I think that we have to sort of draw a very big distinction between little tech and big tech. And look, I'm going to keep on making that argument both in public and private to Lena, and hopefully she comes around to our view a little bit, because I do think some of her ideas on big tech are right.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Well, I think the reason why it's so difficult right now, and I mean, look, generally, I agree that, okay, we're going to let some immigrants in. We want them to be high talent, high quality people. You don't want to let a large number of illegal aliens in. Obviously, that's President Trump's view.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
But I think that the reason why it's so broken down right now is because you have 25 million illegal aliens in this country. And you can't fix what I would call the minor or sort of less important immigration question that until you fix the real problem. And part of that goes back, by the way, to the way in which the system got broken in the first place.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
So Ronald Reagan, of course, great governor of California, a great president, but Reagan did in 1986 a massive amnesty program where in some ways he was trying to do exactly what you're talking about. Fix the problem of people who are already here, make sure that our immigration system is more pro-skill, but also close down the border.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And what happened is we got all the amnesty, but we didn't get the closing down of the borders. And so in order to do anything, I think, meaningful on immigration policy, meaning legal immigration policy, you've got to close down the border and establish some basic order.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And to go back to first principles here, I think that people who are generally, I mean, look, this is, I'm sure, a very diverse crowd. And I'm sure there are a lot of immigrants in this crowd, legal immigrants, hopefully. I'm married to the daughter. I'm married to the daughter of legal immigrants to this country. And I, of course, love not just my wife, but the whole extended family.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
I do think they've brought a lot to this country. But here's the thing. When you allow 25 million people into this country, it breaks down the entire social compact, right? So think about this. Okay, you're down on your luck. You lost your job. You get unemployment insurance. You're really down on your luck. You need food assistance from the federal government.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
I believe, as a conservative, that part of being in the same American family, whether your family's been here for a generation or 10 generations— is that we support people who are down on the luck. We don't want a cradle to grave welfare state, but we want to support people. We don't want kids who are dying because of starvation, because of no fault of their own.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
We want to promote some basic fairness, and we want to help people out when times get tough. But you can't do that if you extend that generosity to tens of millions of people who can't even be here in the first place. And I think that what Kamala Harris has done at the border, it's not just bad economically. It's not just bad for public safety.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
She has eroded the very foundation of the social contract in this country. And we talk about division in our politics, and Kamala has this ridiculous slogan, we're not going back. The reason why politics is so divided is because she has turned American citizens against one another while she's placed the interests of illegal aliens above American citizens.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
You want to turn the page and get back to common American citizenship? Stop putting illegal aliens to the front of the line of American citizens.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Yeah, I mean, empathy is different than guilt. It's all of these things, right? I mean, so let me tell you a brief story. And this goes back to my changing my mind on Donald Trump. I was probably, it's probably 2017, 2018. I was at a business conference and I happened to be seated next to one of the largest hotel chain CEOs in America. And my wife was there.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And we talk about this as the monopoly story because the guy is just going off. Maybe he'd had too much to drink. He's going off about how Donald Trump's immigration policies had forced him to raise the wages of his workers. And I was like, oh, that's an interesting fact. Like, explain more about this, sir. Please, I want to understand. And he said, well, because we can hire a lot of immigrants.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And frankly, we can hire a lot of illegal immigrants under the table. And we can't do that because there are fewer illegal immigrants. So we have to pay our American citizen workers more money. And I'm like, oh, shit, that sounds pretty good, actually. Isn't that like what we want is for people to be earning higher wages for doing a good job? So there's definitely an economic piece of it.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
But I also think, I mean, look, this is chilled out a little bit, partially because we're in election year. If Kamala Harris won, I think it would come back with a vengeance. But I think
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
about all these like ridiculous land acknowledgements right where people say well you know I want to acknowledge that this belong to like this tribe before I was here and if you genuinely think that you have to acknowledge a Native American tribe from 300 years ago then one attitude that comes along with this is why can I control at all who comes into the country right I have no right there's this basic I think this is the empathy it's the guilt it's sort of all these things I
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
I have no right to say who comes into my community. And I think, again, it's deranged. But I think that's part of it. I think the economic piece of it is part of it. It's certainly a vote argument. I mean, Democrats will say this. Of course, Republicans are accused of racism. for just repeating what Democrats have said.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
When somebody like Chuck Schumer says, well, you know, we're going to have an emerging Democratic majority because we're going to have all these new immigrants and all the old Americans, well, they're going to vote for Republicans, but we're going to replace them with a bunch of new people who vote for Democrats. It's like, that's pretty sick.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
But again, if you call it out, you're somehow a racist, even though Chuck Schumer is himself calling it out as if it were a good thing.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Well, Jason, it's... I like it.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
You did say that. I think Jason should be on the left and David should be on my right. He's been pulling me to the right.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
I'm on the left right now, but I could go right. Okay, yeah, I guess it depends on perspective. It's my perspective here. It's good debate prep, right? But, you know, Jason, if the VC thing doesn't work out, you'd make a great panelist at CNN. Oh! By the way, I love this.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And I genuinely think this is what a person who wants to be your vice president should actually do is answer some tough questions. I do give you credit for that.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Tell me about dragging millions of people out of the country. Here's why I find this question a little off and I will answer it, but it's like somebody who comes to me and I'm like eating my lunch and they say, look, that sandwich is 10 times the size of your mouth. How are you possibly going to eat that whole sandwich?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And it's like, well, I'm going to take a first bite and then I'm going to take a second bite. And I want to take a third bite. And eventually the problem is going to be, look, you start out with a million people who are what we call criminal migrants, people who have committed violent crimes in some form or another. Get them out of our country.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Yes, handcuff those people and force them out of the country. But you also do other things simultaneously. First of all, you stop the bleeding, right? You undo Kamala Harris's policies that opened the southern border in the first place. I've got a piece of legislation in the United States Senate that we've got a lot of colleagues who have signed up for it, which would tax remittances, right?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Well, you know, first of all, thanks all for having me. I've been a big fan of the pod for a while. I think my first appearance, so it's good to be with you. You know, the only thing I'll say to that, David, is I do think there is a deep connection between the poverty that I saw growing up and the fact that our entire economy is just less innovative than we pretend that it is.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Because we know a lot of people are earning money and then sending it back to Central America or wherever they came from. If you end that practice, then you have a lot of people who go back willingly. I think you ought to make it harder for people to hire illegal labor as opposed to American citizens. You tick through these things.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And I do think that, you know, that's the sandwich approach to this is you try to take it one step at a time. But the most important thing And I think the deportations focus, again, it is important because we're eventually, we are going to deport people. But the most important thing is to stop the bleeding.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
You've got to stop the millions of people flowing across the southern border every single year. It happened because of Kamala Harris's policies. It's going to stop when Donald Trump is president.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Yeah, so, well, part of the reason it's happening is that— Right, it's not Hondurans necessarily. No, no, that's right. It's Iranians. It's Iranians. It's people from all over Asia, Africa, Europe. I mean, look, if you look at this, that is the open door, right? So if you want to come to this country, that is the open door. And God knows why some of them want to be here.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
I mean, given what's going on in the Middle East, I do worry about military-age males from Iran coming into this country through the American southern border. But, you know, I actually asked a border patrol agent about this on one of my visits. And, you know, great guy was actually kind of heartbroken because he signed up to protect his country. And he's a relatively recent immigrant.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
I could tell that by his accent. Guy's like very nervous. And very heartbroken about the fact that he can't do his job. And he told me this story and I feel like an idiot in hindsight because he's like, we have a guy who came in here. I asked the guy like, why do you think this guy's Iranian? And he said, well, because he came through and he said that he was Mexican.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And I was like, well, couldn't he have been Mexican? And he said, well, he didn't speak Spanish. It's like, oh, that's a tell. You know, guy comes from Mexico, illegal alien, doesn't speak Spanish. That's probably a pretty significant tell. But it's happening because this is what Kamala Harris has done. She's created this massive gap in our national security and people are taking advantage of it.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
It's really not that surprising.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And, you know, I know, you know, Peter Thiel and Tyler Cowen and other folks have talked about this, but if you look at the real innovation in the American economy, it's been in the world of software.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Well, so there's a lot there. And let me try to sort of take a few pieces of it because I know we're relatively short on time. So number one is the energy piece of it's very important. Part of the way that you reshore American manufacturing is that you open up American energy. It matters for crypto. It matters for AI.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
You've got to open up American energy or you're never going to have, whether it's the next generation of manufactured goods or the past generations, you've got to open up American energy. energy. Okay. That's number one. Number two is, look, I don't want to go to war with China. I think it would be hugely destructive, but I do think that we have to reshore more American manufacturing.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And one of the weird things about China, if you think about past eras of developing nations, right? So go back to like when the UK was the most advanced economy in the world and America was a developing nation. Well, one of the things that happened is that capital was flowing from the UK into the United States, from the developed into the developing nation.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
What's really weird about China is that it's like Americans borrow money from Chinese peasants, to then buy the things the Chinese peasants are making for us, right? So it's not just the goods flow that's jacked up, it's the capital flows that are jacked up.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
If you look at where the economy has been most stagnant, it's been in basically the heavily regulated parts of the economy, which is where 90% of the people that I represent in the Senate and 80% of the people that I hope to represent as their vice president actually make their living, run their business, and go to work every single day.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And I really think that the next, you know, Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States, and this is something we're going to have to figure out, is that you need to balance both the capital and the goods flows, okay?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
I'm not saying we're going to have absolutely no trade with China, but right now the relationship is fundamentally that the Chinese have figured out they can create a massively powerful producerist society while America becomes a weaker, weaker consumerist society.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
That is the broken nature of the relationship, and I think rebalancing is the right way to think about it, but we have got to do it, and I think we're way, way behind the airport.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Yeah, I mean, I really do think that we have to recognize that we have massively over-regulated the real world, right? Over-regulated transportation, over-regulated energy, over-regulated home construction.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
I don't know how easy it is to get another 300 bps of growth, but I think you could get a lot more growth, whether it's 300 or 150, just by massively reducing the amount of regulatory burden in the real economy. And again, I'm an optimist. I'm fundamentally an optimist on both crypto... blockchain, Web3 stuff, but also on AI.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
One of the real conceits of the 30 years of globalization that I think was really, really deranged and hindsight very wrong, Bob Lighthizer, who is Trump's trade representative, talks a lot about this, is we had this conceit that we could separate the manufacture of things from the design of things, right?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
So if you get an iPhone right now and you get it out of the box, you will see that it says designed in Cupertino, California. Of course, the implication is that it's manufactured in Shenzhen or wherever they're manufacturing iPhones these days. The idea that the iPhone is designed in Cupertino is increasingly no longer even true.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
It's something that we lie to ourselves about because the people who are doing all the manufacturing of the hardware of the iPhone are getting much better at design and innovation. And part of the reason why I care so much about this manufacturing thing is whether it's antibiotics, for example. Why hasn't America invented an antibiotic in 30 years?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And I think that when I think about tech, one of the things I'd like us to do is broaden the aperture a little bit and think about innovation not just in software, but innovation in transportation and logistics and innovation in
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
It probably has something to do with the manufacture of antibiotics is done almost entirely in very low cost manufacturing areas. You can go through a whole host of goods like this, but if you want to build a high tech, high dynamic growth economy, you have to have some native manufacturing and some self-reliance. And so these two things are very related.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And I think it's a big part of getting back to four or 5% growth is accepting that, yes, we're going to have trade, but we can't let everybody make all of our stuff.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And energy and the whole suite of things, because unless our economy is actually technologically innovative, then the stagnant economy is fundamentally like the worst thing. And I think a lot of actually America's pathologies right now stem from the fact that we feel like we live in a very zero-sum country, because in some ways we do. Right.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Well, and by the way, available wherever books are sold.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Do you have an affiliate? 529 account for the kids. Can I just, just two things. First of all, Jason, I appreciate what you said, but I also just want to defend my running mate here because I think that Again, the media doesn't often tell you the truth about Donald Trump. Donald Trump cares more about the details of public policy than almost anyone I've ever met in public life.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
That's actually real. He thinks about how this stuff affects the real economy and real Americans. So if you're on the fence, whether you like what I said or dislike what I said, I just encourage you, listen to what he actually says, because I think that you'll become a believer that he can make the country great again, as he promises. But separate from that, I just want to say
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
This is such an important conversation and you guys hold and host important conversations every single day. We should do more of it as a country, but I'm glad to participate today. God bless everyone. Thank you.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
When the economy is growing four or five, six percent a year, then Democrats can kind of get what they want. Republicans can kind of get what they want. And it all makes sense. If the economy is growing between zero and one percent a year, then I think it makes the whole society and our political system much, much more insane.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And I think that's kind of a subtext of what's been going on in this country for the last 30 years.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Yeah. So first of all, when Biden was running against Trump, one of the things the media tried to do is to say, well, you know, you have these two guys who are a little bit older than average and both of them clearly aren't fully with it. And I would hear the media talk about Biden like this and then talk about Trump like this.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And it's like, guys, Donald Trump remembers exactly what I said about him nine and a half years ago to the minute, to the day, to the exact line. Like, trust me, his memory is 100% there, even if it would be more in my interest if it wasn't. And, you know, what changed for me, I mean, two things.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
One, Chamath, you just sort of hit on this, is a lot of the things the press said about Donald Trump and says about Donald Trump are just straight-up fabrications. And so if you think the press is, like, biased, that's one thing.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
But if you think the press is fundamentally trying to tell you the truth, even if it's in a biased way, and then you realize that, like, Donald Trump never called white supremacists very fine people after Charlottesville.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
a total fabrication of the american media it's like okay what other things am i hearing about donald trump that are actually not true right the second thing is you know we talked about this a little bit last night but look if you go back to the date of my or the year of my birth which is 1984 there's this chart that's really interesting and it tracks corporate profits the
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
the wages of workers and the size of government. And for pretty much my entire life, the wages of workers were stagnant, corporate profits were going up, and the size of government was going up. And there was a four year period where the wages of workers outpaced the size of government corporate profits. It's the four years that Donald Trump was president.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And I think that we have to like give some credit where it's due, the policies actually work.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And if you go into the presidency saying, I don't think Donald Trump's going to be a good president, and then lo and behold, he's the best president at least in a generation, it's like, okay, time to change my mind, admit to myself, but also to all the people who listen to me, I was wrong about Donald Trump. He was a hell of a good president.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Of course, I'm running as his running mate, because I think he'll do it again.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
You know, I think the president, one thing I'll say about him is, again, the media perception of Donald Trump is that he's like this deeply... a grieved guy who holds really terrible grudges. The actual reality of Donald Trump is that, yeah, he remembers what you said about him because it's like part of the inputs that he takes as he tries to evaluate a human being.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
But most importantly, he's asking like, what can you do now? How can you help the country now? How can you help me as I try to help the country now? And I think for whatever complicated set of factors, he decided that I was the guy who could help him the most. But no, I mean, it is interesting that,
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
The perception of him as this guy who holds grudges, he selected a guy who was very much a critic of his back in 2015 as his running mate. Clearly something doesn't make sense. And I think that what doesn't make sense is this idea that Trump is more motivated by grievance than he is by the public interest. He's actually much more motivated by the public interest. That's the truth.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Well, I think it's, let me take issue with the premise a little bit, Jason, because I don't think the argument was Mike Pence could overturn the election results. I think the argument was that Mike Pence could have done more, whether you agree or disagree, Mike Pence could have done more to sort of surface some of the problems in the 2020 election. Would you have not certified the election?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Well, I think that what I would have done, I mean, look, I happen to think that there were issues back in 2020, particularly in Pennsylvania. Even some of the courts that refused to throw out certified ballots did say that there were ballots that were cast in an illegal way. They just refused to actually decertify the election results in Pennsylvania.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Do I think that we could have had a much more rational conversation about how to ensure that only legal ballots are cast? Yes. And do I think that Mike Pence could have played a better role? Yes. But again, the two premises that I take issue on is, one, Pence was not asked to overturn the election. He couldn't have. But two, the reason— He was asked to not certify it. Sure.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Again, I would have asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors and let the country have the debate about what actually matters and what kind of an election that we have in these important states.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
I would have asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors. That's what I would have done. Again, I've said that publicly many times. But again, Jason, the important part is we would have had a big debate.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And it doesn't necessarily mean the results would have been any different, but we at least would have had the debate in Pennsylvania and Georgia about how to better have a rational election system where legal ballots are cast. And again, I, you know, look, I have no personal problem with Mike Pence. I've never really talked to him.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
But I think that the idea that the reason Mike Pence isn't on board with Donald Trump is over the election of 2020. That's the other thing I want to take issue with, Jason, because I think in reality that if Donald Trump wanted to start a nuclear war with Russia, Mike Pence would be at the front of the line endorsing him right now.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And fundamentally, the reason the old guard of the Republican Party hates Donald Trump, it's not because of January the 6th, 2021, whatever your views on it. It's because Donald Trump doesn't think that we should start stupid wars in foreign countries. And that's why they all hate him.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
I want to hear David, especially if he gets me out of answering tough questions.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Let's talk about January 6th for the next 45 minutes. I'm sure it's the most important thing going on in the country right now.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
For those of you who are really bad at context clues, I'm JD Vance. I'm running for vice president.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
So I agree with you. And let me just say, let me say two things and I'll try to answer briefly because I know there are a lot of topics that we can get through. So number one is one of the things that our government should do, obviously, I think it should be doing less than it currently does, but what it does, I want it to do well.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And most importantly, I want the critical social welfare functions of our government to go to the people who actually deserve to be here. So as a United States Senator, I have asked multiple staff members, I've asked officials in various government departments to
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
If you take the give or take 25 million illegal aliens that are here in this country right now, how much money do we spend on illegal aliens every single year in this country? And I've gotten estimates that range between $100 billion a year to $600 billion a year. And where does that money come from?
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Well, it comes from healthcare benefits, even though illegal aliens aren't entitled to Section 8 housing. Their children are entitled to Section 8 housing. There's also a lot of Social Security fraud, a lot of Medicare fraud. So one thing that we could save a lot of money on
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
is actually focusing our national interest on American citizens, people who deserve to be here, we'd save a lot of money that way. That'd be a huge and transformative thing.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
If you call it a $1.7 trillion deficit, right, again, it's between $100 billion to $600 billion, depending on how you cut the numbers. Now, the other thing about that, just to answer your question about efficiency, is I think the government procurement process, especially in military equipment, is really broken.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
That's right. She's at like the tar pits or whatever. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We brought our three kids out here. So she wanted to take and see some fossil stuff.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
If you go back to Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex, I mean, I was a seed investor in Anduril. I imagine you guys have some Anduril people here today. We had Palmer Luckey here two years ago. Great company.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
Yeah. You know, one of the things that that company, as I haven't talked to the guys about the details of the business in the last few years, but one of the things that they founded the company on was the idea that the procurement process was broken. And that is definitely true in the, you know, We do way too much cost plus procurement and way too little actual spurring of innovation.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
And what it ends up meaning is that our equipment isn't as good as it should be, and we end up spending a lot more money than we should be. I actually do think you could cut the American defense budget and make our country stronger, but you would have to make the procurement process much more efficient. Now, that's a big thing to tackle, but that's what we're in this business doing.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
I don't know that you have to pass legislation, but you really, as a president and vice president, you have to be willing to take on some very powerful defense contractors. And that's something that I know President Trump and I very much want to do.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
I want to do all of the good things and none of the bad things. That's my goal as vice president. So the ribbon cuttings of the new federal... I mean, obviously joking, but the reality is that I want to be a second set of eyes and ears for the president's agenda. Right.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
One of the things that was true, and he will tell you this the first time he was he was president United States, is there were people in government. There were people in his own administration that he was a newcomer to politics. He didn't fully trust everybody who was around him.
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024
We want to build a team who's actually aligned on the agenda because agree or disagree with Donald Trump on a specific policy issue, assuming the American people make him the next president. And I think that they will. that is the next president and his policy determinations should dictate the executive administration of government. If they don't, we don't have a real democracy.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I actually think the number is much closer to 20 than to 12 million.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
They did. And I think they're undercounting it because I think they're counting the people that we were aware of. I don't think they were counting that estimate, unknown gotaways. They weren't counting certain classes of asylum seekers, of TPS seekers. So they were answering the question as honestly as they could. But I think if you look at the grand scheme of it, it's higher. But
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Look, whether it's 12 million or whether it's 20 million, it's a lot. And that is a lot of work ahead of us. Now, there are two things that we can do. I think one thing is a little bit easier and one thing is a little bit harder. And the first thing is you just have to have the actual law enforcement infrastructure to make this possible. And again, I think that we should treat people humanely.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I think we have an obligation to treat people humanely. But I do think that a lot of these illegal immigrants have to go back to where they came from. and that requires more law enforcement officers, it requires more beds at deportation facilities, it just requires more of the basic nuts and bolts of how you run a law enforcement regime in the context of deportation.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
That's one of the main things in the big beautiful bill that is moving through Congress right now is more money for immigration enforcement. That's what that money is for, to facilitate that deportation infrastructure. There's a much more difficult question. And I think you see the president's frustration.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I've obviously expressed public frustration on this, which is, yes, illegal immigrants, by virtue of being in the United States, are entitled to some due process, okay?
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
But the amount of process that is due and how you enforce those legislative standards and how you actually bring them to bear is, I think, very much an open question. And I think that what you've seen – and I remember when I was in law school, there were all of these people who were wanting to become immigration lawyers.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And there was almost a certain buzz around immigration law at the time because there was so much – gray area. There was so much open space where the courts would interpret how to apply these rules. Now, in the context of the United States in 2011, 2012, 2013, when I was in law school, we had significant illegal immigration, but not that much.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
there was this idea that you could use the asylum claim process, and you could use the refugee process, and you could use all of these other tools of the immigration enforcement regime to actually make it harder to deport illegal aliens. Then what happened is a lot of very well-funded NGOs went about the process of making it much harder to deport illegal aliens.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And that's what we inherited in the year of our Lord, 2025, is a whole host of legal rules. And in some cases, not even legal rules as much as arguments that had made by left-wing NGOs that hadn't actually been ruled on by the courts yet. Right. And what we're finding, of course, is that a small but substantial number of courts are just making it very, very hard for us to deport illegal aliens.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And, you know, Stephen Miller, who, of course, is sort of our immigration czar in the White House, a good friend of mine, you know, he's thinking of all of these different and new statutory authorities, right? Because there are a lot of different statutory authorities the president has to enforce the nation's immigration laws.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And there is candidly frustration on the White House side that we think that the law is very clear. We think the president has extraordinary plenary power. Yes, you have to, you need some process to confirm that these illegal aliens are in fact illegal aliens, not American citizens. But that it's not like we're just throwing that process out.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
We're trying to comply with it as much as possible and actually do the job that we were left. And I, let me just make One final sort of philosophical point here. I worry that unless the Supreme Court steps in here or unless the district courts exercise a little bit more discretion, we are running into a real conflict between two important principles in the United States.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Principle one, of course, is that courts interpret the law differently. I think principle two is that the American people decide how they're governed, right? That's the fundamental small d democratic principle that's at the heart of the American project.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I think that you are seeing, and I know this is inflammatory, but I think you are seeing an effort by the courts to quite literally overturn the will of the American people. And to be clear, it's not most courts, but I think what the Supreme Court has to do, and I saw an interview with Chief Justice Roberts recently where he said, The role of the court is to check the excesses of the executive.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I thought that was a profoundly wrong sentiment. That's one half of his job. The other half of his job is to check the excesses of his own branch. And you cannot have a country where the American people keep on electing immigration enforcement and the courts tell the American people they're not allowed to have what they voted for. And that's where we are right now.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Well, I think one of the criticisms that I get from the right is that I am insufficiently committed to the capital M market. And I am a capitalist. I believe the market economy is the best way of provisioning goods and services and coordinating people across a very complex society.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
We're going to keep working it through the immigration court process, through the Supreme Court as much as possible. And look, my hope is that when you ask what success is, success to me is not so much a number, though obviously I'd love to see the gross majority of the illegal immigrants who came in under Biden deported. That actually is a secondary metric of success.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Success to me is that we have established a set of rules and principles that the courts are comfortable with and that we have the infrastructure to do that allows us to deport large numbers of illegal aliens when large numbers of illegal aliens come into the country. That, to me, is real success.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
But I think whether we're able to get there is a function, of course, of our efforts, but also of the courts themselves.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
But your administration, just to push— There's a third track, too, which is using existing legal authorities that haven't been used in the past, but we think are there.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
No, it's not that 5 million are engaged in like military conflict, but that the, I take issue that it's an aggressive interpretation. So let me back up and take some issue with the premise. I don't think that the supposition, if you look at the history and the context of those laws, is that for something to be an invasion, you have to have like 5 million uniformed combatants.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Yes, we don't have 5 million uniformed combatants. But Ross, I mean, this is where I think, and I have to be careful here, because some of this information, of course, is classified, but I think I ought to put this point. I think that the courts need to be somewhat deferential
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
In fact, I think the design is that they should be extremely deferential to these questions of political judgment made by the people's elected president of the United States. Because when you say, well, there aren't 5 million people who are waging war, okay, but are there thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people?
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
But I'm not one of these people who says every intervention in the market, for example, trade, which I'm sure that we'll get into. If you apply a tariff on an import good, there are a lot of people who say, well, that is a violation of some market rule.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And then when you take their extended family, their networks, is it much larger than that who are quite dangerous people? who I think very intentionally came to the United States to cause violence or to at least profit from violence, and they're fine if violence is an incidental effect of it. Yeah, I do, man.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And I think the people underappreciate the level of public safety stress that we're under. When the president talks about how bad crime is, you know, the one thing I'd love for the American media to do a little bit more is really go
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
to a migrant community where you have, say, 60% legal immigrants and 40% illegal immigrants, the level of chaos, the level of violence, the level of, I think, truly pre-modern brutality that some of these communities have gotten used to, So whatever law was written, I think it vests us with the power to take very serious action against this. It's bad. It's bad. It's worse than people appreciate.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And it's not, you know, Donald Trump, I know most of your listeners probably hate, you know, the president I serve under and probably hate me. Maybe not your listeners, but a lot of New York Times readers. But we'll talk about that.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Ask them, like, do not filter this through the, I see President Trump and Vice President Vance up there, and I sort of immediately assume that they're lying to me and that they're motivated by some bad value. This is not sustainable. And it's not just sustainable, like, oh, this is more immigrants than we used to have. This is a level of...
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
invasion that I think our laws, we already have laws to help us deal with. And I wish the courts were more deferential. And we're going to see, again, this is, we're very early innings in the court process. And even, you know, some of the worst, capital W, worst Supreme Court decisions that have been made on, you know, the media says, oh, this is a big blow to the administration.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I think one of the things that I take from my Christian principles and Catholic social teaching specifically, whether you agree with the specific policies of our administration, is look – The market is a tool, but it is not the end state, is not the purpose of American politics. The purpose of American politics should be to encourage our citizens to live a good life.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I mean, a lot of these things are very narrow procedural rulings. I think that we're very early innings here on what the court is going to interpret the law to mean. Yeah. Right.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Oh, sometimes no, because the people who are most victimized by this, Ross, they're not running to the FBI. They're not running to the local police. But certainly, I mean, if you look at. I mean, hell, look at the number of people dying of fentanyl overdoses. Again, just go substantively, qualitatively, you go to these communities and you see what they're dealing with.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I really think that we underappreciate just how violent these cartels are and how much they've made life, I think, pretty unbearable for, frankly, a lot of native-born American citizens, but also a lot of legal American migrants, especially those along the southern border. Thank you.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Well, look, first of all, I understand your point. And Making these judgments, if you take the teachings of our faith seriously, they are hard. I'm not going to pretend that I haven't struggled with some of this, that I haven't thought about whether we're doing the precisely right thing. It's a fair point, and I know that you think you've got me trapped here.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And part of that is good, dignified work. Part of that is having a high enough wage that you can support a family. That very much flows through my Catholicism. To be clear, I'm not saying it has to flow. and that the people who don't share my faith can't worry about those things. But that is something very much that I take from Catholic social teaching.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I think it's to be clear. I think it's a totally fair question. I'm interested in what politics does to people, to to your soul. Yes, of course. So, number one, the concern that you raise is fair, right? Okay, the concern that you raised is fair.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
There has to be some way in which you're asking yourself as you go about enforcing the law, even to your point against some very dangerous people, that you're enforcing the law consistent with the Catholic Church's moral dictates and so forth. And also to be clear, I'm the vice—
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And American law and basic principles. Most importantly, American law. But we're talking about, you know, we're in Rome. And so that's why I brought up the Catholic faith part of it. The American flag is positioned behind you. Sure. So here's the thing. So.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
with a caveat that I'm the Vice President of the United States and I am hardly an expert in every single edge case or every single case that has become a viral sensation or that people have criticized us over. But I am pretty well read on some of the cases.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Typically what I find when I look at the worst cases, I mean, the ones that the media seems so preoccupied with, I would make a couple of observations about it. Number one, it is hard to take seriously, now this doesn't absolve me from doing my duty as an American leader and hopefully as a Christian leader too, but it is hard to take seriously
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
the extraordinarily emotive condemnations of people who don't care about the problem that i'm trying to solve and that the president is trying to solve that's not you it's why i take i actually take your concerns seriously you'd be i listen to most of your podcasts i read most of your columns
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
So when I see people who for legitimately four years told me that I was a xenophobe for thinking that what Joe Biden was doing at the border was a serious problem, I am less willing – there's a witness element to this, and I'm less willing to believe the witness of people who are now saying that this MS-13 gang member – and we'll talk about that case in a second –
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
This guy, this guy is somehow a very sympathetic person and you violated his civil rights, et cetera, et cetera. OK, so that's number one. Number two, I still have an obligation to think about these cases. And I'll tell you, you know, a lot of times I'll read about these cases and I'll reach out to the people who are enforcing immigration law and I'll try to find out what exactly is going on.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I haven't asked every question about every case, but the ones where I have asked questions and I try to get to the bottom of what's going on, I feel quite comfortable what's happened. And the one that I spent the most time understanding is the one of the Maryland father. And what I found so bizarre about that case is that the American media
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And it certainly influences my views on economics. I mean, obviously, I'm pro-life. I care about the rights of the unborn. That very much flows from my Christian perspective. And there's a lot of stuff, right? When we talk about family policy, you know, we talked about this a little bit with the Holy Father today. But, you know, look,
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
took one line, and I forget what line it was, but it acknowledged some error had happened in a Department of Justice filing, without actually asking the two most important questions, what is the nature of the error? And much more importantly than that, what is the remedy for an error?
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Both as a matter of law, most importantly as the vice president, but also, again, as a matter of Christian principles. I think this guy was not just a gang member, but a reasonably high-level gang member in MS-13. I think he had engaged in some pretty ugly conduct. Legally, he had had multiple hearings before an immigration judge. He had a valid deportation order.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
What he also had was a sort of exception, what's called a withholding order that basically said, yes, you can deport this guy. No one doubts that we could have deported this guy. But you can't deport this guy to El Salvador because of particular conditions that obtained in, I believe, 2019 when his case was adjudicated.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
So you fast forward to 2025, we deport this guy, the courts hold that we've made a mistake, and then eventually it gets to the Supreme Court. And I believe, and we're getting in the weeds a little bit of the legal technicalities, but I believe the court term is you must facilitate his return.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And I sat in lunch with Bukele, the leader of El Salvador, with the president of the United States and with others, and talked about this case. And Bukele basically said, I don't want to send this guy back. I think he's a bad guy. He's my citizen. He's in a prison in El Salvador, and I think that's where he belongs. And our attitude was, okay, what are we really going to do?
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Are we going to exert extraordinary diplomatic pressure to bring a guy back to the United States who is a citizen of a foreign country who we had a valid deportation order with?
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I understand there may be disagreements about the judgments that we made here, but there's just something that it's hard to take serious when so many of the people who are saying we made a terrible error here are the same people who made no... protests about how this guy got into the country in the first place or what Joe Biden did for four years to the American southern border in that meeting.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And he's also said explicitly he would follow the law and he would follow American courts on this. So I don't think it's unreasonable for the president to say, here's this thing I'd like to do so long as it's consistent with the law.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
American society, I think, has become way too hostile to family formation. I think it's probably true across the West. In some ways, maybe the Europeans are even worse off than we are. But Europe and America have been quite bad at supporting families over the last generation. And I think you see that in the fact that fewer people are choosing to start families.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
So, look, I understand the point, especially as it's, you know, what the president says or what I say is refracted through the lens of an American press that, you know, I have my complaints with. But just what did the president... Again, you know, I'm going to defend my boss here. What do you say? I'm gonna think about doing this.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
only in cases of the very, very worst people, number one, and number two, only if it's consistent with American law. I think that if that was the headline that was reproduced, the president is considering sending the very worst violent gang members in America to a foreign prison, so long as that is a legal thing to do, I don't think that would inspire so much passionate resistance.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
It's said that we understand facilitation to mean something. Of course, the Supreme Court or any other court can further illuminate that. But this point is interesting to me. So there are two things about my boss, and I never reveal private conversations, two things about the President of the United States that I am extremely fascinated by.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
One is he has better instincts about human beings than anybody that I've ever met. We can talk about that, but I'll set that to the side. Just sort of almost a bizarre level of intuition about people.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
The second, which I think is very underappreciated and it motivates the foreign policy in Ukraine and Russia, it motivates the things that he said about the Middle East, it motivates really a lot of them, is he has this sort of humanitarian impulse. I've heard the president say,
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Well, you know, maybe if we sent the very worst people to different places, then American prisons would be a little less violent. Because as you know, American prisons are not a good place. They're not very good at rehabilitation. Sometimes people go in there for not, you know, I think we overstate how much people go to prison for truly petty crime.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
But they go in there for something that should at least give them an opportunity for a second chance. They end up getting stabbed while they're in prison. that there is just something fundamentally inhumane about sending a very violent person to another prison outside of the country. I don't buy that. I don't think that's what motivates the president.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
That's something else that I think a lot about because of my faith. So it would be easier to say, what does your faith not cause you to think about? Because...
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And again, that's a separate question from whether it's legal, which the president's been very clear he would follow the law.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
So I want to answer your question, but I want to give some context here and back up a little bit because I do think that there has been a little overconfidence from the economic class and from other watchers of this policy that They know what Donald Trump doesn't, that we're sort of motivated by chaos or stupidity or something else.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
You know, when you really believe something, and I do believe it, not saying I don't have doubts, I think everybody does, but when you really believe something, it ought to influence how you think about the way that you do your job, the way that you spend time with your wife and your children. It just necessarily informs how I live my life.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And you don't have to agree with the policy, but there are a couple of very important points that I think illustrate this. Number one, yes, we are at a global minimum tariff of effectively 10%. That understates it in a lot of ways because we also have substantial tariffs on automobiles. We have substantial tariffs on steel. We have substantial tariffs on a whole host of other product categories.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Okay, one of the very classic, very straightforward predictions of the economics profession is that if you do this – the currency, meaning the US dollar, the currency of the importing nation that's applying the tariff is going to appreciate, okay, what happened? The currency actually depreciated.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I think it's worth just stepping back and saying the consensus forecast of our economics profession is like profoundly wrong on this particular question. Similarly, similarly, If you look at the inflation numbers, if you look at the jobs numbers, if you look at nearly every metric, we keep on beating expectations.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
The one exception was the GDP number, which even, you know, our critics have acknowledged the GDP number, which went down, I think, by 0.3% last quarter. That is very much an artifact of how this stuff's measured. That's not real GDP actually to climb. That's how it's measured. So just step back here.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I think that we're trying a new economic paradigm, but people who think that they know everything should have a little bit more humility. We have a lot of humility. Trust me. Me and the president and the entire team, we are constantly testing this stuff.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
So again, I don't want to litigate this either. The one, let me, a bit of litigation here is, I gave you 20 more minutes. Give me 30 seconds to make this point.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I'll be brief. I'll be brief. Look, the point of Liberation Day, as the president himself has said, was to one, announce that the old global trading system was over. Yes. And two, that America was now open for business, open for negotiation, open to talk, and open to a whole host of other policy.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I totally disagree with that. I think they're based in large part on the trade deficit, which is a very reasonable place to start, especially large economies versus large economies. But anyway.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Goal here, Ross. is there are a few things that we want out of this. So first of all, I think the president's been very clear. The 10% minimum is going to apply nearly universally, if not universally. So yes, there is one way in which we are trying to raise revenue. Meanwhile, we're trying to lower taxes on domestic producers and consumers.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And if you sort of combine those two policies, he's trying to make it more expensive to import into the United States. He's trying to make it a little bit cheaper to produce or to work in the United States. So those two policies go hand in hand. Second of all, and this is related, you ask Coda, what does success look like?
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Look, does it mean that we have more manufacturing jobs than we do right now? Yes, I think that's one of the things that we want. Now, it's going to take a little while to get there.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Does it mean, you know, one very important metric of success, which I think you already saw in the Q1 numbers, which are way more important than this sort of weird artifact of measurement on GDP, was how much private capital investment is coming into the country? You saw a very significant increase. A lot of people poo-poo, you know, the Middle Eastern term.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
They say, oh, well, you know, these investment numbers that he's getting from foreign countries are from American companies. Those aren't real numbers, but if you look at the actual measured amount of capital investment in the country, that is on the rise. And we think that capital investment will produce factories and other companies will produce good jobs and so forth.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I think the best way of measuring where we're headed here is whether we still have a $1.2, $1.3 trillion trade deficit. And that to me, not next year, because it takes a while. You've got to build factories. You've got to change the trading regime with other countries. We're trying to make our exports cheaper, which by the way, give the president credit, if you look at the UK trade deal...
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
It is very, very good for us. Our manufacturers got better access to the sixth largest economy in the world. Our agricultural producers got major access in a way they've never been able to get to the sixth largest economy in the world. But all of this is, I think, in service of America making more of its own stuff, relying less on foreign countries.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And the way, the best way to measure that, not the perfect way, but the best way to measure that is, are we still losing, as the president would say, $1.2, $1.3 trillion on trade?
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
So, yes, but I think you're underweighting how much there's both a carrot and stick element to this and the Trump administration. Again, you see traditional Republicans, small government, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, but we're talking about no tax on overtime, no tax on tips. These are things that give domestic consumers more money.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And if you combine giving domestic consumers more money with making it easier and cheaper to produce in America and more expensive to produce overseas, then that is, in our view, at least a form of industrial policy. There are other things that we're doing. Number two, massive, massive changes to the regulatory regime.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Our biggest belief, or at least mine, I don't want to speak for the president because I haven't talked to him on this issue, but I think his policy is consistent with his perspective is we actually have an industrial policy in this country. The biggest industrial policy that we have is a regulatory regime that is incredibly rewarding to...
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
software to the world of bits, as Peter Thiel and Tyler Cowen might say, and is incredibly punitive in the world of atoms. We would like to reverse that or at least equalize it. If you look at what we're trying to do on the regulatory regime, we're trying to make it so much easier to produce things in the real world, not just to write code as important as that can be.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
That is a form of industrial policy to that point. I think our energy policy is a form of industrial policy because that's the most important cost input, especially for high-value-added manufacturing. And then the final point here, give us some credit here because, you know, what our Secretary of the Army did two weeks ago didn't get a whole lot of headlines, but he's completely right.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
rejiggering the Army's procurement process because we see industrial policy. We have a trillion dollar industrial policy at the Department of Defense that's rewarded slow incumbents instead of innovation and technology.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And so we've empowered our service leads in a way that no administration has in a generation to actually spend that money on tech and innovation and developing the next generation of tools. think that's what we're doing.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
You have to bite off so much at a time, Ross. And I think that it's not just a tax bill, of course, it's an immigration bill. There are a lot of other parts of the policy agenda that matter. There's a lot of regulatory relief in this bill. This bill is what we're focused on. Once we get this bill passed, we're going to think about other legislative priorities. But
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I would be lying to you if I told you I had some detailed legislation idea for what comes next. The president probably does, but we're focused on, you know, we have to take one step at a time.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
So, one, on the obsolescence point, I think the history of tech and innovation is that while it does cause job disruptions, it more often facilitates human productivity as opposed to replacing human workers. And the example I always give is that the bank teller
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
In the 1970s, there were very stark predictions of thousands, hundreds of thousands of bank tellers going out of a job, poverty and immiseration. What actually happened is we have more bank tellers today than we did when the ATM was created, but they're doing slightly different work, more productive. They have pretty good wages relative to other folks in the economy.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I tend to think that is how this innovation happens.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Well, I think it's a relatively slow pace of change, but I think on the economic side, the main concern that I have with AI, it's not sort of the obsolescence. It's not people losing jobs in mass. You hear about truck drivers, for example. I think what might actually happen is that truck drivers are able to work more efficient hours.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
They're able to get a little bit more sleep, but they're doing much more on the last mile of delivery than staring at a highway for 13 hours a day. So they're both safer. They're able to get higher wages. So anyway, I'm more optimistic, I should say, about the economic side of this, recognizing that, yes, there are concerns. I don't mean to understate them.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Where I really worry about this is in pretty much everything non-economic. I think the way that people engage with one another, I mean, the trend that I am most worried about, there are a lot of them, and I actually, well, I don't want to give too many details, but I talked to the Holy Father about this today,
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
You know, if you look at basic dating behavior among young people, and I think a lot of this is the dating apps are probably more destructive than we fully appreciate. I think part of it is technology is just for some reason made it harder for young men and young women to sort of communicate with each other in the same way. Our young men and women just aren't dating.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And if they're not dating, they're not getting married, they're not starting families. There's a level of isolation, I think mediated through technology, that technology can kind of be a bit of a salve. It can be a bit of a bandaid, maybe make you feel less lonely, even when you are lonely. But this is where I think AI could be profoundly dark and negative.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I don't think it'll mean 3 million truck drivers are out of a job. I certainly hope it doesn't mean that. But what I do really worry is, does it mean that there are millions of American teenagers who are talking to chatbots who don't have their best interests at heart? Or even if they do have their best interests at heart, they'd start to develop a relationship.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
They start to expect that a chatbot that's trying to give you a dopamine rush that compared to a chatbot, a normal human interaction is not going to be as satisfying because human beings have wants and needs. I think that's one of the great things about marriage in particular is you have this other person and you just have to figure it out together.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
But if the other person is a chatbot who's just trying to hook you to spend as much time on it, So that's the sort of stuff that I really worry about with AI. And then there's also a whole host of defense and technology applications.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I mean, we could wake up very soon in a world where there is no cybersecurity, where the idea of your bank account being safe and secure is just a relic of the past where, you know, there's weird shit happening in space mediated through AI that makes our communications infrastructure either actively hostile or at least largely inept and inert. So, yeah, I'm worried about this stuff.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I actually read the paper of the guy that you had on. I didn't listen to that podcast.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Because for the reasons you've described, the arms race component, that's... Yeah, the honest question to that is I don't know because part of this arms race component is if we take a pause, does the PRC not take a pause? And then we find ourselves, you know, we're all sort of enslaved to PRC-mediated AI.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
You know, one thing I'll say just, I know we're here at the embassy in Rome, is, you know, I think that this is...
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
One of the most profound and positive things that Pope Leo could do, not just for the church but for the world, is the American government is not equipped to provide moral leadership, at least full-scale moral leadership, in the wake of all the changes that are going to come along with AI. I think the church is. This is the sort of thing the church is very good at.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
This is what the institution was built for in many ways. And I hope that they really do play a very positive role. I suspect that they will. But it's one of my prayers for his papacy is that he recognizes there is such great challenge in the world, but I think such great opportunity for him and for the institution he leads.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And by the way, if they don't like me, I still love them.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Yeah, yeah. This is, I mean, we probably talk all morning about this, but... We'll try not to. It's interesting. So let me give you a very specific instance of the tension. So yesterday after the mass, okay, so... I am a Catholic. I believe that he, meaning Pope Leo, is actually the shepherd of 1.4 billion Catholics.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
So let me give you a couple examples. Let me answer the specific question first because I think they're basically the same answer, though different questions. One is while there have been some disruptions, what really has happened here is not an end to supporting people with fentanyl problems or an end to supporting humanitarian causes and people who are suffering from famine or HIV help.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
You know, HIV drugs in Africa or other places. What has really happened is a reorganization of a very complex bureaucracy. And I'm not saying there haven't been disruptions because there have been, but I've talked to Secretary Rubio about this actually a number of times just in the past two days. The goal here is to, one, make the spending a little bit more efficient.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
is two, to eliminate the graft that is built into the system. I mean, Marco's told me stories as he dug into this as one of his many jobs, you know, our Secretary of State.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Yes, the archivist. He's the USAID director. That some of the model in USAID was to subcontract, I mean, completely separate the crazy stuff like, you know, doing lesbian puppet shows in very conservative Christian societies. That's insane, but a more fundamental problem is a given NGO contracts to another NGO, which contracts to another NGO.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
This isn't true across the board, but some of these grants, they felt like they were getting 11-12 cents on the dollar that was actually making it to people. So if we eliminate most of that graft, we could actually save a little money while simultaneously ensuring better services for people. And that, I think, would be a win for the American taxpayer.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And so there are things like bowing before him, kissing the ring that are signs of respect for a spiritual father, okay? But on the world stage, I'm not there as J.D. Vance, a Catholic parishioner. I'm there as the vice president of the United States and the leader of the president's delegation to the pope's inaugural mass. And so, you know, it was interesting.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And of course, we care a lot about them, but would also be a win for a lot of poor populations across the world. And that's the same thing with Bobby Kennedy and HNHS. A lot of what we've done is, yes, about saving money, making government more efficient, but it's more fundamentally about bringing some of these bureaucracies within the control of the Secretary of State
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
as opposed to this random entity that's out there, or within the control of Bobby Kennedy, the secretary of HNHS, as opposed to this vast bureaucracy that's out there. Do I promise that everything is going to be perfect? No. But is our goal to radically cut the provision of mental health services for people who are dealing with fentanyl abuse? No, not at all.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
That's not what the president has said. Our goal is to make things more efficient, and importantly, to make it more subject to democratic control. And the general point, Let me frame this.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I guess my pitch to them would be, we came into the administration with what we believe was a mandate from the American people to make government more responsive to the elected will of the people and less responsive to bureaucratic intransigence. And changing that is not perfect. And I won't even say that we've gotten every decision right.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I think that sometimes even Elon has admitted, we made a mistake, we corrected the mistake. So the point is not that this is perfect. The point is that it was a necessary part of making the people's government more responsive to the people. And I think that if you look over the next, you know, in two years, you look at the past two years or in four years, you look at the past four years.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
What I hope to be able to say and what I think is true today and will still be true then is that we actually have done with some bumps. We've done a good job at making the government more responsive, at more efficient to the cabinet secretaries or the deputy secretaries in those departments.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And that this sort of feeling of shock, I don't dismiss it or diminish it, but I think that the system actually needed some pretty significant reform. And I'd ask people for patience because we're on the inside of this. You elected us to do a job and you get to make the judgment with the benefit of hindsight, whether we were just breaking stuff
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
or whether we were actually doing something in the service of fixing things. I promise you that I believe that we're fixing things, but ultimately the American people will be the judge of that.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Some of the protocols about how I respond to the Holy Father were much different than how I might respond to the Holy Father. You might respond to the Holy Father purely in your capacity as a citizen. And so that's just like one very concrete observation about the tensions.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Thank you.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
The protocol is that American presidents and vice presidents do not bow before foreign leaders do not kiss any rings. And obviously, given our history, you can appreciate that. So no sign of disrespect, but, you know, important to observe the protocols of the country that I love and that I'm representing and that I serve as vice president of the United States.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
But sort of that's an easy thing, right? This is more difficult, this question. And I think there are sort of three ways of thinking about it, and I tend to fall in the middle. Okay, so way number one, and you see some Catholics or some Christians say this, is to say, well, politics is politics, policy is policy, religion is religion, and...
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
you know, we wish the Pope all his best or we wish the church all its best in its moral teachings, but we got to focus on policy and these are two totally separate matters. But I think that that's wrong because it understates the way in which all of us are informed by our moral and religious values. So that's not the right way to do it.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I think another way to do it would be to say, I'm just going to do everything the Holy Father tells me to do. I think that would be
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Well, I want to be respectful, of course, of the private conversation we had. I mean, generally, we talked about issues the Vatan cares a lot about. Obviously, they care about the migration issue. They care a lot about world peace. They care a lot about what's happening in Russia, Ukraine. They care a lot about what's happening with Gaza and Israel. And so very productive conversation.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And I think that would be a violation of the U.S. Constitution. But certainly, I think just my obligation more broadly as a vice president to serve the American people, you've got to think about this stuff. But I think the way that I take it is, on the migration question in particular, you have to think about what they've said.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And when the church says, you know, yes, we respect the right of a country to enforce its borders. You also have to respect the rights of migrants, the dignity of migrants when you think about questions like deportation and so forth. And so you have to be able to hold two ideas in your head at the same time.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And I'm not saying I'm always perfect at it, but I at least try to think about, okay, there are obligations that we have to people who in some ways are fleeing violence or at least fleeing poverty. I also have a very sacred obligation, I think, to enforce the laws and to promote the common good of my own country, defined as the people with the legal right to be here.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
One issue in particular, I've talked to a lot of cardinals this weekend just because there are a lot of cardinals here in Rome. One of the arguments that I've made, very respectfully, I've had a lot of good respectful conversations, including with cardinals who very strongly disagree with my views on migration is that, You know, it's easy to get locked in sort of a left versus right.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
You know, the left respects the dignity of migrants. The right is motivated by hatred. I think far too many people, obviously that's not my view, but I think some liberal immigration advocates get locked in that view that the only reason why J.D. Vance wants to enforce the borders more stridently is because he's motivated by some kind of hatred or some kind of grievance.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And the point that I've tried to make is I think a lot about this question of social cohesion in the United States. I think about how do we form the kind of society, again, where people can raise families, where people join in institutions together, where what I think Burke would have called the mediating layers of society are actually healthy and vibrant.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
And I do think that those who care about what might be called the common good, they sometimes underweight how destructive to the common good immigration at the levels and at the pace that we've seen over the last few years. I really do think that social solidarity is destroyed when you have too much migration too quickly. And so that's not because I hate the migrants or I'm motivated by grievance.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
That's because I'm trying to preserve something in my own country where we are a unified nation. And I don't think that can happen if you have too much immigration too quickly.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I mean, amazing to me. As you know, I was one of the last world leaders to meet with Pope Francis on Easter Sunday before he passed away. I'm actually wearing the tie that he gave me Which is very cool. Let's see. Yes. Yeah. Very excited about it.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I think that's fair. It's more linear and more structured than what I just said, but I think it's pretty consistent with what I just said. It's not you follow commandments. It's also not that you just disregard these things or sort of say, oh, well, I know what this guy thinks, but I have to make a prudential judgment differently. I think it's
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
you make a prudential judgment informed very much by the church's teachings as reflected by these leaders. And by the way, you mentioned Joe Biden, two things on this. First of all, we just found out actually right before I was walking in here that apparently he's got some very serious health issues. So we wish the former president the best in his health.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
I also, to be candid, and this is going to sound like I'm beating up on him, I really don't know how much Joe Biden's late evolution on abortion was that thought out? I mean, far be it for me to defend Joe Biden, but I really think the more that we learn, the more that we see the policy of the Biden administration was driven much more by staff than it was by the elected president.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Yes. Yeah. On dark blue polka dots. But, you know, so it's been in the life of one person's faith who happens to be an American political leader. It's been really an amazing three, four weeks. And I'm sure I'll have some time to think about it and reflect on what it all means. But you're really just honored to be here and thrilled to be a part of it.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Well, I mean, one, not to pat ourselves on the back too much, but I do think the most important success is stopping the flow of illegal migration to begin with. And I think that the president has succeeded wildly on that. I agree. Greater than my expectations. I had high expectations, but we've done a very good job there. I think the president deserves a great deal of credit.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
You know, on the deportation question, so first is just a minor wonky point that kind of bothers me in the way this is reported in the media. Sometimes you will hear people say that deportations in the Trump administration are down relative to the Biden administration. That is, in fact, an artifact of the fact that the Biden border was effectively wide open.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
In other words, if somebody comes across the border illegally and you immediately turn them around or you you schedule a deportation hearing and say, hey, come back for your hearing, a lot of both of those would get counted as deportations. So you can have a lot of deportations when you have quite literally millions of people per year walking across the border.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
That's the low-hanging fruit in terms of deportation. So just a point of clarification there.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
That's right. Yeah, that's right. I mean, look, it's and I'm sure that New York Times listeners are going to be scandalized by by this line of argumentation. But I think it's really important that in some ways the deportation infrastructure that is developed in the United States is not adequate to the task, given what Joe Biden left us.
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
JD Vance on His Faith and Trump’s Most Controversial Policies
Now, there are different estimates here of how many illegal immigrants came in under the Biden administration. Was it 12 million? Was it 20 million immigrants? You know, it's hard to count this stuff because you have known gotaways, you have unknown gotaways, you have the people that we never even saw across the border. So there's a little bit of guesswork in all this.
PBD Podcast
White House COVID Bombshell & Nancy Mace's Daisy Dukes Fight | PBD Podcast | Ep. 579
You can pause it right there.
PBD Podcast
White House COVID Bombshell & Nancy Mace's Daisy Dukes Fight | PBD Podcast | Ep. 579
Or schools, specifically.
PBD Podcast
White House COVID Bombshell & Nancy Mace's Daisy Dukes Fight | PBD Podcast | Ep. 579
As many of you are aware, both of our governments are hard at work on a trade agreement built on shared priorities, like creating new jobs, building durable supply chains and achieving prosperity for our workers. In our meeting yesterday, Prime Minister Modi and I made very good progress on all of those points.
PBD Podcast
White House COVID Bombshell & Nancy Mace's Daisy Dukes Fight | PBD Podcast | Ep. 579
And we are especially excited to formally announce that America and India have officially finalized the terms of reference for the trade negotiation. I think this is a vital step. I believe this is a vital step toward realizing President Trump's and Prime Minister Modi's vision, because it sets a roadmap toward a final deal between our nations. As many of you are aware.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
If you're running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people.
Pod Save the World
Putin’s Wildest Dreams Come True
The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within. When I look at Europe today, it's sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War's winners.
Pod Save the World
Putin’s Wildest Dreams Come True
I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they've judged to be, quote, hateful content. If you're running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.
Pod Save the World
Putin’s Wildest Dreams Come True
Nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
What do you mean? I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end the destruction of your country. Mr. President, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
You should be thanking the President for trying to bring it into this conflict.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
I have been to come one. I have actually I've actually watched and seen the stories. And I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Do you disagree that you've had problems bringing people into your military? And do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Have you said thank you once? This entire meeting? No, in this entire meeting, have you said thank you? You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October. Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
I tell you. Say thank you. I said a lot of times. Except that there are disagreements and let's go litigate those disagreements rather than trying to fight it out in the American media when you're wrong. We know that you're wrong.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Turning Point's Inaugural Eve Ball — Toasts To Victory With JD Vance, Don Jr., + More
We went from the courthouse steps to the front lawn of the White House, everybody. I am so honored to be here, but we could never be here without... Where's Charlie? Don't even think you're getting away from this. Kirk! Kirk!
The Charlie Kirk Show
Turning Point's Inaugural Eve Ball — Toasts To Victory With JD Vance, Don Jr., + More
Charlie Kirk, Turning Point, your votes, our voices, but these two, Erica and Charlie, have been behind the president, his team, his lawyers, and everybody, and most importantly, God himself. So God bless all of you. Thank you for being here. We won! Look at who I'm here with. Look at who I'm here with. Hold on, Sergio.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Turning Point's Inaugural Eve Ball — Toasts To Victory With JD Vance, Don Jr., + More
I'm here with Sergio, who's literally any hire coming into the White House has to go through this guy, Judge Shanine, who's one of our strongest voices on TV. Don, he's okay. But God knows, I love you, Sergio. Say a few words.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Turning Point's Inaugural Eve Ball — Toasts To Victory With JD Vance, Don Jr., + More
Are you guys ready to make America great again? Yes! 12 hours, we take our country back! A big round of applause to Don, the whole family. Nobody has sacrificed more than the Trump family. And tomorrow, you're going to see incredible things happen. Over 100 executive orders. You are going to announce some amazing people. The great Carrie Lake is in the house.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Turning Point's Inaugural Eve Ball — Toasts To Victory With JD Vance, Don Jr., + More
She's going to clean up Voice of America. And very soon, we have a big announcement for another big hire. We can't mention names. The great Mike Lee is here. He's helping our nominees. And our great FBI director, who's going to clean house. Brandon Carr, our great chairman. And I'm going to hand off the mic to Janine before the village people come out, because what better intro?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Don't Disrespect Our Oval Office — Trump/Vance v. Zelenskyy
I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end the destruction of your country. Yes, but if you are not present with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Don't Disrespect Our Oval Office — Trump/Vance v. Zelenskyy
You should be thanking the President for trying to bring an end to this conflict.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Don't Disrespect Our Oval Office — Trump/Vance v. Zelenskyy
I have actually watched and seen the stories, and I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President. Do you disagree that you've had problems? bringing people into your military?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Don't Disrespect Our Oval Office — Trump/Vance v. Zelenskyy
And do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Don't Disrespect Our Oval Office — Trump/Vance v. Zelenskyy
I said a lot of times, thank you, to American people. Except that there are disagreements, and let's go litigate those disagreements rather than trying to fight it out in the American media when you're wrong. We know that you're wrong.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Don't Disrespect Our Oval Office — Trump/Vance v. Zelenskyy
Have you said thank you once?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Don't Disrespect Our Oval Office — Trump/Vance v. Zelenskyy
You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October. Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who's trying to save your country.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Don't Disrespect Our Oval Office — Trump/Vance v. Zelenskyy
President Trump. handled it in a fashion that if i'm china i'm iran i'm any would-be adversary i'd be worried about right now he gave a master class and how to stand up for america okay so what we saw wasn't exactly the clip we wanted but it's a good clip and lindsey graham is is out there defending president trump quickly alex what do you make of uh senator graham's uh tone there
The Charlie Kirk Show
Don't Disrespect Our Oval Office — Trump/Vance v. Zelenskyy
This is a missed opportunity. And the question for me, for the Ukrainian people, I don't know if Zelensky can ever get you to where you want to go with the United States. Either he dramatically changes or you need to get somebody new.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Don't Disrespect Our Oval Office — Trump/Vance v. Zelenskyy
She's asking what if Russia breaks the ceasefire?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Billionaires Intervene in Wisconsin Supreme Court Race | Bill Murray
Hey, guys, it's Shady Vance, the vice president. And you know, there was so much excitement around Usha's visit to Greenland this Friday that I decided that I didn't want her to have all that fun by herself. And so I'm going to join her.
The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1538 - CBS Claims That Free Speech Caused The Holocaust
The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.
The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1538 - CBS Claims That Free Speech Caused The Holocaust
Now, I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don't go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too. Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears.
The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1538 - CBS Claims That Free Speech Caused The Holocaust
For years, we've been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy. A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith Connor
The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1538 - CBS Claims That Free Speech Caused The Holocaust
a 51-year-old physiotherapist and an Army veteran with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes. Not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own.
The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1538 - CBS Claims That Free Speech Caused The Holocaust
This last October, just a few months ago, the Scottish government began distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones. warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law. Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There's no room for firewalls.
The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1538 - CBS Claims That Free Speech Caused The Holocaust
You either uphold the principle or you don't.
The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1523 - Trump Teaches Colombia A Hard Lesson
Well, Margaret, I don't agree that all these immigrants or all these refugees have been properly vetted. In fact, we know that there are cases of people who allegedly were properly vetted and then were literally planning terrorist attacks on our country. That happened during the campaign, if you may remember. So clearly not all of these foreign nationals have been properly vetted.
The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1523 - Trump Teaches Colombia A Hard Lesson
No, but there are 30,000 people in the pipeline. Afghan refugees.
The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1523 - Trump Teaches Colombia A Hard Lesson
But my primary concern as the vice president, Margaret, is to look after the American people. And now that we know that we have vetting problems with a lot of these refugee programs, we absolutely cannot unleash thousands of unvetted people into our country. It's not good.
The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1523 - Trump Teaches Colombia A Hard Lesson
Just like the guy who played a terrorist attack in Oklahoma a few months ago, he was allegedly properly vetted. And many people in the media and the Democratic Party said that he was properly vetted. Clearly he wasn't. I don't want my children to share a neighborhood with people who are not properly vetted.
The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1523 - Trump Teaches Colombia A Hard Lesson
And because I don't want it for my kids, I'm not gonna force any other American citizens kids to do that either.
The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1523 - Trump Teaches Colombia A Hard Lesson
No, and that was a very particular case. It wasn't clear if he was radicalized when he got here or while he was living here.
The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1523 - Trump Teaches Colombia A Hard Lesson
I don't really care, Margaret. I don't want that person in my country. And I think most Americans agree with me.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Host "Humiliated" After Settlement, and Trump's Victory Ending the Cancel Era, with Adam Carolla and Justine Bateman | Ep. 968
President Trump was actually in Aurora, Colorado, talking to people on the ground. And what we're hearing, of course, Martha, is that people are terrified by what has happened with some of these Venezuelan gangs.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Host "Humiliated" After Settlement, and Trump's Victory Ending the Cancel Era, with Adam Carolla and Justine Bateman | Ep. 968
Only, Martha, do you hear yourself? Only a handful of apartment complexes in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs. And Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris's open border. Americans are so fed up with what's going on and they have every right to be. And I
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Host "Humiliated" After Settlement, and Trump's Victory Ending the Cancel Era, with Adam Carolla and Justine Bateman | Ep. 968
I really find this exchange, Martha, sort of interesting because you seem to be more focused with nitpicking everything that Donald Trump has said, rather than acknowledging that apartment complexes in the United States of America are being taken over by violent gangs.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Power of Trump 2.0, Why Elon and DOGE are Working, and Independent Media's Impact, with Jason Calacanis and Chamath Palihapitiya of All-In | Ep. 1008
I've heard a lot about what you need to defend yourselves from, and of course that's important. But what has seemed a little bit less clear to me, and certainly I think to many of the citizens of Europe, is what exactly it is that you're defending yourselves for. What is the positive vision that animates this shared security compact that we all believe is so important?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Power of Trump 2.0, Why Elon and DOGE are Working, and Independent Media's Impact, with Jason Calacanis and Chamath Palihapitiya of All-In | Ep. 1008
And I believe deeply that there is no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions, and the conscience that guide your very own people. Europe faces many challenges, but the crisis this continent faces right now, the crisis I believe we all face together, is one of our own making. If you're running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Power of Trump 2.0, Why Elon and DOGE are Working, and Independent Media's Impact, with Jason Calacanis and Chamath Palihapitiya of All-In | Ep. 1008
Nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Power of Trump 2.0, Why Elon and DOGE are Working, and Independent Media's Impact, with Jason Calacanis and Chamath Palihapitiya of All-In | Ep. 1008
and expressing opinions isn't election interference, even when people express views outside your own country and even when those people are very influential. And trust me, I say this with all humor, if American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk. What no democracy, American, German, or European, will survive
The Megyn Kelly Show
Power of Trump 2.0, Why Elon and DOGE are Working, and Independent Media's Impact, with Jason Calacanis and Chamath Palihapitiya of All-In | Ep. 1008
is telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas for relief are invalid or unworthy of even being considered.
WSJ What’s News
Growing Debt, Tariffs Weigh on U.S. Outlook
And you know, there was so much excitement around Usha's visit to Greenland this Friday that I decided that I didn't want her to have all that fun by herself, and so I'm going to join her.
WSJ What’s News
Growing Debt, Tariffs Weigh on U.S. Outlook
We want to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it's important to protecting the security of the entire world.