Mr. Vice President, thank you so much for sitting down with me.
Of course. It is good to see you.
You, too. We all know you originally from a memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy."
Sure.
And in that memoir, in the introduction you wrote, "I'm 31 years old, and I have accomplished nothing great in my life. I'm not a senator, governor or former Cabinet secretary." So what would Vice President J.D. Vance say to that 31-year-old J.D. Vance, having done all the things you now have?
I don't know. I guess I'd say, man, it's been a hell of a ride the last 10 years, because I just turned 41, so it's been almost exactly 10 years since the book came out. And it really -- the book was such a great blessing to me, because it introduced me to all of these people. And really, I think without the book, I probably wouldn't be sitting here today.
But, you know, I guess what I wish I could go back and tell my 31-year-old self is, you know, just, just enjoy the ride, because it really has been an incredible journey these last 10 years. We've had three kids since that time, and I became a Senator, I became a Vice President. Obviously, got to get a really front seat to some of the incredible things that your father-in-law is doing and has been doing over the past seven months.
So it's amazing, and I have enjoyed the ride, but I might go back and tell myself, enjoy it a little bit more, because you never know what's going to happen.
Yes, well, you're proof of that for sure, right? I know it's amazing. You know, in the book, you talk about the tremendous adversity that you faced, you in so many ways, are the epitome of the American Dream and what's possible in this country. So in those moments, in those times when it really felt probably impossible and you weren't sure what the way out would look like, how did you keep going?
What was it that ultimately inspired you?
Yes, well, I appreciate you saying that. If I could go back and ask myself, what's different about me now versus the 31-year-old who wrote it, is I was probably a little bit more resentful when I was 31 years old. I sort of looked at the way that I grew up, you know, I went to Yale Law School, and I didn't have the same advantages that other people had, and there was probably a little bit of that like victim mentality, that had seeped in even to my 31-year-old self.
And now I look at it as such a blessing, because it gave me such a different perspective on, you know, adversity. It gave me an understanding of people who are struggling so, I really do think it's such an incredible blessing, and I never take this for granted, right? When I sit in the Oval Office with the President of the United States and we're on a call with some foreign leader, I constantly remind myself I wasn't supposed to be here.
I'm here by the grace of God and a lot of really good relatives, people who stuck by me, and you ask, how did I get through it? I think that the one thing that really helped me, I'll say two things. First of all, I was always a person of very strong faith, and I was raised by a grandmother who we didn't go to church a whole lot, but she prayed every day, she read the Bible every day, and she gave me this sense that there was some purpose to this.
We might not understand it, God works in mysterious ways, but there was some deeper meaning to what we were experiencing, and that gave me the perseverance to go through it, but also just this feeling of gratitude. When I thought about my Grandma, who should have been enjoying her golden years, retiring, taking things easy, but she was taking care of me, she was dealing with the various addictions and problems that were going on with her kids, I just remember thinking, even when I was a little kid, Mamaw is -- she makes it possible, like she's the person who puts food on the table.
She's the person who puts clothes on my back. And it's one of the great blessings that I had enough insight even as a teenager to recognize that I owed this person a lot. And I think that feeling of gratitude is probably one of the great gifts that I had growing up, the recognition that I needed her, that I relied on her, and that without her, I wouldn't have been anywhere -- and that's the one thing when I meet kids who suffer from adversity, who have tough homes, sometimes, like a lot of times, much tougher lives than I had, I always remind them try to feel gratitude, because even if you're in the toughest possible circumstance, there is somebody in your life that is going that extra mile, if you feel gratitude towards them, rather than resentment at all the people who didn't give you what they were supposed to give you, I think that makes it much easier to get through the day.
Was there one specific moment like, can you go back and identify any moment where you said, you know what, I'm going to choose this direction. I'm going to choose to pursue something greater than, rather than kind of, you know, a victim mentality of sorts.
Sure. It definitely built slowly over time, but it was definitely in high school where, you know, my grandmother would talk a lot. She was very sick. And there was this recognition that if Mamaw was the person who kind of held the family together, when she was gone, that was going to have to be somebody, like somebody was going to have to step up, somebody was going to have to be the person who took care of people.
And I kind of wanted that person to be me. I wanted to be the person my family, that other people could rely on, that other people could pick up the phone and say, hey, I need your help. Can you help me? And that was a very powerful motivator, just this recognition that, you know, I was transitioning from being a person that relied on Mamaw to being the kind of person who other people can rely on, and wanting to be that kind of guy was a very powerful motivating force for me.
And I know you credit the Marine Corps with giving you purpose and discipline.
Sure.
I imagine you still, in this big role you have here in Washington, D.C., are using what you learned in the Marine Corps --
Of course.
-- right here today as Vice President.
Yes, that's right. Well, in ways big and small, actually, it would not have shocked me if I had learned, after knowing him, that your father- in-law had been in the Marine Corps because, of course, he didn't serve in the Marines, but he has a very Marine Corps style of leadership, where he is very willing to delegate and he trusts certain people and when he trusts those people, he's willing to give them a task and say, go and do it, come back to me and report in a week.
Whether you're a Lance Corporal or you're the Commandant of the Marine Corps, everybody has a few people that report to them. Everybody has a critical task that they have to do, and everybody is a critical part of that chain that connects us from the lowest of the low to the highest of the high. And I think that it's funny, because the President really does have this attitude of, I'm going to surround myself with good people, I'm going to give clear directives, I'm going to check in certainly, but I'm going to let my people go and do what I tell them to do and what I encourage them to do, and that sort of, I wouldn't call it a hands off leadership style, but a leadership style that trusts the people around you very much is something I learned from the Marine Corps.
And I think the greatest leaders that I've served under, that I've served with, they all have this ability to set clear guidelines, to inspire people, but also to trust people. And I think it's very hard to inspire people if you don't trust them. That's that sort of two sides of the same coin I learned that with the Marines.
They say, beside every great man, is a great woman.
Of course.
And I think that would apply very much to our Second Lady, to your wife, Usha.
Yes, absolutely.
So many people look up to her. I think she is really incredible. So tell us about her as a wife, as a mom, as our Second Lady of the United States, and how all of this has been for her.
Yes, so it's funny, I think she's hitting her stride a little bit because she's finding some projects that she's getting involved in. She's been very involved at the Kennedy Center. She just really cares about child literacy, and so she just sort of came off the summer reading push that she's been doing for kids all across America.
So she's really starting to enjoy it. But it's interesting, you know, Usha is, is like such -- she really is kind of the anchor in our family. And you know, when people ask, like, what? What is it that makes you tick and what is it that makes her tick? So it's funny, I'm the more emotional one, right? I'm the one who gets fired up and super passionate about things.
She's the person who's always a very even keel. So on the campaign trail, when I would read something that would get me pissed off, or, like, I can't believe they said this about the President, like it's totally fake. I can't believe they said this about me, she was always the person who was sort of even keel.
She doesn't get too high, doesn't get too low. She really doesn't like politics. I mean, as much as I think she shined, and a lot of people do look up to her, she never wanted this. She loves the policy side of it, she loves the job that I'm doing, but she really could do without the campaigning and without the media interviews and the fake stories and all that stuff, right?
So that's one thing that's very true about her. But the attitude that she's had coming into it, obviously, I appreciate it, as the father of our kids is, this is really weird for the kids. This is really weird for the whole family unit. You know, we're now surrounded by Secret Service. We live in the Vice President's residence, which is amazing, by the way.
And her main job, more than anything else, is just to make the kids have as normal a life as possible. She makes us do normal family stuff as much as possible. So, you know, we were in California a couple of months ago for a fundraiser for the RNC, and she was like, well, we're going to be right next to Disneyland.
Let's take the kids to Disneyland. Or, you know, there's a coffee shop, there's a bakery in our home in Cincinnati that we really love and she's always like, no, no, don't send somebody out to get it, let's go as a family so the kids get to experience this thing, this ritual of our family that we really loved before politics, and they should continue to enjoy it afterwards.
And that's how we make this, you know, tolerable for the kids. And that's how we make sure that after four years of being Vice President, the kids, you know, are still -- they still know how to, like, live a normal life. Like I don't want them to get used to this, she doesn't either, and she really pushes the family to do as much family stuff as possible and I really appreciate that.
Believe me, I can relate to that, too.
Of course, you can, yes.
We try to do the same thing. But I think it's been very refreshing, very charming, honestly, for so many people to get a little bit of insight into your family, to see you out there with your kids all the time.
I appreciate that. You know, people think that it's more intentional sometimes than it is. So the first big international trip that I did, the President asked me to go and speak at this A.I. conference in Paris, and then the Munich Security Conference, and we decided to take the kids. We're going to be gone for five or six days, so might as well take the kids with us. And, you know, we land in Paris and there's this, like, kind of, what's become a famous photo of the kids in their pajamas, and they're all getting off the plane in their pajamas, and everybody's like, oh, look, you know the Vances are, you know, they're letting the kids be kids, and we really appreciate that.
The reality is that we have these fancy outfits picked out for them. They were on the plane. And anybody who has ever traveled internationally with kids knows they were completely zonked out. You have the French Foreign Minister waiting on the tarmac for us. It's cold outside, and we're like, it's going to take us 45 minutes to wake these kids up and get them off the plane if we have to dress them, so let's just put them out there in their pajamas.
So sometimes it's just, you know, again, Usha is very good at this. Just like, let the kids be kids. We will deal with the consequences, and we'll just have as normal of a family life as we can, of course, within the confines of being Vice President.
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There's so much to talk about with this administration. You know, you could argue that already you have been the Vice President for the most consequential administration in American history. So give people a little bit of insight to how it is to work with President Donald Trump? What's been the most surprising part of being his Vice President for you?
There's so many surprising things. I mean, I would say the most surprising thing, because obviously the President I were close before I became the nominee, but the campaign was actually more parallel tracks, and I was doing my thing and he was doing his thing, and that's the nature of the beast, right? Because if he's going to be a fundraiser, why not have me at a different fundraiser, as opposed to the same one, or if I'm going to speak to a crowd in Michigan, he's going to be speaking to a crowd in Wisconsin, right?
You divide and conquer. And so even though we were doing this together, it felt a little bit more like parallel tracks. And so one thing I've learned just working with him, like every day, is he doesn't have an off switch, like sometimes the President will call you at 12:30 or at two in the morning, and they'll call you at six in the morning about a totally different topic, like, Mr. President, did you go to sleep last night?
Like, what is going on here? And, you know, and so, that's been one surprise. I think the second -- I don't know if I'd call it a surprise, but certainly something that I've learned is a little bit related to what I said earlier, he really does empower his people to do things right, and that that's -- the Vice President's the weirdest role in the government, because the President is clearly defined.
The Cabinet secretaries are clearly defined. You know, House and Senate members, the Vice President is very much at the discretion of the President. Like, if the President wants to empower the Vice President, he can do that. If the President wants to, like, not talk to the Vice President at all, he could do that.
And what the President -- what's made this so much fun is the President all the time is just saying, J.D., you go and do this? Or, J.D., you go and talk to these leaders about this particular issue, or, oh, you really care about this? No, no, you can do it. I'm not -- you don't have to have me looking over you all the time.
And there is this trust. You see it with the President and Secretary Rubio. You see it with the President and Susie Wiles, with Steve Witkoff, our Special Envoy who's done such a good job, is he's very willing to say, this is what I want done, you go and do it. Report back or ask me for help if you need it. But that ability to delegate and trust his people has been really amazing.
And the last thing I'd say, it's not so much a surprise about the President, but certainly maybe a surprise about the administration as a whole, is, you know, the first administration, what the President says is there -- he had some people around him, he just didn't trust, right? And he had never done this before, like he had never even -- the first person who had never served in the military or been a previous politician, he just completely came from this super successful business career into the President of the United States, and this second administration, we just trust each other, and I think that it's made us so effective and so cohesive, because we just are able to divide and conquer a little bit when you actually trust the team and obviously trust the man in charge.
Everyone is talking already about the midterms.
Yes.
Give me your take on the Democrats, where we are overall with the midterms, and as we head towards 2028 some of the people that the Democrats have potentially floated, yes, we've got to laugh at it, Mr. Vice President, as you know, potential nominees for Democrats running for President, what do you think?
Sure. Well, I just -- I don't think much of the modern Democratic Party. Obviously, I'm biased, but I just, I look at these guys, I think some of them are trying to actually mimic President Trump. You can't mimic his style. He just is who he is. I think a lot of them obviously have very bad records. So I just, I don't think that much about the Democrats who people say are going to run in 2028 and I'm sure they're going to be people completely from out of the blue.
So my attitude is, let's focus on the job that we've got and the politics will take care of itself. You know, 2026, it is -- I'll give you good news, bad news, right? I think the good news is we've accomplished a lot. The President's approval numbers are very strong. People are happy with what Republicans are doing.
I mean, we inherited a mess, the largest peacetime debt in the history of the United States of America, a real inflation crisis; of course, the wide open southern border. We've done a lot in seven months. But look, there's a lot of additional work to do. That's one of the reasons why we have these four-year terms is to do as much as we possibly can.
That's the good news, and I think the American people reward you politically when you run on something and you actually do that something. Now here's the bad news, Lara, the bad news is, you know, a great political mind, one of the President's pollsters once told me that anger usually wins midterm elections, and because we've done so much what we said that we were going to do -- people are angry.
They look at the President, they look at the administration, and they're happy with what we're doing. Meanwhile, you've got like, the far left fanatics who, I mean, the President's political genius is he's encouraged the far left now to come out in defense of violent crime in our big cities, but say what you will about them, they are very angry right now, and they're very motivated.
And so I would encourage all Republicans and everybody, whether you're Republican, Democrat or Independent, who thinks that we're doing a good job, you've got to remember to get out there and vote in 2026. Yes, it's -- you know, people say it's not as important as a presidential election, but it is very, very important and if you want to give the government over to people who are defending murderers on the streets of D.C., then don't vote.
But if you actually want to continue to secure the southern border and combat this inflation problem, you've got to get out there and vote and give us that ability to continue accomplishing great things for the American people. But that's the thing, I worry a little bit too much we're resting on our laurels, not the President, not the administration, but a lot of Republicans are just, we're happy with what's going on. We've got to remember that if we want to stay happy, we've got to get out there and vote in the midterms in 2026.
As the former co-chair of the RNC, I appreciate that message, and I will agree with that message wholeheartedly. Final question for you, you know, it's so great to see that on the Republican side of the aisle, we seem to have great people. We have a deep bench.
We do.
We have awesome people who could, at any moment, you know, run for President.
Yes.
At the top of the list for 2028 you know what I'm going to ask you, Mr. Vice President, is the name J.D. Vance. A lot of people think that you will be running for President in 2028. Can we expect that?
I just think that -- I don't like thinking about it, because I like thinking about the job that I have right now, and if we do a good job in 2025 and 2026, then we can talk about the politics in 2027, but I really think the American people are so fed up with folks who are already running for the next job, seven months into the current one.
There are a lot of great people. I think if I do end up running, it's not going to be given to me, either on the Republican side or on the national side, so I'm just going to keep on working hard. I think this is the most important job that I've ever had. It may be the most important job I ever have, outside of being a father to those three beautiful kids.
So I'm going to try to do my best job, and I think if I do that, the politics will figure itself out.