0:00

We have some upcoming tour dates

0:02

there in Colorado Springs in Colorado

0:05

Casper Wyoming Billings,

0:08

Montana and Missoula, Montana Bloomington,

0:11

Indiana Columbus,

0:13

Ohio Champaign, Illinois over there and

0:16

a fighting a line I area

0:19

Grand Rapids, Michigan Lafayette,

0:21

Louisiana and Beaumont, Texas

0:25

You can get all your tickets at

0:27

the oven calm slash t o u

0:29

You are and thank you so much

0:31

for the support. I Want

0:34

to start by saying that we have

0:36

reached out to governor walls and vice

0:38

president Harris And we would

0:40

love to have them in studio

0:43

as well Today's

0:45

guest is a senator from the

0:47

state of Ohio He's

0:50

currently on the Republican ticket

0:52

for vice president He's

0:55

a Yale graduate. He's a Marine

0:58

He's an author. He wrote the

1:00

book hillbilly elegy I've read

1:02

about half of it and I'm

1:05

really grateful to spend time with him today to

1:07

discuss some issues and get to know

1:10

him today's guest is mr. JD Vance

1:28

But Then

1:31

it starts to become more interesting like the

1:33

last woman we had on like trains cats

1:35

around the country really with a traveling Cat

1:37

circus. Yeah, pretty that's who you're following up,

1:39

you know This

1:42

is way more interesting than a politician man, it's

1:45

just so you know where you are, you know Mr.

1:48

Vance and the call me please call me JD.

1:50

All right. Yeah, just so you know where you

1:52

are JD and the existence

1:54

of things JD

1:56

Vance, thanks for coming in today, man. Yeah, man. It's good to

1:59

be here. I really appreciate I just went

2:01

to, oh I just went to Lambeau

2:03

Field the other day you've been there? I

2:05

don't think I ever had been to Lambeau Field, but I think

2:07

I'm going to Lambeau Field tomorrow. Nuh uh. Yeah,

2:10

yeah. I'm pretty sure, I mean running for Vice

2:12

President, you never know where you are day to day, but I'm

2:16

pretty sure we're going to the Packers game tomorrow. Wow.

2:18

Yeah. Dude it was so. Did you have fun?

2:21

It's amazing, yeah. We just went,

2:23

I had a show there the night on a

2:25

Saturday night last Saturday, so we just got to

2:27

go do a tour. Okay. But yeah,

2:29

it's just so wild, you drive into

2:31

this, you know it's a small

2:33

city. Yeah. And you're like, wait

2:35

there's an NFL team here? It doesn't make

2:38

sense really. Yeah, like the NFL team in

2:40

some ways, right? I mean the Packers are

2:42

so popular, but no I'm looking

2:44

forward to going. I mean it's kind of like

2:46

a political rite of passage, because

2:48

like I have a guy served

2:50

with the Senate, Ron Johnson, really good dude.

2:52

He's a Senator? He's a Senator. From

2:55

Wisconsin. From Wisconsin. And he's just talking about like you

2:57

know, you

2:59

do the tailgate thing at Lambeau Field, if you're

3:01

running for office in Wisconsin. And Wisconsin's like a

3:03

big battleground state. So I'm gonna go and check

3:05

it out. We're bringing our kids with

3:07

us actually, which I don't know what we're gonna do with our

3:09

kids, because they're seven, four, and two. I don't

3:11

think they're gonna be that into a tailgate. Filling with cheese,

3:14

dude. You know

3:16

what I'm saying? So maybe my wife will take them

3:18

somewhere and I'll go like have fun at the tailgate,

3:20

but I'm looking forward to it. Because I'm a pretty

3:22

big football fan. Lambeau Field is like, you know. Oh

3:25

yeah, when we saw it. It's a big deal. I didn't know

3:27

what to do when we saw it. I

3:29

didn't know, yeah, like and there was some kids were

3:31

crying and stuff. And the parents

3:33

were like kind of wiping their cheeks with cheese or

3:35

whatever. But it was like,

3:38

yeah, it was really interesting. But it- Wait,

3:41

were they crying? Yeah, they

3:43

were crying. I, so, are

3:46

you a big football guy? Yeah. Okay,

3:48

so. I'm a big college football guy. Yeah, I'm more

3:50

of a college football guy, but I like both. So

3:53

I'm an Ohio State guy. I went to Ohio State. Born

3:56

and raised in Ohio. But

3:58

there's- Like the

4:00

Ohio State Michigan rivalry is one of the big

4:02

rivalries, and this happens of course after the election.

4:06

So I'm hoping to go to the game, but

4:08

you talk about like a kid crying in a football

4:10

field. This reminds me of a story. It

4:12

was like one of my dear friends, and he's like

4:15

otherwise a nice guy, but Ohio State

4:17

Michigan just turns into a total animal. So

4:21

this is 2006. Who is he, the

4:23

senator you're talking about? No, no, no, it's a totally different guy.

4:25

This is a good buddy I've known since I was like five

4:27

years old. Just a guy back home. We go to the Ohio

4:29

State Michigan game. We're number

4:31

one, they're number two. I think we

4:33

win that game like 42, 39. It's

4:35

a very, very tight game. I don't remember the exact score. And

4:38

we're leaving and there's this family, and

4:41

this kid is like, it's

4:43

a family of Michigan fans, and this

4:45

kid is crying. And you

4:47

know, my buddy goes up to him, and he, you know,

4:49

I'm like, oh, you know, Bill's gonna be like sweet to

4:51

this family, like welcome to Ohio, glad you guys come to

4:53

the game. Sorry, didn't work out. And

4:56

my buddy goes, are you

4:58

sad that Michigan lost? And the little boy goes, yeah. And

5:00

he says, well, maybe next time you won't root for a

5:02

team that sucks. And

5:05

I was like, oh shit, Bill. We

5:07

just trying to be nicer to the new car. But

5:11

then like, you realize that's actually. Wow,

5:13

that's not a concierge. No, no. But

5:16

that's why Ohio State Michigan hate each other,

5:18

right? Because that kid was probably nine years old. So

5:20

this is 2006. I mean, he's,

5:22

I don't know, close to 25 now. He

5:26

probably still remembers that asshole from

5:28

Ohio State. He was crying after

5:31

a game. And like, that's what makes the

5:33

rivalry. And now that kid

5:35

is Tom Brady. That's right, exactly. That's

5:37

how it gets funny. Oh dude, I remember the

5:39

craziest thing I ever saw was there

5:42

was a Mexican father and son

5:45

balling crying when the rock came back

5:47

one night at WWE. Yeah. Standing

5:50

there together, same

5:52

height, balling crying. They

5:56

both had belts on and it was

5:58

like, yeah. Yeah. I mean, those. It's

6:00

like the little rituals that actually make

6:03

life worth it, man. But

6:05

definitely, I mean, like my son, he's

6:07

seven now, but I took him to the Ohio

6:09

State Michigan game. I think the

6:12

last, I took him to the game

6:14

last year, but then we watch it, even when

6:16

he's like four years old. And

6:19

Michigan has beat Ohio State the last

6:21

three years. And so it's just like,

6:24

the first time I ever saw my kid cry over

6:26

sports event was last year at the Ohio State Michigan

6:28

game. When they beat him? When

6:30

Michigan beat Ohio State, yeah. Oh, when

6:32

you cry when your team wins, that

6:34

means something is probably, you

6:36

have parenting issues in your home after that. You

6:38

know? That's right. That's definitely right.

6:40

That's definitely right. But I mean, it's like,

6:42

I mean, Ohio State just lost a word

6:44

in a couple, you know, like a week

6:46

ago, I guess. And you sort of realize,

6:49

like I get so much joy out of watching

6:51

sports and like taking my son to the Ohio

6:53

State Michigan games, like one of the coolest moments

6:55

of my life as a father. But then it

6:57

almost always ends in a heartbreak. Yeah. Right,

7:00

because only one team actually wins the championship. And

7:02

I sometimes wonder like, why

7:04

don't we put ourselves through this? It's so true

7:07

that such that it is, yeah,

7:09

at a certain point, the odds are you're

7:11

gonna face not feeling great. Yeah, absolutely. That

7:13

it's gonna end. Right, yeah. I mean, like,

7:15

I guess the one team in my lifetime,

7:18

like the Bulls in the 90s, Chicago Bulls

7:20

in the 90s, and

7:22

the Patriots when they had the Brady Belichick

7:25

run, most of the time you're

7:27

actually happy if you're a fan of that team. But

7:29

I mean, like, I'm a Bengals fan in

7:32

pro sports. And like they made the Super

7:34

Bowl a few years ago, and it was

7:37

so cool. Yeah, I remember that against 49ers. Was

7:40

it against 49ers? It's

7:42

funny, I don't even remember who they were playing against, but

7:44

I remember they lost at the very end. It was a

7:46

very close game. We almost put it off. But then it's

7:48

like all the joy turned into

7:50

complete sadness. Like I'm a grown

7:52

man on the verge of tears

7:54

because a fucking sports team that

7:57

I root for lost a game.

8:00

to wake up, man. I think, I wonder what it

8:02

is. Maybe it's just like. Sorry, I have to stop

8:04

saying the F word or. No, it's okay, dude. Make

8:06

sure people still vote for me. If I, too many

8:08

F bombs, I'm gonna lose too many votes. So I'll

8:10

try to tone it down. Okay. Yeah,

8:12

if you say more than seven or eight,

8:14

I'll tap you on the shoulder. Thank you,

8:16

I appreciate it. Dude, oh, actually

8:19

my ribs, dude, I've been on like

8:21

almost like just on bed rest the past

8:24

like eight days because I was

8:26

at the Vanderbilt game when they

8:29

beat Alabama two

8:31

weeks ago. That was a big one. And some

8:33

guy, I don't even know him.

8:35

I got a little bit of a look at him and

8:39

he squeezed me so hard. He kept

8:41

squeezing me and I was like, don't squeeze

8:43

me anymore. And then he squeezed

8:45

me even more. And

8:47

you can hear. Was it a happy squeeze

8:49

or? You can hear my ribs, like, dude,

8:51

they really. Like the oxygen leaving your lungs.

8:53

Yeah. Please don't go, that's all.

8:56

Fates, I love you. Ribs that had never

8:58

been away from me, like they were leaving

9:00

home for the first time. Wait, but was

9:02

he squeezing you because he was happy? He

9:04

was happy. Okay, so this wasn't like a.

9:06

So I was smiling, dude. My smile hit,

9:08

I mean, the more he squeezed my, the

9:10

edges of my smile, you could hear him

9:12

ding against my earlobes. Yeah, I mean. He

9:14

squeezed me as much as somebody could be

9:16

squeezed. His wife is not doing well if that guy has

9:18

a wife. I'll tell you that. Because

9:20

that, anyway, my ribs, I've been having an ice,

9:22

dude, it's been. It's been miserable. It's like I

9:25

actually cracked a rib. I mean, it's so. It

9:27

sucked, but it was awesome. But it's like, yeah,

9:29

the pain you go through to

9:31

be associated with it. Yeah, I mean, look, my,

9:33

so, like

9:36

I've only been to the game in Ann Arbor

9:39

once. And, you know, Ohio

9:41

State fans again. Oh, is it weird going

9:43

up in that territory? People throwing beer bottles

9:45

at us, sometimes full beer cans at us.

9:47

I had some kid run up. He was like a 19

9:50

year old kid, run up from behind

9:52

me. And it had been raining a lot that

9:54

day. And he had like, like he'd taken a

9:56

chunk of mud out of the ground and shoved

9:58

it in my mouth. I mean this

10:00

again, this is like what the sports rival years are

10:03

built around is moments like this but we

10:06

We had I guess won four years in a

10:08

row reforestation is yeah But

10:13

man we won four years in a row and this

10:15

this girl she's like, you know 22 years old

10:19

She gets in my buddy's face and she

10:21

said this is my senior year You ruined

10:23

my college career because you guys beat us

10:25

four years in a row and then she

10:28

takes a swing at him And a cop

10:30

tackles this 22 year old girl down the

10:32

bleachers. Yeah, and I'm just you know, like

10:34

man again Yeah, people get

10:37

injured people injured and waiting events. It's crazy.

10:39

Oh, yeah I thought that for a second

10:41

that we were describing a wedding in Appalachia.

10:43

That's what I thought for a second So

10:45

we've had we've had we've had we've had

10:47

some of those We

10:52

had Billy strings and he's a guy who does a lot

10:54

of Picking he does like

10:56

a lot of guitar pills. Okay. He

10:58

talked a lot about his environment where he grew up He

11:00

grew up in like his area

11:03

had a lot of addiction in and stuff like that.

11:05

What part of West Virginia easy from um, oh There's

11:08

this guy. He's your blancin mission. Okay, he

11:10

grew up. I grew up in

11:12

Kentucky I'm really well, but a lot of people this

11:14

is like the story of my life a lot of

11:16

people from Michigan, Ohio Pennsylvania

11:19

their families are all from West Virginia East

11:21

Kentucky to East Tennessee and then they moved

11:23

up for the factory jobs Oh,

11:26

yeah like there's a really cool song by

11:28

Dwight Yoko called a reading write in route

11:30

23 and it's like in some

11:32

ways it's like the story of my family because

11:35

he came from like two counties over

11:37

he moved to Central Ohio instead of

11:39

Southern Ohio, but I mean,

11:41

it's like millions of people the massive massive thing

11:43

So I wouldn't be surprised even that guy's from

11:45

Michigan if he's got like West Virginia family I

11:47

don't know that guy though. Yeah, Billy strings. He's

11:49

great He's a new guy too, and he'll take

11:51

you fishing if you want to go but he

11:53

um He just

11:55

has a fascinating story of just like growing

11:57

up and what his life was like and

12:00

playing music through it all and learning music

12:02

and how that kind of

12:04

kept him going and gave him something to

12:06

do really. Yeah, why

12:08

was that migration? Why did people migrate from

12:10

there to? Yeah,

12:12

it was, I mean, at least, the

12:15

biggest thing is you think about it, so World War

12:17

II ends, right? America's the biggest

12:19

industrial power in the world. And

12:21

a lot of these factories are coming online

12:23

close to where they had access

12:26

to waterways because you got a ship, iron

12:28

ore and coal and all that stuff. So

12:30

a lot of stuff around the Great Lakes,

12:32

that's Michigan, Ohio, a lot

12:35

of coal in Pennsylvania. And so

12:37

you had all these steel mills

12:39

and textile factories and

12:41

like automobile plants, of course, in

12:43

Michigan, and all this stuff is

12:45

getting built. And then it's

12:47

actually, what's interesting about it is you

12:50

had a lot of black people come from the deep South, and

12:53

then a lot of primarily white people come from

12:55

Appalachia, and they sort of migrated

12:57

together to all these factories. And

13:00

like, there are books written in Detroit

13:02

about the, you've

13:04

got like basically the hillbillies from Appalachia, the

13:07

black people from the deep South, and they're

13:09

just kind of like tossed into Detroit. And

13:11

like a lot of what we think of

13:14

as sort of modern Detroit

13:16

culture is like the fusion of

13:18

those two groups of people who just dropped in

13:20

in massive, massive numbers. And it's

13:22

like one of the stories of like, why is

13:24

Chicago such a big blues town? Because

13:27

all the black folks from the deep South were moving in

13:29

and they were bringing their music with them.

13:31

That's why Chicago became such a capital for blues

13:33

is it's not really like, it's because all those

13:35

folks who came from the Delta. So

13:38

it's, but basically jobs, man. I mean, there wasn't,

13:40

my mom all talked about this. That's what

13:42

I called my grandmother. She

13:44

talked a lot about how, if you were growing

13:47

up in Eastern Kentucky in the thirties and forties,

13:49

it was like basically you go work in

13:51

the mines or get out. Like that was

13:53

all there was at that time. And

13:56

so my grandfather went and worked at the steel

13:58

mill, you know, built a pretty good. life

14:00

was a union welder for 40

14:02

years. And then, uh, Oh yeah. We just had

14:04

a union president on. Oh yeah. I

14:06

listened to that one. I like that guy.

14:08

Yeah. He's wild. He's, he is wild. He's,

14:10

I mean, it's funny, man. You can tell

14:13

he's from Boston. He's got that thick Boston

14:15

accent. Yeah. But he's

14:17

a, he's a, he's a cool dude. Um, I

14:19

actually, I've talked to Sean a couple of times

14:21

and you know, it's like normally and you

14:23

know, it's like, normally Democrats are considered

14:25

sort of the pro union and then, you know,

14:27

30 years ago, Republicans were the anti union. And

14:29

you know, one of the things, I've been, I've

14:31

been talking a lot about people like Sean is,

14:34

you know, a lot of union members are coming

14:36

over to the Republican side. And I

14:39

think the Republican party, we got to do, you know, frankly

14:41

a better job at kind of welcoming people. But,

14:43

um, I think Trump is doing a really good job

14:45

of making union voters feel at home in our coalition,

14:48

which is like an interesting part of what, you know,

14:50

what we're all about. I mean, I think, you know,

14:52

so Sean said head of the teamsters, I think. Yeah.

14:55

And there was some poll they did just of teamsters

14:57

members where it's like 65% of

15:00

teamsters in Pennsylvania are going to vote for

15:02

Trump. That's a crazy turnaround from even 15

15:04

years ago. They couldn't endorse usually they are,

15:06

there's only been two times where they haven't

15:09

endorsed a candidate in the past 30 years,

15:11

I think, or maybe past 50 years. Yeah.

15:13

But, um, but this would be one

15:15

of those times they said, I think, cause it's just,

15:17

it's too split. Um, so do

15:19

you have to ask Trump places, do

15:22

you can go to promote or to,

15:24

um, campaign? What

15:26

does that relation, how does that work? Yeah,

15:28

no, it's, it's, it's actually mostly

15:30

driven at like the staff level, right?

15:33

And so a strategy kind of, yeah,

15:35

it's like strategy. So, so, okay. There

15:37

are seven big battleground states. It's

15:40

a, the three in the Midwest or

15:42

Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and then

15:44

Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina. And

15:47

so it's like, you look at a

15:49

little bit, it's driven by polling, a little bit's driven on

15:51

just like, where do you think this guy's going to do

15:53

the best? And I've spent a

15:55

ton of my time. Like, I think I did

15:57

like six or five or six events just. in

16:00

Pennsylvania the past week and a half. So

16:02

I've spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania, a lot of time in

16:04

Michigan, a lot of time in Wisconsin. I'm actually trying to get Kid

16:06

Rock to go with me in Michigan in a couple of days, because

16:09

he's a Michigan guy. Oh, he'll go. Yeah,

16:11

he probably will. Yeah, he'll go, dude. He'll

16:14

look up, yeah. He texted me

16:16

last night. I mean, you can't see, but my

16:18

cousin, for those of you who are watching, my

16:20

cousin's here, she's more like my big sister, but

16:24

we're hanging out. I went to a wedding last

16:26

night. Oh, nice. My little

16:28

cousin got married, and Kid Rock

16:30

sends me a text message. He's like, hey, if you're in

16:32

Nashville, because I guess he knew I was doing this podcast.

16:34

Well, some people were going over there. A

16:36

buddy of mine, I was texting, he's like, hey, we're going over to Bob's,

16:38

and I was like, I got to prepare

16:40

for this podcast tomorrow. Vance is

16:42

coming on. Yeah, maybe that's how he knew, because

16:45

he texted me, and I was like, oh man,

16:47

I want to fly to Nashville right now, just

16:49

so I can party with Kid Rock, right? I

16:51

mean, that's an experience of a lifetime. So

16:54

now I'm trying to get him to go to Michigan with

16:57

me. Oh, I'm sure he probably would, man. Oh

17:00

yeah, dude, he's one of a kind, man.

17:02

But anyway, to answer your question, it's basically you go

17:05

where the campaign needs you to go, and

17:07

yeah, I could say no, but I'm running

17:09

for vice president, so I try to do as much as I

17:11

can just to be helpful. And do

17:13

you go with Donald Trump? Do you guys

17:16

go separately a lot of times? Do

17:18

you guys have strategy talks in the mornings

17:20

and stuff? What is it like? Yeah, it's

17:22

more informal. Is it like doubles tennis, kind

17:24

of? Yeah. It's more divide and

17:27

conquer, right? So it's

17:29

like you got two people and

17:31

you can be in two places, so you might as

17:33

well do it. But if we got like a really

17:35

big event, like the president got shot in Bucks County,

17:37

or sorry. Which time are you talking about? The

17:40

first time. Okay. The first

17:42

time. I was gonna say, really?

17:44

He got shot in Pennsylvania, and

17:47

so we went out to Pennsylvania together

17:49

to do a big rally in the Milan.

17:52

Oh, in Butler? In Butler,

17:54

PA, yes, in Butler, Pennsylvania. And

17:57

then, like I was in Bucks

17:59

County, Pennsylvania. like a week earlier, but

18:01

that was just me. Right. So you sort of

18:03

go, you know, some places you go together, but

18:05

most of the time we're sort of dividing and

18:08

conquering. How, with the attempts that they've had on

18:10

Trump's life and

18:12

safety, how much of

18:14

a concern has that been for

18:17

you? Like, because if I'm standing next to

18:19

a guy and they're shooting at him, I'm

18:21

next to him. Yeah. Yeah, I know

18:23

what you mean. I mean, I try not to think about

18:25

it, man. Because- Really? Yeah, it's just,

18:28

it's one of these things you can't control. And if

18:30

you're going to do this job, like you're going to

18:32

go out and talk to a lot of people when

18:34

you go try to win, right? I mean, like I

18:36

fundamentally believe that we're trying to win to help the

18:38

country. So either you either do it

18:40

or you don't do it. And

18:43

if you do it, you just kind of accept it. I

18:46

mean, I don't think there's, I don't know, maybe I'm just,

18:48

this is just me rationalizing it. I don't feel like there's

18:50

that big of a target on my back, but who the

18:52

hell knows? Well, you're tall. Are you a little taller than

18:54

him or not? I think we're about the same height. OK.

18:57

Which is funny, man. The weird shit people say

18:59

about you on the internet. Like the thing, there

19:01

was a long time, maybe even still today, if

19:03

you Google how tall is JD Vance,

19:05

it would say five foot seven. And

19:08

I, it says 60 now. Oh, somebody

19:10

updated it, Ben. Somebody updated it. Yeah. OK,

19:13

the first headline is JD Vance is tall, but

19:15

Americans are getting shorter. What the hell is, the

19:17

internet's a weird ass place. It also says Joe

19:19

Biden is six foot sleep. I

19:22

don't know if that's a hype. Well, see, this is

19:24

the thing, though. How tall is JD Vance? There was

19:26

like a conspiracy on the internet that I was a

19:28

really short guy. But yeah, no, I'm about 60. I

19:31

think, yeah, once you get better people helping you

19:33

get you high, you get you get pretty tall.

19:35

You get a little different. I'm six feet tall.

19:37

Yeah, I'm sick. You tell this rib gets back

19:39

in place. I'm six foot and

19:41

a half. I'll tell you that. So

19:45

there's did you have to ask your wife about

19:47

that? Like say, hey, like, did she have to

19:50

weigh in? Because that's a little because I'm trying

19:52

to think of other jobs where you get shot

19:54

at really military, domestic

19:58

violence, I guess. And then. and politician.

20:01

I mean, normally politicians don't get shot at

20:03

that much, but apparently it's coming

20:05

back, man. That's not

20:07

like a good thing to come back to, you know

20:09

what I mean? But I also, I mean, I definitely

20:11

grew up, like I grew up in Ohio,

20:13

but I spent a lot of time in Eastern Kentucky. And

20:16

if you go to like, there's a courthouse in Brethett County, Kentucky,

20:18

I mean, beautiful part of the country, like kind of in the

20:20

mountains. And there's like a plaque,

20:22

like a historical plaque that's basically like, you

20:25

know, on this site, multiple people were killed

20:27

in the Brethett County blood feuds of the

20:29

early, you know, the early 20th century. So

20:32

I don't know, you just kind of, kind of accept

20:34

it as bad as it is. I

20:36

mean, I want us to get away from it right as a country, but

20:39

as an individual candidate, I think you just have to kind

20:41

of accept it. I mean, I'll tell you- But

20:44

I guess if you're going into battle, you're going into battle.

20:46

That's right. That's right. You just got to do

20:48

what you got to do. Yeah. But again, I'm, you

20:50

know, I'm like, I'm a person

20:52

of faith. I don't talk about it that much. I

20:54

don't wear it on my sleeve. I always sort of

20:57

mistrust people to wear it too much on their

20:59

sleeve. But if you're like, you know, if God

21:01

wants me to be vice president, I'll be

21:03

vice president. If not, then I won't. Yeah.

21:06

You know, you just got to work your ass off and let the chips fall

21:08

where they may. Yeah. I

21:10

saw where you had your mom was out and

21:12

you congratulated her on, she

21:14

almost has 10 years of sobriety, you said? That's right.

21:17

Yeah. She's- In January? January

21:19

of 2025, she will be 10 years clean and sober. And that's really

21:21

funny. Cause you know, as she's standing next to you there, that's

21:24

Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House. And

21:28

like my family's not very political. So

21:30

they bring her up to this booth and like

21:32

two chairs over is Donald Trump. Of course she

21:34

knows who that is, but she shakes Mike Johnson's

21:36

hand. And he's like, you know,

21:38

lovely to meet you. And she says, lovely to

21:41

meet you too. Who are you? You work in

21:43

politics. Yeah. Yeah. It's

21:46

like, mom, that's the Speaker of the House. Okay. She's

21:49

like, well, I'll take a, I'll

21:51

take a McDouble. That's right. What?

21:55

Diet Coke. With,

21:58

with extra ice. Yeah.

22:02

What was, yeah, I know your mom's,

22:04

your mom's struggle with alcoholism, right? Addiction?

22:09

Mostly, yeah, mostly non-alcohol drugs. I never

22:11

saw her drink that much, but I

22:13

mean, you know, pills, opioids,

22:16

heroin. What's it been

22:18

like to watch her get sober? What's that been

22:20

like? It's amazing, man. It's amazing. I know you're,

22:22

what are you, you're recovery, right? Yep, I'm a

22:24

recovery, yeah. A lot of my family's in it

22:26

too, so I think that, yeah, I

22:29

can relate a lot to your story, to be honest with you. Yeah, but I

22:31

mean, I mean, look, I mean, there

22:33

was a time, like I always, you

22:35

know, always wanted to grow up and have a family. And

22:37

I remember when I was a teenager thinking to myself, there's

22:40

no way mom's gonna be around to meet. Like if I have

22:42

kids, there's no way my mom's ever gonna meet them. And,

22:45

you know, she's now, like, she's

22:47

now a great grandmother to the

22:49

three grandkids, but I

22:52

don't know, man, it's just, if you've known anybody

22:54

in this circumstance, it sounds like you know very

22:56

well what it's like is, there's

22:58

two feelings that you have, or at least always

23:01

two feelings I had, when mom was

23:03

going through it, is like on the one hand, she's

23:05

so smart, she's so funny, and

23:08

you're just like kind of rooting for her, because you just wanted

23:10

to get better. Then on the other hand,

23:12

you're just pissed off. It's like, you know, because you

23:14

don't quite understand it. I think if you're not in

23:16

recovery yourself, it's hard to fully understand. And,

23:18

you know, so you'd be frustrated with her one

23:21

moment and then just desperate for her to get

23:23

better. The next moment, you're constantly bouncing back and

23:25

forth, but man, it's amazing. She

23:28

was at the wedding we were at last night and

23:31

just having a good time and being her funny, quirky

23:33

self. She has a good sense of humor. She has

23:35

a very good sense of humor. I

23:37

mean, you know, like the

23:39

bride and groom of this really cool tradition, where

23:42

they had like at each table, a wine bottle with a

23:44

number on it, and then like at

23:46

the table one, they'd open that bottle of wine,

23:48

their first anniversary, and table two, the second anniversary,

23:51

and so forth. And they had people write stuff

23:53

in Sharpies on the wine bottle. I'd never seen

23:56

that. It was a pretty cool little thing. And

23:59

my mom, I forgot. I forget what table she was

24:01

in, but like 10 years down the road and

24:04

she writes something on her bottle like, like,

24:06

hey, I love you. Hopefully I'm still alive

24:08

when you're drinking this. So,

24:11

she's just got like, and again, it's like a kind

24:14

of a morbid, quirky sense of humor, but

24:16

yeah, man, it's really amazing. Cause I get,

24:19

I just never, I never thought

24:21

she'd be alive when I was 40 years old. And

24:23

she is, and she's got a good relationship

24:26

with her family and her grandparents or her

24:28

grandkids. And that's just a very cool thing.

24:31

Yeah, it's a blessing, man. That's awesome to see. It

24:33

is a blessing. It was really cool to see that.

24:35

Did you ever go to meetings with her? Did she

24:37

go to, you had been before? Yeah,

24:39

I've been to a lot of NA meetings. When

24:41

you were growing up, did you ever go or no? Yeah, I went when I was

24:44

a kid. I went when I was

24:46

a teenager. I mean, I've been to a lot actually,

24:48

just in the past few years. Cause she, you know,

24:50

she's like, you know, she feels like she's

24:52

really on the other side of it. She does a

24:54

lot with her local NA. I think she's the treasurer,

24:56

the secretary of her local NA chapter. Do

24:59

you ever go to meetings or anything? Oh yeah, I went to one. I

25:02

went to one, I was at one last sign at eight. Okay. I

25:05

mean, there's actually a really special community

25:07

around it, which I really like. And

25:09

it almost kind of reminds me of

25:11

church, right? Where you say

25:13

these prayers and

25:15

you talk about what's going on. And there's

25:17

like this sense of fellowship and community that

25:19

I think is really awesome. And,

25:22

you know, it's like one of these things

25:24

where you

25:26

see just human nature and all of

25:29

its good sides and its bad sides,

25:31

right? Cause sometimes you have people who

25:33

come in and they're getting their

25:35

24 hour medallion, right? Which is

25:37

like, this is the first real period of sobriety

25:39

I've had in a very long time. Then sometimes

25:41

you have people who are celebrating 15, 20, 25

25:43

years. And

25:46

it's just amazing to see. But I

25:48

don't know if you noticed this, but something I

25:50

noticed and it's, you know, it's not to get

25:52

too political here, but you know,

25:54

like five, six,

25:57

seven years ago, you

26:00

know, you start noticing this and

26:02

then it really start picking up a few years

26:04

ago where you have

26:07

somebody who's been say six months or

26:09

nine months sober, and then

26:11

they don't come to a couple meetings and then

26:13

they're just dead. And

26:15

you realize like when people

26:18

relapse, when mom was in the worst of it,

26:20

yeah, there was some dangerous shit out there, but

26:22

it wasn't nearly as deadly as the stuff that's

26:24

out there today. And I really worry

26:27

about that, right? Because, you know, think about the second

26:29

chance I got with my mom, and

26:31

I really worry that the poison that

26:33

we've got in the streets now is

26:35

so dangerous. A lot

26:37

of people would have that second chance, but you

26:39

know, you fall off the wagon once, 15

26:42

years ago, it's like, oh, that sucks,

26:44

I'm gonna climb back on. Today, you fall

26:46

off that wagon, it might kill you. And

26:49

I really worry about that, because I think a lot of good

26:51

people, you know, like mom, it

26:53

didn't happen like once, right? It's not like she got clean

26:55

and sober and that was it. It's a process. You fall

26:57

off a few times, yeah. You gotta get back on. It's

26:59

a process, man. Yeah, I've had relapses

27:01

over the years and had to get back on, and it's

27:03

tough. And one of the tougher things to do is to

27:05

get back on. But it's funny because

27:08

I think if, I

27:12

don't know if I'd be sober if this

27:14

stuff weren't killing people, to be honest with you, I know

27:16

that's sad to say, but that

27:18

keeps me out of the risk of it, you

27:20

know? It just makes it too- Makes it a

27:22

little scarier. Yeah, that's the thing, it makes it

27:24

scarier. But it's also sad that somebody, I

27:27

mean, this is ridiculous to say, probably that somebody can't,

27:31

you know, you can't even do cocaine in this

27:33

country anymore, you know? And

27:35

that seems like a crazy thing to say. And don't

27:38

say that, but I said it, but

27:41

yeah, but don't say that anymore. I'm gonna steal that

27:43

line. That's gonna, you know, after the election

27:46

though, and I- No, no, but it's

27:48

unfortunate. To

27:51

be clear with those watching, I've never done cocaine

27:53

before. I've made many mistakes, but not that one.

27:56

Nobody's saying, yep. But it's just, it's

27:58

unfortunate that- I

28:01

don't even know where to go. I know what

28:03

you mean, but it's unfortunate that like, look, everybody

28:06

makes mistakes. Right. Everybody

28:08

makes mistakes, right? And like, I

28:11

know, as a buddy of mine told me about

28:13

this, hell,

28:15

this has gotta have been three

28:18

years ago. It's been

28:20

a while, but basically what happened is his

28:23

daughter was like a bridesmaid in a

28:26

wedding, and they were going

28:28

to this wedding, and like

28:30

the wedding got canceled because a couple

28:32

of the groomsmen like had terrible

28:35

overdoses the night before at the bachelor party

28:37

because they took some, I mean, like, you

28:39

know, you can judge and say, oh,

28:41

they shouldn't have been taking something, but everybody takes something

28:43

at some point in their lives. Like we don't want

28:45

it to kill people. We don't want stupid mistakes to

28:47

kill people. That's sort of like live and learn, live

28:50

and learn from stupid mistakes. Right, you should

28:53

be able to live and learn. Yes, now

28:55

it becomes a death sentence. That's what's really,

28:57

I think, changed about from now to when

29:00

my mom was struggling with addiction. Why is

29:02

it so bad? Like, do

29:04

you know a lot about the fentanyl crisis? I

29:07

mean, I know a fair amount about it.

29:09

You know, I've worried about it for a

29:11

long time. I've worked on bills related to

29:13

it. I mean, there are

29:15

two basic issues, right? And it's like,

29:17

you know, any business, there's a manufacturer,

29:19

there's a wholesaler, and then there's the

29:21

retail, right? And,

29:23

you know, with fentanyl, it's

29:25

not, you can't like

29:27

make fentanyl in a trailer in somebody's

29:30

basement, right? It's not like meth.

29:32

It takes a really complicated, pretty sophisticated pharmaceutical

29:34

process. So we know that a lot of

29:36

it, maybe even most of it, the Chinese

29:38

are making, meaning Chinese companies, not like necessarily

29:40

the Chinese government, but they sure as hell

29:42

know about it. And then

29:44

they bring it in primarily through the

29:46

southern border. And

29:49

the Mexican drug cartels are

29:51

like the wholesalers, right, of

29:53

the Chinese, pharmas, the manufacturer,

29:56

the drug cartels are bringing in wholesale

29:58

style, and then it makes it in the street. street level. Wow.

30:01

And I mean, it's really crazy, man. Like I was talking to

30:03

a DEA agent about this a couple of years ago, and I

30:06

think this was in 2022. He

30:09

was like, look, a few

30:11

years ago, the cartels were making less than

30:13

a billion dollars a year. And

30:15

he's like, in 22, 23, we think they'll

30:17

make $14 billion a year. So

30:20

like an explosion of drug trafficking

30:22

in this country. And yeah,

30:25

you hear about stories, and I don't think it

30:27

happens that much, thank God, but somebody smokes a

30:29

joint, it's laced with fentanyl, they go into a

30:31

coma. Oh yeah, I mean, I have seven friends

30:33

that have, I have

30:35

seven friends, and not even just

30:37

like estranged people, but not all

30:40

best friends. Sure. But

30:42

I have seven friends that overdosed

30:44

and died from fentanyl. Yeah, yeah.

30:47

That's me. Right. And

30:49

yeah, with harder stuff, it happens a lot. I

30:52

think you hear about it being laced

30:54

in marijuana, but like not that much.

30:57

I mean, your point about cocaine, pills,

30:59

like you have to be careful. Like

31:02

seriously, I'm just gonna give you- It's a huge

31:04

thing. It's an unbelievable crisis. And it's like, yeah,

31:06

you'd think that we'd, I

31:08

don't know how you fight something like that. Maybe we need

31:10

to have like a head of like the DEA or

31:14

something on, maybe he would be able to help, or

31:16

she would be able to help us figure that out

31:18

a little bit more. I think that'd be a very

31:20

interesting conversation, but I think you've gotta go to it

31:22

at the heart. And

31:24

something Trump did towards the end of

31:27

his administration doesn't get a whole lot of headlines. Obviously

31:29

I'm biased. I think it should get

31:31

headlines as he was using economic leverage

31:33

to try to convince the Chinese to

31:35

crack down on fentanyl manufacturing. Cause if

31:37

you get it at the source, right?

31:39

That's I think really the way to

31:41

address it. Oh, there's fentanyl in half the

31:43

bookshelves they make over there, dude. You put a couple,

31:45

you put a fucking half a set of dictionaries and

31:48

that bitch will give way. I

31:50

know. I

31:53

mean, I absolutely believe that. Oh

31:56

man. That's what's in the

31:58

furniture here. Okay. I

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you, I mean, you do that. You go after

35:57

the drug cartels. The other thing that people don't

35:59

realize for

44:00

him, right? Cause that's, yeah, maybe he did, but by

44:02

the time he, you know, by the time I met

44:04

him as a Marine, he had been, but,

44:06

but he was like, he had had a much harder

44:08

life than I had. And there was

44:11

no bullshit. There was no complaining, no whining. He

44:13

was just doing his job and he was a

44:15

good dude. And you meet a lot

44:17

of people like that. And you start to realize like

44:20

in some ways, you know, not having everything handed to

44:22

you is actually a blessing. Right. And,

44:25

and, and growing up in a tough circumstance and being able to

44:27

understand that not everybody's always had it easy.

44:30

I used to be annoyed by

44:32

that kind of complaining about it. Now I

44:34

sort of see it as like a good

44:36

thing. Right. Cause I think I have a

44:38

different perspective than, than a lot of people I spend

44:40

my life around where, you know, they, they, they,

44:42

they were born to a rich family. They went to a

44:45

private school. Then they, you know, everything was kind of laid

44:47

out for him. Oh, it's kind of good to not have

44:49

everything laid out for you. Cause you have to work for

44:51

it a little bit more. Yeah. That was going to be

44:53

my next, my, my follow up question. That was just like,

44:55

yeah, what are the, what are the positives? Like, and also

44:57

so we don't get stuck in like, you know, just

45:00

in like a Debbie downer

45:02

spiral kind of, you know, cause it's okay to

45:05

talk about stuff, but sometimes, you know, it's like

45:07

things can get kind of like where you're just

45:09

looking at the negative things, but there's usually something

45:11

positive in everything. Exactly right. And

45:13

yeah, that's what I was thinking. What were some of

45:16

the positives of, of

45:18

having a childhood like that end up being, Yeah.

45:21

And I guess it would be some self-reliance. I think,

45:23

I think it's definitely some self-reliance. But

45:26

awareness probably, which is probably a curse when you're young,

45:28

cause it feels like you have

45:30

to be kind of scared of stuff, but, or,

45:32

but when you get older, being, having awareness can

45:34

be pretty helpful sometimes. Yeah. I've got my head

45:36

on a swivel, right? I'm always looking around corners.

45:39

I'm always kind of worried that things that aren't

45:41

exactly what they seem, but I think that's made

45:43

me a little less comfortable, which is a good

45:45

thing, especially in the, in the

45:47

political life that I know these days, that's good

45:49

to have your head on a swivel. Hey, now

45:51

everybody can alcohol it. You know what

45:53

I'm saying? Yeah. Everybody has,

45:55

everybody in politics has a vice. That's much worse than

45:58

alcoholism is the way that I put it. But

46:01

we- Release the list.

46:06

Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That

46:08

is an important thing. We

46:10

can go down that rabbit hole. But anyway,

46:13

I guess the

46:15

other thing that I gained from it is, you know,

46:17

I think that I'm

46:20

just much, I

46:23

see people as people. And

46:25

one thing I've picked up on, like I went to law

46:28

school at Yale and

46:30

a lot of my classmates are good people, but- You're a lawyer also?

46:33

Yeah, but I sort of, as soon as I went from law

46:35

school, I went into the business world. So I never really practiced

46:37

law. I was mostly a business guy. But

46:40

like a lot of my friends, they look

46:42

at people as like, where did you

46:44

go to school? What do your parents do?

46:47

What job do you have? What credential do

46:49

you have? I've never had that, right? And

46:51

so when people like talk about politics or

46:53

policy and they'll be like, oh, well, this

46:55

person has a PhD. I don't give a

46:57

shit. They may be smart,

47:00

but I don't care about- Yeah, PhDs only three,

47:02

doesn't even spell anything. Yeah, exactly. I don't even,

47:05

but I don't care about the letters. But

47:08

like I meet somebody and, oh,

47:11

they don't have a fancy degree or they don't have a fancy

47:13

job. I still just naturally care about

47:15

what they think because the way that I grew up, I

47:17

just sort of see people as people. And I think that's

47:19

just a very, it's a perspective that

47:22

I'm glad that I have. I think it's very much a

47:24

product of how I grew up. Yeah,

47:26

I like people that have their own thing. I

47:32

don't dislike somebody if they inherited everything,

47:35

but I gravitate

47:37

more towards people

47:41

that haven't had that experience, I think,

47:44

because, yeah, I

47:46

don't know. There's just something a little bit

47:48

more abnormal about it. I didn't like it

47:50

when things were handed to people. I guess

47:52

maybe the truth is I got upset when

47:54

other people had stuff that was

47:57

handed to them, which probably was just normal stuff

47:59

to be handed to. or

1:04:00

play Pokemon with my little seven year old

1:04:02

and build a relationship with these little kids

1:04:04

and it's just a really, really rewarding thing.

1:04:06

Does it feel like a gift that you

1:04:08

were able to give your mom almost, not

1:04:11

you were able to give it to her, but that God

1:04:13

gave you this series of events in your life

1:04:15

where you get to see your mom play with

1:04:18

this kid and you're like, man, that almost could

1:04:20

have been me, but it does get to be

1:04:22

me in a weird way. Yeah, that's exactly right.

1:04:24

I feel like it's a gift that God gave

1:04:26

to us where we get to have this second

1:04:28

chance with mom. And

1:04:30

we get to, it wouldn't necessarily

1:04:32

relied on mom when I was 12 or

1:04:35

13, because she was still caught up in

1:04:37

addiction, but now we'll leave our kids with

1:04:39

mom. Wow. Like being able to rely on

1:04:41

her is just a very cool thing. My

1:04:46

wife, I remember when our kids were first born, or for

1:04:48

all of us was born in 2017, and

1:04:51

at that point mom had been clean and sober for about a year

1:04:53

and a half, I guess. And

1:04:55

I remember talking with my wife and she's saying,

1:04:57

I love your mom. I hope that she stays

1:04:59

clean and sober, but we're never

1:05:02

letting her babysit. Yeah, it's literally. Right, literally.

1:05:04

Literally. But now we trust her with all three of

1:05:06

them. Wow. And it's an amazing thing, man. Oh yeah,

1:05:08

and now with three kids, you'll give them to anybody

1:05:10

to watch. You know what I'm saying? If

1:05:13

you got three kids, bro. That's true. Anybody

1:05:15

can watch them. That's right. No, we- But

1:05:17

no, I think that's really cool. I could

1:05:19

have just imagined, I could imagine, you getting

1:05:21

to see your kids be with your mom

1:05:23

and this, it just like completing

1:05:27

the eight or whatever. You know what I'm saying?

1:05:29

Like that symbol or whatever, infinity symbol or whatever.

1:05:32

Yeah, yeah. I can really see that. That's exactly

1:05:34

right. It's pretty powerful. Yeah. It's

1:05:36

important. That's the power of things you

1:05:38

see through recovery and stuff too. It's

1:05:40

like that people get to just

1:05:43

have a different life. It's like you

1:05:45

witness it all the time in the meetings and stuff.

1:05:47

I do anyway. Yeah, there's something very redemptive about it,

1:05:49

man. Yeah, if you want to hear a miracle or

1:05:52

something you want to see a miracle, go to a

1:05:54

meeting. Yeah. You know what I'm

1:05:56

saying? Seriously. And it very

1:05:58

much is like church. It's like sometimes. investigation

1:14:00

into this, right? Like

1:14:02

if I sold drugs on the

1:14:04

street and some person has an overdose

1:14:06

and died, like you can

1:14:08

get felony prosecuted for that. Or at least

1:14:10

investigated for it. And there was never a

1:14:13

criminal, at least as I understand it, never

1:14:15

a criminal investigation into what was known. Because-

1:14:18

Yeah, I think they had a breach of plea deal

1:14:20

of some sort. Okay. As the nation continues to grapple

1:14:22

with that, the Sackler family had

1:14:24

agreed to pay $6 billion to families

1:14:26

and states as part of an agreement

1:14:28

to wind down Purdue Pharma, the maker

1:14:30

of OxyContin. In exchange, the Sackler family

1:14:32

would be immunized from future civil liability

1:14:34

claims, unreal. Because here's my understanding about

1:14:36

it. And by the way, I think

1:14:38

that like, you always gotta

1:14:40

be worried about this stuff when you're the child of addiction

1:14:42

is like, are there, whether it's

1:14:44

drugs, alcohol, whatever, you gotta be,

1:14:46

you're worried about making sure you do yourself, don't

1:14:49

get hooked on anything, right? Like I

1:14:51

had a minor surgery once, and like

1:14:53

a very minor surgery, and I was prescribed

1:14:55

OxyContin. And I took it

1:14:57

for like, you know, 12 hours. Got any

1:14:59

left, sorry. No, it's because

1:15:01

of my wife, because of what I'm about to tell you.

1:15:03

Okay. And my wife, who was like

1:15:06

giving me my meds, she was like, hey, you ready for your

1:15:08

next dose? And I was like, yeah, you know, the pain's not

1:15:10

really that bad anymore. I don't really want to take one. But

1:15:13

yeah, just give me one, because I feel really good

1:15:15

when I take it. And then she and I both

1:15:17

have this like moment of realization, like, oh shit, right?

1:15:20

That is where this whole thing starts. So she took it

1:15:22

to wherever some disposal site and we got rid of it

1:15:24

and that was it. But

1:15:26

the problem with OxyContin, as I understand it at least,

1:15:30

is that it's supposed to

1:15:32

be delayed release Oxycodone. But

1:15:35

you know, the problem that is

1:15:38

people figured out, if you just crush it up, then

1:15:40

you could just get it all at once.

1:15:42

All released right now. All released right now.

1:15:45

And then the Sackler families, I understand it,

1:15:47

knew about it, right? Purdue Farm and knew

1:15:49

this was going on, and they

1:15:51

should have been like, oh no, no, okay, we're gonna

1:15:53

stop this because people were getting killed by overdosing all

1:15:55

this stuff because they were taking too high of a

1:15:57

dose and they didn't do anything. Yeah. That

1:16:00

is my understanding fundamentally of what happened is they didn't want

1:16:02

to stop because they were getting rich from it. Oh,

1:16:04

yeah. Man, it's really gross. I

1:16:06

just couldn't imagine that. Imagine people dying and

1:16:09

you're making money, but people are dying. The

1:16:11

ripple effect of that in this country is still

1:16:15

haunting people. Absolutely. And that's

1:16:17

where the heroin epidemic, which is now a fentanyl

1:16:19

epidemic, came from. It started as a pill epidemic.

1:16:21

And it actually was, like I always used to

1:16:23

think it was okay, kind of like me, like,

1:16:25

oh, you have a surgery and you get too

1:16:27

many drugs and then eventually you get hooked. What

1:16:30

it actually was is they were overprescribing

1:16:32

it so much that it was just

1:16:34

everywhere. Yeah. Right. And

1:16:37

so, like, oh, you know, your nephew comes over and he's 17

1:16:39

and he takes them to his buddies and now they're all hooked

1:16:41

on, hooked on oxy. And that's like

1:16:43

that. That's what actually happened. And

1:16:45

there was just so much of this drug

1:16:48

everywhere that it started the epidemic we have

1:16:50

now. Yeah. And the outside, it

1:16:52

was like candy coat. It was like you said a slurp

1:16:54

off the outside a little bit. And then

1:16:56

you could party. Oh, so I didn't

1:16:58

realize that. Yeah. I think you just

1:17:00

had to. I heard about people crushing. I didn't know if you

1:17:02

just had to slurp off the outside. Yeah, I think you did.

1:17:06

And yeah. Yeah. And

1:17:09

one of the worst things about it was

1:17:11

that, like, medicine used to be a term

1:17:13

that was like it was for help, right?

1:17:15

Yes. It was like, you

1:17:17

know, it was in our brains, I think,

1:17:19

as humans and citizens in our society and

1:17:21

culture. Medicine was help, right? And

1:17:25

that whole thing with them kind of tripped

1:17:28

that word where it made people

1:17:31

question the value of medicine. Absolutely. It

1:17:34

made people just

1:17:36

question then who's prescribing the

1:17:38

medicine. It made health, it

1:17:41

made like your doctors seem

1:17:43

untrustworthy. It just it

1:17:45

ruined so much trust.

1:17:48

That's absolutely right. Ruined a lot of

1:17:50

social trust. And I agree. They

1:17:53

deserve a ton of blame for that.

1:17:56

And it's interesting, though, that

1:17:58

was maybe the first. point, the

1:18:00

oxy epidemic was sort of

1:18:03

the first point where I started to question

1:18:05

like the mainstream big pharma

1:18:07

narrative a little bit. And

1:18:09

I always ask myself, and I think this is something, you know, like

1:18:11

I'm Republican, I'm conservative, but one of

1:18:13

the things that I think the old left was

1:18:15

pretty smart about is like

1:18:18

recognizing that, you

1:18:20

know, when money gets involved, when the profit

1:18:23

motive gets involved in health, that

1:18:25

can lead to good things, right? It can lead to people

1:18:27

trying to cure cancer because they know they're going to make

1:18:29

a lot of money if they cure cancer. I'm fine with

1:18:32

that, right? But people making money if they cure cancer, that's

1:18:34

a great thing. But then also

1:18:36

sometimes it can lead to manipulation

1:18:38

of the health system that doesn't actually

1:18:40

benefit people's health, but does get people

1:18:42

hooked on a lot of drugs that

1:18:44

they wouldn't otherwise need. And

1:18:46

this was something, again, the old left understood

1:18:48

this that like, well, you got to be

1:18:51

careful. Like, are we prescribing this medication because

1:18:53

it's good for people because that's good? Or

1:18:56

are we prescribing it because some big pharmaceutical

1:18:58

company is getting rich if we do, and

1:19:00

they're putting pressure on the government or somebody

1:19:02

else to encourage us to prescribe this medication?

1:19:04

Yeah. And I think there are a

1:19:07

whole host of ways in which, you know, frankly, the

1:19:09

old left was right about that. And

1:19:12

you know, I've tried to persuade, you

1:19:14

know, modern conservatives that

1:19:16

we should be more concerned about that issue. It's like, you

1:19:18

know, Bobby Kennedy makes this point all the time, right? Like

1:19:20

good. Some pharmaceuticals are good for

1:19:22

us, but some actually it's not totally clear whether

1:19:24

we're taking them just because it makes people money.

1:19:27

And this is like, let me give you a concrete

1:19:30

example, right? So, you

1:19:32

know, this there's obviously this big like

1:19:34

debate about transgender issues and you don't

1:19:36

have to wait into that. But

1:19:38

what really worries me is when

1:19:41

you've got pharmaceutical companies that

1:19:43

are making billions of dollars

1:19:46

on hormonal therapies for kids. And

1:19:49

are we really like, are we really

1:19:51

being smart about whether this is good for

1:19:53

the kids, about whether it causes long-term consequences?

1:19:55

And why is nobody saying, well, wait a

1:19:57

second, the people who are lobbying us

1:19:59

to give of these drugs to kids are also getting

1:20:01

rich off of them. Right. And I just,

1:20:03

I worry about that. I mean, I, you need to- You need

1:20:05

to follow the money motive. Yeah, man. It definitely,

1:20:07

of course they would want that cause it's just

1:20:09

another way. It's like, well, how do we split

1:20:12

the atom here again to make even more money

1:20:14

off of somebody? Well, why not your gender? You

1:20:16

know what I'm saying? You're not using it. You

1:20:18

know, you're like, what do you mean? I'm not

1:20:20

using my gender. Like I'm trying to, I'm

1:20:22

still developing it. Yeah. You

1:20:25

know what I'm saying? And you're gonna like,

1:20:27

but I agree. It's like a couple of

1:20:29

my buddies secretly low key date trans people,

1:20:31

right? And I don't care if somebody's trans

1:20:34

or Neapolitan or whatever. I don't care. You

1:20:36

know what I'm saying? Hell, if I had a vagina, I

1:20:38

would probably wouldn't go looking for women, you know? So

1:20:41

there's probably some up, some up to it.

1:20:45

But what I'm talking about is a shit. I

1:20:48

don't know what I'm talking about. Look,

1:20:50

man, if you're an adult, but look where

1:20:52

the money, like, look at the follow the

1:20:54

money. We're talking about kids, follow the money.

1:20:56

Think about what's going on. Like, are the

1:20:58

people pushing this? What is their real, or

1:21:01

do they have some other motive? You

1:21:03

have to think about that, you know? Well, that's why,

1:21:05

I mean, like you mentioned Ozimpic earlier, which,

1:21:08

you know, I've known a couple of

1:21:10

friends who've taken it. I've never taken Ozimpic or

1:21:12

any weight loss kind of drug. Oh, it ended

1:21:14

up having a black market. There was somebody selling

1:21:17

it outside of a Vineyard Vines illegally or something

1:21:19

over there outside of Charlottesville. Outside of Vineyard Vines.

1:21:21

It breaks my heart. That's the

1:21:23

perfect encapsulation. It breaks my heart, yeah. Vineyard

1:21:26

Vines selling it as a Vines. Somebody said

1:21:28

she was a Kappa Delta. Oh my God.

1:21:30

But it's just that kind of stuff. Shakes

1:21:34

me to my core, JD. That's

1:21:37

really, that's dark shit, man. That's dark. That's

1:21:39

darker than a lot of what goes on

1:21:41

in politics. A Kappa Delta

1:21:43

selling Ozimpic black market off out of the

1:21:45

side of Vineyard Vines. I'm going to have

1:21:47

nightmares. They call it faux-zimpic. But I, you

1:21:50

know, I like worry, OK, so America has

1:21:52

a terrible obesity problem. OK, and I'm not,

1:21:54

look, I'm not a doctor. I'm not telling

1:21:56

if your doctor tells you to take Ozimpic.

1:21:59

Follow your doctor's advice. Like

1:28:00

this is totally crazy. And I'm, you know, we're in

1:28:02

a situation where that was not a big deal for

1:28:04

us. We were able to afford it. But

1:28:06

think about like a normal middle-class family goes

1:28:08

and has a baby and comes home

1:28:11

to a medical bill that's like a

1:28:13

fifth of their entire take home pay that

1:28:15

year. Right? That's crazy.

1:28:17

Oh, the number one cause of bankruptcy

1:28:19

in America is medical debt. Yeah. It's

1:28:23

a huge, huge problem. And I think the

1:28:25

price transparency is a big part of it.

1:28:27

But you asked like, why hasn't it happened?

1:28:29

So every time that we try to force

1:28:31

price transparency, the

1:28:33

service providers, the

1:28:35

insurance companies or the pharmaceutical companies don't

1:28:37

actually want that transparency. Here's

1:28:39

one of the reasons why the pharmaceutical companies don't

1:28:42

want transparency. It's because if Americans,

1:28:44

if we realized how much more we were

1:28:46

paying for pharmaceuticals over the Europeans, there would

1:28:48

be a revolution in this country. We pay

1:28:50

a lot more than them. We pay way

1:28:52

more than them. And again, like my

1:28:55

attitude is I am fine with

1:28:57

people, you know, if you invent

1:28:59

a life-saving cancer drug,

1:29:01

I'm fine with people earning a

1:29:04

great profit for doing something amazing

1:29:06

like that. You want to motivate people

1:29:08

to do it in the first place, right? And

1:29:10

a lot of people are obviously motivated by

1:29:12

that profit motive. But if

1:29:15

you take certain drugs that are, you know,

1:29:17

they cost $100 in the United States of

1:29:19

America and they're way, way

1:29:22

cheaper in Europe. Some of these really

1:29:24

expensive multi-thousand dollar cancer. Bring something up

1:29:26

for me. These

1:29:28

really expensive like next generation cancer

1:29:31

therapeutics, they cost way less in

1:29:33

Europe. Okay. And

1:29:35

just says in 2022, US prices across all

1:29:37

drugs, brands and generics were nearly 2.78 times

1:29:41

as high as prices in the

1:29:43

comparison countries. US prices for brand drugs

1:29:45

were at least 3.22 times

1:29:48

as high as prices in the

1:29:51

comparison countries, even after adjustments for

1:29:53

estimated US rebates. Wow. Does

1:29:55

it show those countries? Is there a chart with that or

1:29:57

no? I love a chart. It's OECD. countries

1:30:00

which is mainly Europe those are like

1:30:02

okay the advanced economies basically the okay

1:30:04

that's what that means the rich countries

1:30:06

basically OECD yeah and and

1:30:08

what so first world countries probably basically

1:30:10

okay yeah so Canada probably Israel's in

1:30:12

there a lot of the a lot

1:30:15

of the European countries I think are

1:30:17

all in OCD okay United States Germany

1:30:19

Canada Japan Switzerland

1:30:21

Switzerland I can't see

1:30:23

that which

1:30:26

is our little yes we've heard

1:30:28

of that yeah comparable county average

1:30:31

you screwing

1:30:36

with me Austria well

1:30:40

I think they misspelled it dude there's

1:30:42

not that many zits in it Australia

1:30:44

United Kingdom and Sweden Wow so we

1:30:46

pay per capita spending on prescription drugs

1:30:48

in 2019 900 and what does per

1:30:50

capita mean just per

1:30:53

person okay per person 963 dollars per person whereas in Sweden

1:30:56

270 dollars United

1:30:59

Kingdom 273 dollars

1:31:01

dude yeah that's crazy right yeah

1:31:04

that's not fair dude they colonize

1:31:06

everybody and they're paying cheaper dope

1:31:09

that's exactly right but

1:31:12

again but again the reason we don't

1:31:14

really know what we're paying here is because you

1:31:17

know because they hide it they hide it they

1:31:19

hide it and they don't want to let people

1:31:21

know because if you let people know then they

1:31:23

would demand to pay less but what something president

1:31:26

Trump a propose for example I think is a

1:31:28

very good idea is that

1:31:30

he proposed re-importing drugs from Europe

1:31:32

basically if they're selling it in

1:31:34

Sweden or wherever for 270 dollars

1:31:36

per person and we're

1:31:39

paying 963 dollars per person then we'll

1:31:42

just buy it in Sweden and bring in the

1:31:44

United States I love that right that

1:31:46

was a big big thing of course the pharmaceutical companies

1:31:48

don't like that but that's why you got that's why

1:31:50

they try to assassinate him well it's probably one of

1:31:52

the things that could happen I mean I

1:31:55

of course to have no idea no inside knowledge

1:31:58

into into what drove of the motives of the

1:32:00

assassins. Oh yeah, I'm just joking. But yeah. But

1:32:02

I wouldn't be shocked. That's a lot of money.

1:32:04

Man, I wouldn't be shocked if there's some really

1:32:07

dark stuff out there. Because look, two separate people

1:32:09

have tried to take a swing at this guy

1:32:12

in about three months. Yeah. Like,

1:32:14

well, you know they didn't like Donald Trump, right? Because they

1:32:16

wouldn't have tried to shoot him if they liked him. But

1:32:19

I wouldn't be, the first guy who went

1:32:21

after Trump, made to put on the tin foil hat

1:32:24

here, but we've not been able to get, unable

1:32:26

to get into his phone. We know that he

1:32:28

had all these like foreign encrypted apps on his

1:32:31

cell phone. It is crazy

1:32:33

to me that we don't know the guy's motive.

1:32:35

Yeah. It's nuts. He

1:32:38

almost killed the president. Yeah. And

1:32:40

we don't know why he did it. We don't know anything about the guy. Yeah.

1:32:43

Yeah, they're like, he had a lunch box or

1:32:45

something. It's like the vaguest information they keep putting

1:32:47

out about the guy, you know? He's been using a

1:32:49

library card. Like, who gives a shit? Exactly.

1:32:53

His mom's name was Sharon. It's like, great, thank you.

1:32:56

Yeah, dude. Yeah, dude. Yeah,

1:32:58

they're like, oh, yeah. They're

1:33:00

like, oh, he was a Colts fan. You're like,

1:33:03

who gives a fuck? Who gives a shit? Yeah, that's

1:33:05

exactly right. Give us the information on the guy. So

1:33:08

how do we stop that? Do you get approached by

1:33:11

lobbyists and stuff like that? All the time. All the

1:33:13

time. Do you really? And what does that

1:33:15

look like? Who are they? What are they wearing? Like

1:33:19

how do you? So lobbyists, here's how you

1:33:21

spot them, okay? They're

1:33:23

always wearing poorly fitted

1:33:26

suits with extremely ugly

1:33:28

ties. So if you go out

1:33:30

and you see a guy with a poorly fitting suit

1:33:32

and extremely ugly tie, he's definitely a lobbyist. Okay. It's

1:33:35

like in Happy Gilmore. It's a lobbyist for

1:33:38

big fabric, huh? It sounds like. It's

1:33:41

like in Happy Gilmore where the guys like,

1:33:46

the coach is trying to get Happy Gilmore to

1:33:48

play golf and Happy's like, you know what you

1:33:50

need to play golf is goofy

1:33:52

pants and a fat ass. That's

1:33:55

what you need to be a lobbyist. Goofy

1:33:57

pants and that. But why can't

1:34:00

we. If everybody knows you like golf, so it'd be

1:34:02

clear. I like golf. Do you like all I? I'm

1:34:05

not that good at it. Okay, I'll play when I

1:34:07

get a little bit older I don't want to slow

1:34:10

people down. Okay right now fair point, you know, but

1:34:12

anyway, yeah, so okay the way that like Brooks Kepka

1:34:14

Yeah, I do too He's

1:34:16

cool. Yeah, he's like cool, dude, and

1:34:18

I like that girl that smokes that plays Doo Puff

1:34:23

I have I have eyes only

1:34:25

for one woman. I've got only

1:34:27

my wife No

1:34:31

comment no no comment from

1:34:33

senator. I know you're talking

1:34:35

about yeah So

1:34:40

John Daly doesn't really do it for you He's

1:34:43

a good he's a good dude though. Oh, no, I

1:34:45

like John man. Definitely. Oh if you need a ride

1:34:48

in an ambulance Hang out with

1:34:50

John You'll get one

1:34:52

in heartbeat and I just I'm just joking. I

1:34:54

think I think it was tired also. It's true

1:34:56

I've been at two places where John's been taken

1:34:58

one time. They came in looking for him. He

1:35:00

went out there and was sitting in the It's

1:35:05

awesome and like where is he? Oh

1:35:07

my god, he tried to help you guys. Oh,

1:35:10

that is so funny. He's a legend He's got

1:35:12

a good one here soon But how

1:35:14

do we stop that if all the centers in

1:35:16

Congress people know it like Bernie Sanders said there's

1:35:18

three times as many lobbyists in DC

1:35:21

as there are Congressmen

1:35:24

and centers then why don't we get that shit

1:35:26

out like oh, yeah, okay here Here's

1:35:28

why doesn't it stop like if all you guys know

1:35:30

it and everybody's supposed to be working for the people

1:35:33

then why doesn't it stop? So

1:35:35

I actually think that we're getting

1:35:37

a little bit better compared to maybe ten years

1:35:39

ago People have no idea how much Washington was

1:35:41

just completely run by lobbyists And

1:35:44

you think about like guy on the left like Bernie

1:35:46

Sanders, but most importantly a guy on the right like

1:35:48

Donald Trump Completely blows the existing system

1:35:50

up and this is by the way like what I

1:35:52

realized cuz I wasn't a Trump guy back in 2016

1:35:55

And obviously I was running mate now. So

1:35:58

I really like him. Well, you wouldn't

1:36:00

realize this is back in 2016, how

1:36:02

much lobbyist money and influence there was

1:36:04

that wanted to destroy Donald Trump. They

1:36:07

hated the guy because he didn't owe anything to

1:36:09

them. He didn't come from the

1:36:11

existing political process. And if you look at

1:36:13

some of the younger guys who have come in, you

1:36:15

know, we're much more just open about the

1:36:18

fact that lobbyist influence is out there, right?

1:36:20

You can't be in DC without running into

1:36:22

these people, but you gotta be honest with

1:36:24

people like, I'm

1:36:26

not gonna let this person write a piece of legislation

1:36:28

for me. I'm not gonna let this person dictate how

1:36:31

I vote. And yeah, I've gotten

1:36:33

some, definitely some criticisms from the lobbyist groups

1:36:35

in DC. Some of them will say,

1:36:37

well, you know, we don't know if we can trust this guy. And

1:36:39

that's fine with me. I'm okay. I'm okay with them

1:36:41

not. If a lobbyist can't trust you, you're fucking good. Exactly. You're

1:36:44

doing your job. That's exactly right. That's my exact attitude towards

1:36:46

it. They don't know if he can trust you. Who gives

1:36:48

a fuck? Exactly. That's exactly right. So,

1:36:52

but that is how the town works, is that

1:36:54

if you come in and you don't always take

1:36:56

their meetings, you don't always do what they want

1:36:58

you to, then they'll

1:37:00

start whispering about you and then they can get articles written

1:37:02

about you. They can have people say bad shit about you.

1:37:04

This is why people call it the corporate media. Is if

1:37:06

you pick up a story in the Washington Post and you

1:37:09

read it and you know, here's

1:37:11

this anonymous source of this, this anonymous source of

1:37:13

that, there is a 98% chance that

1:37:17

the person who's attacking Donald Trump is

1:37:19

on the take somehow. For sure. Whether

1:37:21

it's a lobbyist or whether it's a

1:37:23

political consultant, it's all dishonest, money laundering

1:37:25

bullshit. That's all DC ultimately is, is

1:37:27

people who get paid to offer an

1:37:29

opinion instead of having a real opinion.

1:37:31

Here's the thing that I think we need to fix structurally about

1:37:33

this. So let me give you an example. You

1:37:36

know, my Senate staff has probably 40 or so people and

1:37:40

you know, all extremely good people, my staff tends

1:37:42

to be a little bit younger because I'm one

1:37:44

of the youngest, I'm the second youngest US Senator

1:37:46

right now. And you know,

1:37:48

like if I wanted to pay my chief

1:37:50

of staff $30,000

1:37:53

more a year than what I pay them right now, I'm not

1:37:55

allowed by law. So even though

1:37:57

I'm a Senator and I was elected to represent the people of

1:37:59

Ohio. Yeah,

1:44:01

well, and it's also, it's like, are

1:44:03

you a repeater or are you a thinker? Like, that's

1:44:05

the thing. It's like, we get

1:44:08

so preoccupied now and so occupied

1:44:10

so quickly that we don't even

1:44:12

put it through our own filter. That's exactly

1:44:14

right. And it's like, and then our filter

1:44:16

starts to not even be a filter anymore

1:44:19

because it's like, well, nobody's using me, I'll

1:44:21

just, I'm just a pathway now. And

1:44:23

that's what starts to happen. That's how we all start to

1:44:25

become desensitized to everything.

1:44:27

And we just become repeaters, right? That's exactly

1:44:29

what social media does is it just turns

1:44:32

us all into repeaters. I like

1:44:34

that Bobby Kennedy is sort of willing to say,

1:44:36

no, no, no, no, no, I'm actually gonna think

1:44:38

for myself on this topic. I mean, it is

1:44:40

crazy. Why do we have such a terrible obesity

1:44:42

problem? Why do we have all these like, certain

1:44:46

types of diabetes are on the rise among children

1:44:48

today. It's like, okay, we're the richest country in

1:44:50

the history of the world. And

1:44:53

children are getting diseases that they didn't get 30,

1:44:55

40 years ago. Like somebody should be

1:44:57

saying, what the hell is going on? Yeah,

1:45:00

somebody should and it should be our leaders, but

1:45:03

it feels like there's so much compromise in there.

1:45:05

I mean, dude, do you know, okay, this

1:45:08

is a paper by a Nobel, yeah, yeah,

1:45:11

we'll take a few more minutes. Now

1:45:14

we're just having fun. But there's a

1:45:17

paper by a Nobel prize winning economist that

1:45:20

talks about the return to

1:45:23

education in years of life. And

1:45:26

do you know how much, take a person who's

1:45:28

got a four year degree versus a

1:45:31

person who never went to college. Do you know how

1:45:33

much longer the person with a four year degree lives

1:45:35

in the United States of America right now? Seven

1:45:38

years. Seven years longer. Yeah,

1:45:40

so going to college, you

1:45:43

get rewarded with seven years of additional life.

1:45:45

If that doesn't tell you something is seriously fucked

1:45:48

up in our country, then nothing will, right? That

1:45:50

is not okay. And

1:45:52

it's part of it, it's health, part

1:45:55

of it's that people

1:45:57

are working more dangerous jobs if they don't

1:46:00

have a college. degree, but part of it's

1:46:02

just that we have, I think, made it

1:46:04

so hard to get by in our country

1:46:06

if you don't have a four-year degree that

1:46:08

people are, you know, they're not

1:46:11

making enough money to support their families and they

1:46:13

get stressed out and they turn to addiction. Of

1:46:15

course, addiction happens to everybody, but it's much more

1:46:17

common among those without a college degree. So

1:46:20

I just, this to me is like,

1:46:22

what is this campaign about? Like what

1:46:24

is Trump being present about is fixing

1:46:26

the big problems, not like

1:46:28

the bullshit fake problems that the media

1:46:30

gets us to focus on, not the

1:46:33

slogans, but why are people dying seven

1:46:35

years earlier if they don't have a

1:46:37

college degree? Why do we have this

1:46:40

historic obesity epidemic in the richest country

1:46:42

in the world? Why do

1:46:44

we have like wars breaking out like

1:46:46

crazy all over the world? Why do

1:46:48

pharmaceutical companies get rich by

1:46:51

forcing therapeutics that aren't

1:46:54

even always good for us, right? Like

1:46:56

these are like big, big, big issues

1:46:58

that frankly, absent Trump, we wouldn't

1:47:00

even be talking about this stuff. Well,

1:47:02

I mean, I definitely think that

1:47:05

one of the things that certainly

1:47:07

excited me about Trump when he first

1:47:09

was running was, wow, this guy is

1:47:12

fucking rogue. And

1:47:15

you know what? And this whole

1:47:17

thing is so messed up now that

1:47:19

that's what you, I would, I hated

1:47:21

politics so much. I hated that.

1:47:23

I was like, I would hire a, I

1:47:26

would hire a muppet to go in

1:47:28

there with a hammer. That's

1:47:30

right. I would hire a muppet with a hammer if

1:47:33

I could vote for a muppet with a hammer. And

1:47:35

that's how most people feel. It's like, it doesn't even

1:47:37

feel like it's working for us anymore. So what does

1:47:39

it even matter? Yeah. Um, yeah. But

1:47:42

so that's why I think Bobby, that's one thing that I did. That's

1:47:45

one thing that I thought was pretty amazing about bringing Bobby Kennedy,

1:47:47

um, to you guys, his

1:47:49

campaign is that, um, he's

1:47:51

a sheriff for that kind of shit. He

1:47:53

really is, you know, for caring. I think

1:47:55

for just for genuinely caring about people. I

1:47:58

know. I know he cares about people. basically.

1:52:02

And I say this right now because the polls are all saying we'd

1:52:04

win. That's why it's 5743, don't buy the polls.

1:52:09

Because here's the thing, okay. It

1:52:11

could keep people from voting also. It could keep

1:52:13

people from voting, but let's say for example, something

1:52:15

happened. I don't know what happened, but let's say

1:52:17

something happened. There's a fire or something. Yeah, where

1:52:20

the people who don't want to answer pollster questions

1:52:23

are now Kamala voters, right?

1:52:25

So you can't trust this stuff. You

1:52:28

gotta assume that you just gotta work your ass off.

1:52:30

That's what we're trying to do. President

1:52:32

Trump and I do multiple events a day at this

1:52:34

point. And if you

1:52:37

want, in my view, if you

1:52:39

want to secure the border, have

1:52:41

common sense economic policy, then

1:52:43

Donald Trump is your man. And I gotta

1:52:45

say, man, something about Kamala Harris, and I

1:52:47

know a little bit about you. And

1:52:50

I've heard about some of your political views. We've invited her

1:52:52

and Mr. Walz to come on. We would love it

1:52:54

if they would. I'm sure you would. But

1:52:57

like- Sean O'Brien,

1:52:59

who's the head of the

1:53:01

Teamsters, one of the things that

1:53:03

President Trump has sort of been known for is bringing

1:53:05

more working class people into the Republican coalition, right? It's,

1:53:07

I think, one of the reasons why he's

1:53:10

been very successful politically. If

1:53:12

you look at where Kamala is on

1:53:15

the big pharma stuff, or you look at

1:53:17

where she is on the foreign conflict stuff,

1:53:19

she's very pro-war. Or if you

1:53:22

look at where she is on things like, how

1:53:25

do we put tariffs on

1:53:27

goods that are imported from China so

1:53:30

that you don't have the Chinese undercutting

1:53:32

the wages of American workers? Right,

1:53:35

or like the illegal immigration thing. Like, yeah,

1:53:37

it's about fentanyl and drug trafficking, but when

1:53:39

you bring in millions upon millions of illegal

1:53:41

immigrants who are willing to work under the

1:53:43

table, that undercuts the wages of American workers,

1:53:45

right? So our own people get poorer, and

1:53:48

I don't have anything against the illegal immigrants themselves.

1:53:50

I have something against Kamala Harris who lets these

1:53:52

people come in, but I want our people to

1:53:54

be able, black, white, brown, whatever, I

1:53:56

just want our people to be able to work for

1:53:58

a solid wage. it doesn't work when

1:54:00

you have people coming in like this. Well, some

1:54:02

of it is we have to have personal responsibility

1:54:05

too, as people

1:54:08

running companies to not hire those people as well.

1:54:11

And so you have to enforce that side of it

1:54:14

as well. I agree, you got to do both sides

1:54:16

of it. I think we got to make it harder

1:54:18

to hire illegal labor. We also ought to make it

1:54:20

harder for illegal labor to come into the country in

1:54:22

the first place. I agree both sides of it have

1:54:24

got to matter, but I think that's actually why we're

1:54:26

doing so much better among working people is because they

1:54:28

recognize like, open borders are

1:54:31

not good for me, right? Oh, that shit's scary dude. That

1:54:33

shit's not good for me. Like this stuff

1:54:35

with pharma is not good for me. And

1:54:37

so they have become more open to Donald

1:54:39

Trump. And I think that's a

1:54:41

very good thing. Cause I think, look man, between Bobby

1:54:44

Kennedy, me, obviously

1:54:46

the president at the top of the ticket, I

1:54:49

think we're going to have such a cool administration

1:54:51

that's going to try to tackle the big things

1:54:54

and not just govern along these bullshit

1:54:56

slogans anymore. So look,

1:54:58

I hope that ends up being true cause I think we'll do a lot of

1:55:00

good if we win. If you, no

1:55:03

matter what happens in this election, do you think

1:55:05

you would run again in the future? I don't

1:55:08

know, man. It's

1:55:10

so hard to even imagine running

1:55:12

for anything after this because

1:55:15

I'm so obsessed with winning right now. And

1:55:18

you know, like I probably, certainly probably would do

1:55:20

another term in the Senate, but that doesn't come

1:55:22

up for four more years cause Senate terms are

1:55:24

six years. It's like, whatever, run nationally

1:55:27

again. I don't know, man. That's a

1:55:29

big, that's a big thing. It's a big thing to

1:55:31

put your family through. Yeah, I can imagine. And I've

1:55:33

always, I've seen it for two months, three months now

1:55:35

that I've been the VP nominee to

1:55:37

run for that for two years. My

1:55:39

attitude is let's get Donald Trump

1:55:42

elected and let's fix as much as

1:55:44

we can because then I

1:55:46

think the country will

1:55:48

be in a much better spot. Like I don't mean to sound

1:55:51

like a doomer. And, you

1:55:54

know, I actually really haven't thought about what I- I

1:55:56

haven't really thought about what I would do in 2028, no

1:55:59

matter what, but. Man, if Kamala Harris is

1:56:01

the president for the next four years, we

1:56:03

have four more years of open borders, four

1:56:06

more years of not putting tariffs on

1:56:08

Chinese imports, four more years

1:56:10

of the crazy foreign

1:56:12

policy that's pro-war all over the

1:56:14

world, I really do worry

1:56:16

that the country's in a very, very bad spot.

1:56:20

So I don't think too much about future politics. I

1:56:22

just want to win this race. How

1:56:24

many times do politicians say stuff that's just on the

1:56:26

trail and then when it comes time to actually get

1:56:28

an office and do stuff, it seems like that

1:56:31

person disappears? Me,

1:56:35

hopefully not at all. Some

1:56:38

politicians definitely say one thing and then don't

1:56:41

govern that way in the privacy of

1:56:44

their actual office. Some of it's

1:56:47

negotiation, right? Some of it is, okay, so

1:56:49

let's say you have a tax plan, you

1:56:51

want 10 things to happen, but

1:56:53

then to get the Democrats to vote for it, you have to

1:56:55

take out two of those 10 things. That's

1:56:57

just the give and take of governance, but I don't think

1:56:59

that's what you're talking about. I mean,

1:57:01

what you do see sometimes is people who

1:57:03

say something on the campaign trail, even though

1:57:05

they affirmatively do not believe that thing at

1:57:07

all. And that's just... That's not

1:57:10

you? That's just honesty. It's certainly not me. It's

1:57:12

certainly not Donald Trump. They'd say what you will about Donald Trump,

1:57:14

but he just says what he thinks. And

1:57:16

I think that's actually one of the reasons why people like him.

1:57:18

A lot of people are going to vote for him, I think

1:57:20

also because it's just the funny... He's the

1:57:22

funniest dude they've ever had in there. He

1:57:25

is incredibly funny. The shit he says is absolutely

1:57:27

wild. He's got a great sense of humor. Can

1:57:30

I tell you one story? Yeah. And

1:57:32

then you have to go. I know I have to go soon. I've

1:57:34

got my person over here. I understand.

1:57:37

She's very nervous. I want you to get home to your family. No, I'm going

1:57:39

to have dinner with my kids tonight, so it's a big deal. Skyline Chili, in...

1:57:43

not Cincinnati, we're doing Skyline Chili in Middletown.

1:57:45

Even if you have other Chili and you just say that, they

1:57:47

don't want to tell anybody. That's one thing I don't care if

1:57:50

you lie about, dude. No, man. Skyline

1:57:52

is good. Have you ever had Skyline? Skyline

1:57:54

goes straight to the basement. I know that, brother. I

1:57:56

have had it. I

1:57:59

respect it. I've

1:58:02

had at a wedding in Covington, Kentucky.

1:58:04

I've had a scallon chili. That's

1:58:07

a good wedding, man. Those must've been good

1:58:09

friends. Anyway, yeah, so the

1:58:11

first time, not

1:58:15

that he had ever met my wife, but the

1:58:17

first time President Trump spent any real time with

1:58:20

my wife. Did he flirt with her or

1:58:22

not? He didn't flirt with her. He was very sweet to her.

1:58:24

Gave her a big hug, told her she was beautiful. He's

1:58:26

a very engaging guy. Some

1:58:29

of the media doesn't tell people about him, but he's a

1:58:31

very engaging guy, very easy to talk to. But

1:58:33

it's so funny, my wife is super

1:58:36

diplomatic. And so he asks her,

1:58:38

he's like, Usha, what do you think about

1:58:40

your husband being involved in politics? And she's,

1:58:42

oh, it's nice. I like supporting him. He

1:58:44

really cares about public service, loves the people

1:58:46

of Ohio. Just gives a very diplomatic answer.

1:58:49

And then he kind of chuckles and says, yeah, my wife hates it

1:58:51

too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:58:55

And it just broke the ice perfectly. And

1:58:58

then she could actually have a conversation with him because she wasn't

1:59:00

trying to like talk to the president. Then she was just talking

1:59:02

to a guy at that point. And

1:59:04

he's got a very, very good way about

1:59:06

him. And he breaks down those barriers. He

1:59:09

says some funny stuff, dude. That Al Smith

1:59:11

dinner the other night, that shit was good.

1:59:13

Yeah. When Tony Hinchcliffe helped him write

1:59:15

that or not. I don't know. It's

1:59:18

a good question, but he's, I'll tell you a

1:59:20

lot of the stuff he just comes up with

1:59:22

himself. I mean, the line where he was talking

1:59:24

about, you know,

1:59:26

white dudes for common. Oh yeah. That

1:59:28

was tough. And he was like, he

1:59:31

was like, I forget exactly what he

1:59:33

said, but some of the effect of,

1:59:35

well, it's okay. Their wives and their

1:59:37

wives, boyfriends are all voting for

1:59:39

Trump. That shit

1:59:42

was pretty crazy, dude.

1:59:45

And like all good jokes, there's like an element of

1:59:47

truth to it. My best friend's

1:59:49

gonna be rubbed on Lucky Chuck Schumer right there.

1:59:51

I know. Squeeze a couple

1:59:53

bucks out of the fucking insurance companies

1:59:55

right there. Do

1:59:58

you think our voting poll, do you think that our. are

2:00:00

voting is fair, do you think? I do, I do. I

2:00:02

mean, look, I think we had some problems in 2020. I

2:00:05

think the biggest problem in 2020 is that big tech

2:00:07

interfered in the election. Like I really

2:00:10

think it's- I can't believe that Facebook and Twitter, when

2:00:12

it was owned then, they admitted

2:00:14

to like leaving certain things

2:00:16

off and stuff and not facing

2:00:18

any charges. They admitted to censoring

2:00:20

American citizens weeks before an election,

2:00:22

right? Well, I've been talking about that

2:00:24

another time. But we gotta get into that. Yeah,

2:00:27

if you'll have me back, I'll come back

2:00:29

after we win. And have a good conversation,

2:00:31

but you're always welcoming Cincinnati, even despite your

2:00:33

views on Skyline. Hey man, I respect that.

2:00:35

We'll be cheering your mom on- Thanks

2:00:38

man. To get her 10 year chip. It's in

2:00:40

January? It's in January. Awesome, man. Mr.

2:00:42

Vance, thank you so much for spending time with us today. Thanks

2:00:44

man, good to see you. Now

2:00:46

I'm just floating on the breeze

2:00:48

and I feel I'm falling like

2:00:51

these leaves. I must be cornerstone.

2:00:56

Oh, but when I reach

2:00:59

that ground, I'll share this

2:01:01

piece of mind I found.

2:01:03

I can feel it in

2:01:05

my bones, but

2:01:07

it's gonna take.