Vice President JD Vance: No One Saw This Coming, The Ceasefire Is Real!

0:00 The Biden administration just really screwed up our immigration policy in a profoundly dangerous way. But even if you agree that immigration is a problem, it seems division is the most compelling narrative for politicians. I remember this particular quote about the black community where he said, What Do you have I'm a black man. I feel like I've got things to lose. And my concern is when the Western narrative is that it's the brown people that are the reason that your life is hard, or like Mexicans. And murderers. If I heard that from my political leaders, it's conceivable that I might be angry at my neighbor, even though they've done nothing. But let me just say very often what the president is accused of saying he didn't say it, or there was much greater context. You wouldn't have said that.

0:38 Well the president I certainly have way different styles. But Donald Trump is much different as a human being than the media makes him out to be. But back in two thousand sixteen, there was a private message between you and a remake where you said Trump was either a cynical asshole or America's Hitler. How do you go from that position to vice president of the same person? Well what is that journey? A crazy journey, man. But look, I thought Trump would be a failed president. He was not. I thought that America's institutions were fundamentally functioning. They were not. You always have to be able to acknowledge when you're right and when you're wrong. Like he's so non conventional in the way that he does everything that things that were previously unimaginable are actually on the table. This peace deal with Iran, for example. There's been lots of false deals. Well, this one's real. So An Israel. Trump called Netanyahu a very difficult guy. What does Netanyahu want? I don't know.

1:30 All I'd say is that we're different countries with different interests. Do you trust them? I don't really trust anybody. Having seen the president of United States operate, I feel quite confident that they are the junior partner, we're the senior partner, we are the world's superpower. I'm gonna take a little bit of a hot end. Um do you think aliens could be real? I do. Mr Vice President. I had no idea about your earliest context. And it has informed what I've then seen from you later as an adult, but can you take me back?

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2:37 Mr Vice President. I have your book here, okay? It says, Of all the things that I hated about my childhood, Nothing compared to the revolving door.

2:49 Of father figures. I hated the disruption. And I hated how often these boyfriends Would walk out of my life. Just as I began to like them.

3:00 I always think to understand. the people that are sat in front of me, you have to take get a picture of that early context. True. And I had no idea about your earliest context. And it it has in some respects informed what I've then seen from you later as an adult, but can you take me back to your earliest context and explain that quote for me. Yeah, so um I I was raised in very working class town, very working class family. Yeah, this is a photo of me when I was a little kid here. And my family, like a lot of other families in similar circumstances, we struggled. We struggled to adapt to middle class life.

3:35 Yeah, this is my sister and my grandfather. It's interesting, my my my grandfather had very low formal education. I he graduated from high school. My grandmother left school when she was thirteen. Very religious people, particularly my grandmother, but You know, they they struggled pretty much economically for most of their lives. My grandfather died when I was thirteen, I think my grandmother died when I was twenty. And you know, this is yeah, this is right this is probably not even a year before she died. And I was about to go to Iraq. And she was very old and frail.

4:04 And this is one of the last photos of the two of us. And this is really the woman who raised me because You raise the the revolving dwarf father figures. So Mom amazing person. She's been clean and sober for now eleven years. But

4:17 She was was in the throes of a pretty bad addiction problem for much of my childhood. And so this was kind of my savior. This was the person who stepped in and made sure I had a stable life to the extent that I did. And your grandmother, she got pregnant at thirteen. Correct. And she had a miscarriage. At that age? Yeah, that's right. So think about this eastern Kentucky, you're talking about the hills. of an extremely impoverished very rural part of the United States of America. And so, you know, she is

4:46 dating my grandfather I think at the time was sixteen. She's thirteen. So these are children. She gets pregnant. they moved to Ohio for more opportunity because you you just couldn't build a good life for yourself. There weren't enough good jobs in that part of the world. And she had a miscarriage. So like the thing that brought her out of her home

5:06 I think hastened them getting married. I don't think they would have gotten married at thirteen and sixteen were it not for this unplanned pregnancy. They have a very chaotic marriage, an abusive marriage in a lot of ways. But They have three kids, my mom, my uncle, my aunt And the story of our families in some ways Some of us were able to

5:26 kind of break the cycle and some of us weren't and Part of what motivated me to write that book was trying to understand why is it. Why is it that life worked out for some of us and didn't work out for others. So your biological father. Yeah. Hmm. He put you up for adoption. So he did. So I was adopted by a man when I was five or six years old, by the name of Robert Hamill. And he became and it's still technically if you look at my birth certificate, he is still listed as my legal father

5:52 Now he was in the picture from call it I was seven until ten or eleven. And then He and Mom got divorced. he still stuck around for a little bit after that, but by the time I was twelve years old, he was just gone.

6:07 Never talked to him again, never saw him again. And am I right in thinking this is the the third man in your life at this point because your sister Lindsay. That's right. So her father, very good guy. She's five or six years older than me. And so

6:23 He was the first of my mother's husbands. And then my dad, my biological father, was number two, and then my legal father was number three. And then, you know, things sort of got a little quicker from that point forward. So there was a there was a h there was more turnover, let's say, in the relationships at that point forward. There was also a guy called Matt there after at thirteen years old that your mom Yeah, yeah, good guy. is very political. And so he and I um reconnected a little bit over our shared interest in politics, but he was just a g a good, hard working guy. You know, he was only around for maybe a few years, probably less than that of my life, but

7:00 He was a a significant and positive force. In your book Page hundred and twenty four, you you say living with mum and math, which is when you were fourteen years old was like a front row seat to the end of the world. Yeah. Yeah. Well it's just chaotic. Right. I mean th things that I thought of as normal that I later realized in, you know, talking to my wife or talking to friends that just a level of relationship instability.

7:22 You know, fighting, people throwing stuff. If the fights get really bad, some person throws a plate at somebody else. Again, it it sounds even talking about it now kind of crazy, but it was pretty normal. Back then. And You know, sometimes it was worse and sometimes it was better, but there was a sense in which relationships were always just kind of chaotic.

7:43 As an adult, you know, like you can almost imagine now that you've got you so many kids yourself that I I can understand the feeling of craziness be being normal and you kind of don't realize until you see into someone else's world or someone else hears about yours. Because I can relate to that in many ways. But as an adult, you must look back on that and now see the the way that that shaped you.

8:02 Yeah. Well it was very unhealthy. Um I I certainly think again it it was hard to sort of really feel a sense of stability. It was hard to really attach to people because you always assumed that they were gonna be gone. And You know. years later, I was I was talking to I was actually at a a conference, I was giving a speech, and this guy came up to me He was a child psychologist.

8:23 And You know, he said. You know, one of the things the literature shows is that people who come from traumatic or chaotic environments and end up doing pretty well. They always have one person, whether it was a teacher, a social worker, a grandparent, aunt, aunt or an uncle, they always have one person who's sort of their anchor.

8:42 And that seems to be the difference for a lot of these kids. And and again, I was lucky enough to have that. And I I think about my life a lot of time. I mean sitting here in the vice president of the United States. What would my life have turned out to be if you'd had all that chaos? Which was just a background part of my life. But you take out those stabilizing forces. God knows, man. Your grandmother. My grandmother. That's right. 'Cause through your story when I was reading about your childhood, she seemed like the safe place that you would retreat to.

9:08 Over and over again. Male role models to have father figures that they look up to. She was in in an unconventional way like both a mother figure and a father figure. She was extraordinarily odd. And I mean that in the most loving way possible, but she was just incredibly tough. Yeah, I was

9:29 I don't know, twelve thirteen. I was hanging out with one of the kids in the neighborhood who was kinda going down a bad path. He actually would later spend some time in jail, but you know, he was getting into drugs, starting to smoke weed, starting to do a little bit more than that. Again, twelve thirteen, so we were pretty young kids. My grandmother found out And she told me that if I kept on hanging out with this kid She was gonna run him over with her car. And then I was like kinda caught off guard by that and she said, JD, I promise you

9:53 And no one will ever find out about it. And I was like, whoa. So like for the sake of this kid. I pretty much stopped hanging out with them, but that toughness, I think, was like a necessary part. It was like through sheer willpower. That she kept me on the straight and narrow And uh again, I don't know where I'd be without her. And over the next sort of

10:15 Your mother's addiction um seems to get worse and worse. It does. It does. From prescription drugs to heroin and everything in between. And it really sort of ravages Not just y uh her life, but the family's life. That's right. Nearly making your

10:31 Your grandparents bankrupt. Yes. And mom, by the way, has been clean and sober for eleven years, which is an amazing thing, but Yeah when Papal died. He was what my grandmother was for me, I sort of realized that that's what Papa was for mom. He was her safe place, he was her anchor. And I think she already had some addiction problems, but it just really accelerated from there and things kinda went off the rails. And you know, my my grandparents

10:56 before my grandfather died. We're trying various ways to help her. And yeah, it got worse and worse, harder and harder drugs, had a few bad overdoses. And Yeah.

11:06 By the grace of God some miracle. You know, it it's it's amazing how transformed she is. It sort of drives home how For some people Drugs are just

11:18 they they take so much away from a human being. And she was certainly that that way, and in the same way that they took so much away from her, sobriety has given her a whole lot back. If I asked your wife. How this season of your life The most formative season of your life.

11:32 Has changed you. What are all the things she would say? It's funny because I remember interviewing I think it was Michael Jordan's coach. Okay. And he said to me that People's dark sides and their light sides are like fundamentally interconnected. Yes. And I can relate. Absolutely. But the things things people might clap for or applaud about, you're also Fundamentally linked to things that we're going to do. You you struggle with or that make you sometimes not the most normal person. Yes.

11:57 That makes total sense to me. I think on the dark side, what she would say is I am an extraordinary Mistrust. I think of of people that I don't know particularly well. I sort of assume the worst sometimes about circumstances and and and things outside of my control.

12:15 But I maybe assume the best about the people themselves. Right, so there's an inherent like sense. That the world is going to fall apart. I think that's a very true thing. And even in our like our marriages, it would be hard to imagine I'm just saying, you know, all marriages are work, but it would be hard to imagine like a marriage that was more successful and more happy than ours. Our kids are doing great. They're healthy. Like my wife and I love each other very much, but we're also just like she really is my best friend. She's the person that I talk to about everything. She's my Closest confidant.

12:45 And yet There are all kinds of times during our twelve year marriage. Where I've just had this thought like there's no way this is gonna last. Either because She's taking the kids to the grocery store and I start thinking to myself, Oh my God, a drunk driver is gonna have a head on collision.

13:01 I I I just there's a sense of like instability that is very much built in. That's that's kind of the dark. I think the light is Because I've seen a lot of people their very best and their very worst. I sort of assume the best about the human beings themselves.

13:17 So even though the circumstances are crazy and even though shit hits the fan, sometimes completely outside of your control, I just y I I think what she would say is that I probably have a higher empathy quotient than any person that she knows. And I really try to understand what makes people tick. And so there's there's the light and the dark together, but there's there's a lot beyond that. I mean, look, I mean I it was a lot of work. When I look back at our early relationship And we'd have an argument. Like before we were married.

13:45 And and I'd be like, Okay, well fine, let's just break up. And her response is like well, that's crazy. Why would we break up? Let's just like have a rational conversation. Like I don't honey, I don't do rational conversations in this context. That is not something we do. But again. So long as you're I think self aware about that, it's a problem that you can solve. And certainly

14:07 I I mean I think she would say com now compared to fourteen years ago when we first started dating, it's just night and day. But very early on. It was a chaotic relationship itself. Clearly an avoidant attachment style, which obviously makes a ton of sense. I can relate. Yeah.

14:27 Did you go did you have to go to like couples therapy? Because it it seems almost inconceivable that You could go through that early context. how be so avoidant, see be so sort of on e on edge with commitment and see everything as kind of being ephemeral. Yet still have a healthy relationship like the one you you have with her.

14:46 No, never went to couples therapy. I actually went to like therapy a couple of times and I just found it way too uncomfortable to talk to a stranger. And so you know. No. No. I mean this is I guess this is kind of a weird you know, a weird kind of therapy, but No, it it it's It just the idea The other thing I really didn't like about it, and again again I

15:06 I don't mean this to criticize therapy, I'm sure it helps a lot of people, so so please Don't take this the wrong way. But there was something about it that felt Almost Too self referential.

15:17 And two like it almost encouraged at least me. To blame others. Or to blame my past, or to blame my mom, or to blame just I really didn't like this feeling that I was sort of giving up agency over my own life.

15:33 And so we've just gotten better at how we relate to each other. That's primarily me. I mean, she grew up in a very stable situation. Her so her parents are South Asian immigrants to the United States of America, but she was born and raised in San Diego, California. You know. just very normal middle class southern California life. And

15:52 I think because of that she just And much healthier. Let's say it's much healthier relationship. Practices than I did.

15:59 That point about understanding the person on the other end and having empathy for the human being. Politics. Yeah. 'Cause I watch the I watch the election campaigns. I watch How like yourself or president

16:11 went against um People like Kamala Harris. with that logic think that Kamal Harris is actually like a really good person. But he must understand, Kamala. I I don't I I don't have

16:22 I would say that I understand her. I would say that I just don't have this animosity towards people on the other side. But you d is that not like sort of implicit in the job itself that you have to point out their faults and you do. Yeah. No, absolutely. But I think you can be sort of rational about it. You can be cerebral about it. Certainly there are things the other side does that annoy me, but You know, like my my fundamental bias is that just most people are good people. And to the extent that they do something you disagree with, it's either because

16:49 They screwed up on something or because they made a mistake, or I just I've always been like this, I've always been more charitable. About other human beings. And I I don't know. Again, maybe I pro maybe I do that too much. Maybe I'm too charitable, but I'd rather be too charitable than too cynical about human beings'cause that I mean

17:07 You talk about a screwed up perspective to take into politics. If you're always cynical about other people's motivations, man, you're gonna be in a very, very bad spot. I actually think the same about interviewing Remarkably. Because I know because I I miss I meet so many people from so many different sites. Yeah, of course. And one of the things that I've come to learn is just just try and meet everybody as I experience them versus like You know, especially when I'm interviewing politicians, it's I just want to meet them as I experience them versus thinking about how they've been framed or whatever. Yeah. And it's actually made me much more empathetic because I again obviously we all have preconceptions. And then you meet someone and you go, Oh, they are a family person, they care about X, Y, and Z, they care about the same things, they just disagree about pathways. Yeah. Of course.

17:47 But politics seems to be like the the sort of game of politics to me seems to be like paint the other side to be Malicious. Well, I I think the game of politics, I mean fundamentally you're making a pitch to people, right? It's not it's not about Kamala Harris or Donald Trump or JD Vance or Tim Walsh is about the American people, right? And fundamentally to make that sales pitch, you have to say what's better about this product, what's worse about the other product. So that that is just inherent. But again, I I think you can do that

18:14 Yeah, what I always try to do is I try to talk about policies that are really bad. Here are the reasons why I think this is screwed up. Here are the reasons why I think that she made mistakes. But I You know

18:24 It is weird. It is fundamentally you were in a position where you're trying to point out the faults in another people, even if it's just their conduct as opposed to their character. But even with that, I again I I I do think that you see people in politics who fundamentally just really hate the people on the other side. Yeah. That's just not me. It's never gonna be me. Even when I'm being very pugilist, like even when you you really have to drive home a point. Like I, you know not to get too much into the weeds of of partisan politics but like something I think the Biden administration just like really screwed up. in a profoundly dangerous way was the was our immigration policy.

19:00 Right. Now There are all re kinds of reasons why that might have happened. But fundamentally that was a very, very, very bad screw up. But I don't hate Camel Harris because I think she had a bad immigration policy. I just Think it's important to point out the flaws.

19:15 On on the immigration policy, I mean still want to go through your chart again, but on this point of immigration, this is another area where you get such division. Sure. And you get you know, I remember watching the there was a couple of things I remember watching when I was I think I'd probably be back in Plymouth, um, in the countryside. One of them was like Trump Uh the the president demonizing Me Mexican people. I remember this particular quote which I've always

19:37 struggled with a little bit where he said. about the black community, what have you got to lose? And I remember thinking. I'm a black man. I feel like I've got things to lose.

19:48 Um That kind of narrative about those individuals that broad strokes sort of demonization of them would make people's lives harder and feels unnecessary. Even if you agree that immigration is a problem. The the sort of like skin colour or religion or like Mexicans, rapists and murderers. Is is

20:07 Might might galvanise in the near term, but in the long term it's probably gonna sow division. And that's probably net negative for society. Well what I one thing I'd say just about Anything that I've ever heard heard the president say

20:22 that then's that's then refracted through the lens of social media or, you know, non social media. Is very often what he is accused of saying he didn't say it, or he said it in a totally different way, or there was much greater context. So like I re like I remember, for example, like I remember back in twenty sixteen or twenty fifteen where he said this sort of being like offended at the rapists and murderers line. Yeah. Yeah. And what he said, which is actually true.

20:46 Is that Some of these countries are actually Encouraging prisoners to come into the United States of America. Does that mean that every person comes into America as a rapist or a murderer or as a prisoner? No, it doesn't. But he didn't say that. Right. So so again, this goes back to the point about being charitable is I I do try to understand fundamentally like why did a person say that. What are they actually thinking? What are they trying to get across? And again, if you disagree with that's fine, you wouldn't necessarily Well the president I certainly have way different styles. Absolutely we have different styles. But I mean the the way that I talk about immigration, I say that's one of the issues where

21:19 we we've always been like extremely closely aligned and that was obviously a major issue during the twenty twenty four campaign. But Th the way that I think about immigration is is fundamentally Like as a country You are the people who live in your nation. Okay. So America's three hundred and thirty million souls.

21:37 You know. I think fun again, most of them w who are they voted for me or not. They're really good people. And they want really good things for their families. They want really good things for themselves. And yeah, they're like some bad apples in every crew. Three hundred and thirty million people, there are definitely some bad people, but most people are fundamentally good and decent.

21:55 However You could let people into your country who could be fun, decent, normal human beings. Who just kind of mess with the the equation a little bit. It's like if I have a bunch of people over to my house for dinner and I've I invite 10 people to come over for dinner, and one of them brings a stranger

22:13 It's probably gonna be fun. Right. But if like every single one of them bring three strangers, it's gonna totally change the character of the conversation that you're gonna have, of the room that you're gonna have. A countries like that, just on a much more massive scale. So I maybe come at it or I describe it a different way. But fundamentally I I think that the president

22:32 was very right about immigration in a way that was prescient. And even if the blunt way that he described it offended some people. I think it was like a very important contribution to not just our country, but to the world. I think it would be hard to find an American who didn't think we needed um again, I'm not an American, so I'm I guess I'm talking about where I'm from. But we needed Borders and a policy around borders. Sure. Just in the same way that we have it around our house and every festival we enjoy and whatever it might whatever venue we go to. I think the um the thing I've always been concerned about when I see the sort of rising narrative across the world, not just in America, but uh now across the West, um the UK as well, is

23:08 In trying to solve that problem, it seems that like division is the most compelling narrative for p politicians. And then the like downstream consequence of division you see playing out on the streets. You see like Especially in the UK at the moment, you're really seeing um certain communities be quite um demonized and victimized because of this broad political narrative, which are which is being used to get people into power. But then the downstream consequences of like real people on the streets that are

23:34 Brown or black or Muslims. I don't think the the people at the top consider that. Well I mean like Is there another way of of making the point on immigration, legal immigration, without Mm. Demonizing people?

23:47 Well, I I certainly when I when I talk about it, to the extent that I demonize anybody on the immigration conversation, I demonize the leadership. that is immune to thinking about the consequences of this. And so J just this this point about division. Division a very interesting word to me because I think division's very bad. Like I I like living in a in a community that's cohesive, where people get along, or we love everybody, regardless of what they look like or what they what what thought they might have in their head. But like let me give you like a slightly different perspective on the division thing. What if division is not the result of politicians demonizing certain groups, but what if division is the inevitable consequence of when the population changes too quickly too fast in a given society?

24:29 And what you see as as you know politicians exploiting division. I actually think that what they're trying to do is articulate a feeling that people have. And sometimes people might express that feeling in ways that we don't like, or maybe they're offensive, but but fundamentally like You know, you're a working class guy in Britain or you're a working class guy in the United States of America.

24:52 And You know, if somebody moves in your neighborhood. That's right. I did I did. Yeah. So my my black family's obviously black. My mom's Nigerian and I came from Botswana and I moved into an old white neighborhood. Okay. And h I mean, how did people treat you? Uh we were called the N word of times and like like I that's terrible. I don't like that.

25:12 But I imagine that a lot of people in your community were welcoming. No, no, of course, you know that that can be like Yeah, and I understand that. And I and I certainly think it's important to Like try to fight back against that stuff. Like we don't want young kids who come into a community for that to be like their their memory. But like I also like our next door neighbor was black family and my my grandmother was not Woke.

25:36 She doesn't have progressive views about race or gender or pretty much anything else. But like She really loved I'll never forget this, the the the the black man who lived next door to us. She said he has a good heart, and that was her highest compliment of anybody. He was a preacher, the family was like a very, very good family, stable family, mom, dad, few kids, and I was very close to to to the young son. And I I just I did not experience that. when people talk about division, I just did not see that family

26:05 as substantially different from us. And I don't think that family I'm sure they experienced racism, but I don't think that was like a a common fixture of their day living in that neighborhood now. Yeah, that's fair. Wh where Mamald really did resist the changes is when we had a few people like the neighborhood went downhill very quickly. And I talk about that a little bit in the book.

26:27 And you had a bunch of people move in. With different habits and you had a woman who You know, she said a bath But then she got drunk and passed out, and so she ruined her entire house. And

26:38 You know. S at some level Was it wrong for my grandmother to feel offended? That her neighborhood had changed so quickly so fast that That

26:49 She never felt She didn't feel comfortable there anymore. Or the people who came in had different values. Or she couldn't hold a conversation with somebody in the same way. You know I I got attacked by this on this during the campaign in twenty twenty four.

27:02 Well I said, you know. It's actually okay. If you're an American, an English native speaker It's actually okay for you to want the person who moves in next to you to speak English. Not because you're a racist or a Xenophobe but because you want to be able to talk to the person you share a community with. And so what what what I often see is that division gets magnified.

27:24 When statesmen don't do the job of Of actually ensuring that integration is possible. And for integration to be possible, it has to be, I think, slow moving. You have to be careful, right? A hundred people moving into a community is different from ten people moving into a community. You also make sure that everybody has economic opportunities, right? It's one thing to welcome a newcomer when everybody has access to a good job. But you welcome a new cover when a lot of people are feeling

27:51 economically distressed, they're gonna react to it totally differently. So again, this is maybe me being charitable to people you think I shouldn't be charitable to, but fundamentally like my job as a an elected leader. More division happens less. It's not to pretend

28:08 That division doesn't exist. People naturally I think feel reactive when things change too quickly, and that's okay. No, I I I understand the the speci the sort of human instinct of Of uh I guess of kind of like xenophobia in a way.

28:22 Um and I think We all we all would want our neighbour to s to be able to connect with our neighbor. Yeah. I think it's like the the point of nuance is When they can't speak my language. What do I then do about that?

28:35 And I think You know. Maybe if my neighbour didn't speak my language we might not get along'cause we won't be able to connect and talk. But but I wouldn't Be angry at them. And I and my my concern is from a high level when the the sort of Western narrative now is that it's the brown people that are the reason that your life is hard. Is I if if I believed that, if I heard that from my political leaders,

28:55 It's conceivable that I might be angry at my neighbor. Even though they've done nothing. Just their presence alone might make me resent them a little bit. And then what happens when I resent them because I'm being told that they're the reason that I'm suffering. That they're the reason I don't have a job. And then we get into this these like culture wars. Which is a slippery slope. Yeah. I've always been. I hear you. But what I would say is is I'm not mad and I said this on the campaign trail all the time. I'm not mad at the illegal alien who broke our laws and came into the country, probably some of them probably didn't even know they were breaking our laws. Who came into our country

29:26 and wanted better opportunity for their families. What I am mad is the political system, the I don't know, right? So it's hard to say. But I am mad at the political system that encourages people to break those rules and sows division and then gets mad at the native population for looking around and saying, Wait a second, I didn't sign up for this. I didn't agree to this. So I just like you, I don't know what you describe that. I I would say there's an instinct in every human being. share a community with people where you've got something in common with. Okay. And it and it's like everything, right? A little bit of spice is good.

30:02 Too much spice changes the the dynamic a little bit. And I think most people They're okay with change. But change that happens too fast, too quickly, I think in an immigration context is very, very bad for a country. And I think you guys have had that. We've had that. A lot of European countries have had that. I don't even feel particularly angry. um at any country because it it's a mistake that all of us made But now that you see that div I mean you rightly call it division, I just think that we have to say, Wait a second.

30:28 Let's try to do things a slightly different way. I think algorithms also play a big role in that because of the the design of them. Yeah, absolutely. So that's the but that's probably another conversation. Um I do think though. If I if my family Were struggling. Or it At all in danger at risk.

30:43 And There was a An area of land over there. that offered them a better chance. I personally think for the sake of my family, if my family was struggling I would try and move my family into that area.

30:53 And I I assume you would do the same. I assume you would if your family I've got this wonderful photo of your kids and your wife Well, if America went to c catastrophe and Mexico was doing great Would you not try and get into Mexico even if it wasn't? Um You didn't have a visa. I no, I I don't think I would. I mean I I I can understand why some people have to like move, you need to eat, you need to provide for your family, but

31:15 You know, why I I think that this is another thing about about the immigration thing that is that is challenging is You know, you want people to feel a certain rootedness and a certain devotion to their country. You know, one of the things that's very unique about America compared to Europe is There's this poll question that went around when I was a teenager, maybe I was or my early twenties, and it asked what percentage of young people in that society would die for their country if they had to. Like I'm not excited about the idea, but would actually do it. In the United States, it was something like seventy percent

31:45 And in all the other European all the other Western countries, it was like twenty to thirty five percent. And so You know, you talk about like okay, moving to Mexico because there's economic opportunity in in a universe where Mexico's flourishing and America's struggling. I Get what you're saying that

32:02 You want people to move and migrate to the place where they can have a chance of feeding their family. But like I I love this place in a way that is totally independent of the economic opportunities it provides to my children. There's something much deeper and there's a connection to to to the places, to the memories. I I mean I I drive through Eastern Kentucky, man. And those beautiful rolling hills

32:26 And even mountains. But they're all mountains that are alight with life because they're you know It's not the Rocky's. Yeah, you go you go to you go to West Virginia. You should do this. It's the the most beautiful area, I think, in the world, because you get the mountains and you get the rivers and you get that, but it's also so green and rich with life. I feel an attachment to it. That is very, very unique. But even if if your family were at risk.

32:51 You wouldn't move them into Mexico. Well I mean look my my the story of my family, my grandparents is They came from eastern Kentucky and moved to Southern Ohio, not exactly that far away. These are these are two very close areas, but they moved away, even though they didn't want to because of economic opportunity to provide for their families. So I I certainly empathize with that. I mean, yeah, if somebody showed up, I mean like I'm the vice president, I have a secret service detail, it's hard to put myself in this perspective right now. But like somebody showed up to my home in Cincinnati and pointed a gun at my head and said, You have to leave or we're gonna kill your children, I'd leave. Right. But

33:22 Yeah. I I think most migration decisions are not actually that Extreme. Extreme. Make sense. Yeah. This young man here. You ultimately go into the Marine Corps? I go to the Marine Corps. Yeah, so this is this is me in I believe right after boot camp. So two thousand three, maybe may yeah, I think two thousand three. This is me, this photo is taken in boot camp. And this is I'm pretty sure this is taken in Iraq, actually.

33:48 This is either into O five or O six at a point when Yeah, the Iraq war was not going well. But why do you guys think that's a good idea? What was the decision? There was this sense and in hindsight I really resent this. I mean I I

34:02 I I'm genuinely still angry at George W Bush over this. Even though again I I try to I try to be charitable and I have friends who work for'em. Think he's a great guy. Not saying he's not.

34:14 When I was a senior in high school I remember I'm at a restaurant. Called Skyland Chile in southwest Ohio. And

34:23 This guy comes out of Skyline Chili, he's got like a World War Two red veterans hat. We call him red hatters in the United States. So he was a veteran of World War Two. And I remember feeling like'cause you know, even that stage, this is probably two thousand three, two thousand two, maybe, remember thinking to myself. this generation is dying away. Like I I have this feeling, right? Because most most veterans you met, they were veterans of Vietnam, maybe of the first Iraq war. But I just went up and I was I shook his hand, I said, Thank you, sir, for your service. And Yeah, he was like genuinely touched.

34:53 But I remember thinking This guy answered the call. Now we have to answer the call. You know, September the eleventh happened when I was a junior in high school. And there was this patriotic sense of this is our world war two.

35:06 Right. And even some of the historical analogies that got used were the exact same. Saddam Hussein was Adolf Hitler. What if you had had an opportunity to stand up and say no to Adolf Hitler when he annexed the Satan land? Wouldn't you have taken that chance? And it it's like it they they they were so good at tapping into that patriotic reservoir. And by the way I think that reservoir is a very valuable thing. I think it's important for statesmen to cultivate it, but only to tap into it. when it's really necessary and when it's really justified. And what was so screwed up about Iraq is I mean I remember like

35:40 I went To the Marine Corps recruiter. And I wanted to be Marine because my older cousins were Marines and people said the Marines were the toughest Whether that's true or not, that was certainly the impression that Marines had of themselves. I signed on the dotted line, I went in what's called open contract. So sometimes you sign up and you have your job assigned, like you already know what you're gonna do. I wouldn't I wouldn't open contract. I said, You can give me whatever job you want to. I just want to be a Marine and

36:04 I I I did that because I love my country. And I wanted to contribute in the same way that that guy who wore a red hat Was still wearing his red hat, was still proud of it. knew that he contributed. And uh, you know, that led me, of course, to go to Iraq from oh five to oh six and made a lot of friends, gained a a ton of appreciation for the Marine Corps as an institution and the people, but

36:25 Yeah, it became a little jaded about our political leadership. Why you you said you you were kind of annoyed at Bush. Because That patriotic reservoir that exists in any country. I think it's maybe most powerful in the United States of America because again, we have this Seventy seventy plus percent of young people say they would die for their country. That's very unique.

36:46 among advanced economies. And I'm sure a lot of people in Europe look at that and say, Oh, those jingoistic idiots, they're you know, they're they're wrong or there's something bad about that. But I actually think you ha to have a real nation, you have to have the willingness that if God forbid something happens you're willing to put on your uniform and go and do what needs to be done. But again, in order for that to work.

37:08 In order for that feeling to be justified, the Leaders have to not take advantage of it. You can't say Saddam Hussein is Adolf Hitler, he wasn't. You you gotta be careful with it. And I don't think that George W. Bush was careful with it. I I think that he called the nation to do something.

37:24 That ultimately wasn't actually in our best interest as a nation, but more fundamentally, he drew on that wellspring of patriotism. to direct us to do something that we shouldn't have been doing in the first place. Because he had bad information or because of negligence or incompetent? I don't I mean I you know I I know enough people who know him. I think he had bad information. But You know, fundamentally like

37:48 Post nine eleven was really important. We had to go and deal with the terrorist networks that had existed all across the world that had been allowed to fester over the previous generation. But fundamentally.

38:02 The war on terrorism was not an existential thing to the United States of America. In the same in the way that like World War Two was an existential thing for Britain. Right. And I I think we just we have to be careful. About how we describe What we're asking our young people to do.

38:17 Because if you ask'em to do something and they feel like you were being honest with them. I think that sort of pays dividends into that patr patriotic reservoir. If you ask somebody to do something and it turns out you were lying to them, whether it was intentional or not, I think you draw down that patriotic reservoir. I don't know what the by the way. I mentioned that that poll.

38:36 And you know, I don't have the information I don't have the data in front of me. But Whatever the number of Americans, young Americans who say they would die for their country. I would bet. My I'd I'd been a lot of money.

38:48 That that number in twenty twenty six is much lower than it was in two thousand three. You violate that trust, it has very, very bad consequences. If you're gonna take tips from anyone on how to stay focused and high energy, let it be from the greatest pound for pound fighter of all time, the guy they call Johnny Bones Jones. John is a co-owner of our show sponsor, Keetone IQ, alongside myself. And when you hear why. It probably makes a lot of sense to you. When he's training or fighting, he needs high quality, steady, laser like focus without the crash. And ketones give him exactly that. And unlike caffeine, ketones don't stimulate your brain, they fuel it. So your brain actually loves ketones because it runs on them much more efficiently than anything else. And right now ketone IQ is giving away one.

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40:01 Ciao Moon Kakba. I don't speak Vietnamese, but this show can because of AI video technology from our sponsor, Hey Jen. I get messages every single week from those of you listening to the Dire of a CO all around the world and you express how much impact it's had on you and your life. And if that's true, then those conversations shouldn't only reach people in English. K Gen can take one recording of me and deliver it in any language while keeping my voice, timing and expressions. intact. But you don't need a studio like this to make it work for you. Record fifteen seconds of yourself and get an AI avatar that delivers studio quality video in over 175 languages. We're up to twenty languages now and we're not the only ones using it.

40:45 85% of the Fortune 100. Whether you're building an audience on social media, launching an online course, or rolling out training across your team, check out Hey Gen now. Your first three videos are totally free at hn.com slash D O A C. That's H E Y G E N dot com slash D O A C. See that? The the US is, I guess, uh in a war now. Well

41:08 Not anymore. Famous last words. Fair. We are in a ceasefire that I feel very good about. Okay. We announced the The peace agreement with the Iranians yesterday. Yes. I've learned so much about war because of this war.

41:27 Um, in part because I'm an interviewer at the time of war. Sure. And so I've been having lots of conversations with lots of people about the nature of war and I've learned so much. Frankly, I didn't know anything about Vietnam and really the psychology of war. Yeah. And how like when you start a war, uh Robert Pake said this to me. He said The th people underestimate about a war is when the bombs start dropping, politics changes, both where the bombs are dropping and at home. Sure. And I I to some degree think that with the Iran war now, that's like exactly what Happened.

41:54 Mm. From my assessment of it, which is It looked like It was gonna be quite straightforward. Drop the bombs, take out the leader.

42:01 Um The people rise up, which is what Um pr pr the president had said he'd encouraged the people to rise up when those bombs dropped and Kamehane was taken out. But then what then happened w it's again, I don't know any what I'm talking about here, so please correct me. Is it look like the country kind of fractured into all of these sort of little pockets of m militia and military. Um I remember I think it was Hegseth saying it just takes some time for the carrier pigeon to get out to where the soldiers are at the outpost. But and it's how the fracturing had happened. Yeah.

42:28 And then I heard uh the president and think yourself multiple times say like we don't really know who we're negotiating with. Or words to that effect. Because we've taken out the first and second row of leadership. And then

42:42 I I thought we gosh, we're in the same situation again where The bomb started dropping. Unintended consequences were There's now not one central leadership to negotiate with, but also politics at home has shifted. The the I mean the approval ratings of

42:57 I got this graph of the approval ratings. Had started to plummet at home. And Politics is changing on the ground there as well. Is this another forever war? Well the answer's no.

43:08 Um and Yeah, this is always I talked about this this conflict. I always said

43:16 Donald Trump. Learn the lessons. It's actually that that's almost unfair to him. He didn't learn the lessons of the Iraq war because back during the Iraq war he was saying this was stupid we should get out of Iraq. He was saying that back then.

43:29 And I think that while There were certainly some objectives that we had in this conflict. I just never had any doubt. Now obviously I'm an insider. I saw the president's deliberations and thought on this. But I I never had any worry. that this would become a multi-year expedition with no end in sight because I knew that we had leadership that was trying to define the objective.

43:49 very narrowly, accomplish the objective. And then see where we are. And so you know if if you go back to you talk about this this street uprising, certainly there was some thought that it would be possible that the Iranian street would rise up in the face of this thing and that you would see You know, a new government that was

44:08 much more pro American, much more pro western. What what happened though is in what we knew we could do is degrade their military. That was the that was actually the primary objective. Yes, the president talked about the Iranians rising up But the primary objective was always to degrade their conventional power so that we could be in a better position vis-a-vis Iran. So that whoever was calling the shots, they didn't have a loaded gun to our head anymore. Okay. And that's what we knew we could accomplish. And then there was always the question about okay, now that we've accomplished that

44:37 Where do we go from here? And you know, one one of the things that I I feel just just quite good about this moment that we're in. Is the president basically bought us an option? He said we can weaken their military.

44:49 destroy their conventional military. We can Change their leadership. And then we can actually present a pathway to the Iranian leadership. Where do we go from here? Like you said something very interesting that was true.

45:03 Two months ago I would have said I had no idea who we're who we're negotiating with. Absolutely. Now I feel very confident that we have an understanding of who we're negotiating with, what it is that they care about. Yes, there are fractures in their system. Well there they're so so so the Iranian system this is v oversimplifying it a lot. But it has kind of three poles. There's the political poll, the people who are most responsive to the leadership. That's the foreign minister, the president, the speaker of the parliament. Okay. There's a clerical poll.

45:33 meaning the clerics who actually hold ultimate authority in the Iranian system via the supreme leader, the the clerics, the the the religious leaders. And then you have the military, particularly the IRGC, okay? All three of these poles interact with each other in w in weird ways and And one of the things we definitely two months ago we were like, Wait a second, who has the upper hand? What does this group want versus this group versus that group? But what what I feel pretty confident about now, I mean this this we're we're taping this interview, I guess June fifteenth, right? Yeah What I feel quite confident about right now is that we know who we're dealing with, and the fractures really aren't

46:11 The the s you know, the system is kind of coalesced. And what what they're telling us, which is interesting, now is it the street rising up? No. But what they're telling us is, you know what? You know, obviously they're not like endorsing Anything that we did.

46:26 There's a lot of mistrust, a lot of animosity, but you know, fundamentally We've done one thing vis a vis the United States for forty seven years. And We shouldn't do that thing anymore. We want to change.

46:37 And if you the Americans Are willing To actually negotiate with us. To have a conversation, yeah, we're willing to make the long term commitment never to develop nuclear weapons, but we want a totally different economic arrangement than what we have with the West right now. So

46:52 That's where we're at right now is actually figuring out the details of what that would look like. But where where we stand right now, I actually feel pretty good about it. I feel good that we actually could have a better relationship with that country. I feel good that they'll never have a nuclear weapon. So that'd be like a real loaded gun they would have to the West. But I also think that there is a general consensus that That they're in in their system. that their relationship would be different.

47:16 Then then um than the past. The other thing just this is very important. The underappreciated element. Like if I was ever gonna write a book about Donald Trump's foreign policy. And by the way, he hates people who write books. Not like books like that, but insider books where you take

47:34 Trusted information and put it into a a book. Doesn't like that. But what I would what I would say is he's so non conventional In the way that he does everything. But certainly the way that he does foreign policy that things that were previously unimaginable are actually on the table.

47:50 So when Donald Trump says to the Iranians, we want you to be a successful country, if you give us what we need on nuclear. Will take the sanctions off your country and allow you to prosper, that would have been unthinkable. Ten years ago in any democrat or republican administration. But it's thinkable because Donald Trump is just like no

48:09 The the way things worked in the past are dumb. We're gonna do something new. And that's that's what he's putting on the table. We'll see if they meet us. But right now I feel pretty good about it. The other term I'd never heard before is Strait of Hormuz. Yes. I forgot so much about the bloody Strait of Hormuz. Um did you have any idea The Iranians would It was a major m yeah, you see these media reports, like the the the Trump team was caught off guard.

48:35 What would happen in the straight up for moose was a main fixture of the conversation that we were having about whether to do this, how to do this. So it was certainly a variable now now you could never predict with a hundred percent certainty what people are going to do, but the basic bias that we had going into it is that they would try to cut off the straight They would try to jack up energy prices. They thought, and I think this is true, they thought that they could cut off the straits for us. But actually keep the straits open for themselves. That ended up not being true when we imposed the blockade.

49:07 But fundamentally we we knew some version of what would happen, but we also went into it saying If they do this Fundamentally it's a short term thing. So like Brent Crude is sort of the main crude oil index, right?

49:22 I think the highest it got was w one hundred twenty six dollars per barrel. right now sitting here it's around eighty two dollars a barrel. It's fallen off a cliff Because there's a broad recognition That yeah, it was a short term shock. but not a short term shock that's gonna permanently alter the world energy economy.

49:39 It's quite a powerful. weapon they have in their arsenal just uh take shudder the world's economy and piss off your people at home at the gas pump. It's quite like it's quite a Well,

49:50 Uh, geography really matters in warfare, it turns out. And yes, they have great proximity to the Strait of Hormouths, but but again, if you just go back two weeks ago One of the things that's interesting, uh really underreported. Um but I think you know your listeners will obviously be interested in Is If you look at the amount of oil

50:09 that we were getting out of the Strait of Hormuz. We, I mean the United States, the Gulf Coast coalition Broadly speaking the Arabs in the Gulf, right? You look at it what it was, call it April first. It was like close to zero.

50:23 You go to May thirtieth, Early June. It was many, many million barrels of of oil a day. Now not enough to eliminate the shock to be clear. But we were seeing significant increases in oil traffic. And again, I think that's one of the reasons why we're having a good negotiation with the Iranians is they recognized yes, they have this leverage point.

50:43 But maybe not forever. And it's one of those cards you can play. But you can't necessarily play it week after week after week. It degrades in power. So I take your point. Yeah, they have this geographical thing going on. But I think that geographical leverage point was weakening over time. And it's it's why we are where we are with I think with a very good deal. Knock on wood. We have to see it to completion.

51:06 Because if you're them you go, Well all I've got to do is wait two years. 'Cause the president is gonna be you know. removed from from office in two years' time is gonna be at the end of his term. So if they could just wait it out for two years. They can hope that a new political leader that comes in.

51:21 Um might be more charitable with them. Yeah, but if if if Donald Trump has two and a half years left in office, I think the Iranians recognize they did not have two and a half years to weigh things out. One is more as we got more and more oil out of the straight. their leverage point decrease, but in some ways more importantly Like look. You look at Persian culture, you look at the history of Iran, this is one of the proudest and oldest civilizations anywhere in the world.

51:43 They don't want to be like a Libya style rump state, they want to have a much brighter future. Like I think that that's actually true. Now there's a question about how to get there. And obviously there's a lot of animosity between the two sides, but I do think something has fundamentally changed in the way that regime sees the world.

52:03 The deal that you have on the table. Yes. Now. Okay, excuse me if I'm skeptical. But I said to you before we start start recording, I watch everything. Yes. So I've watched every if if you do an interview, Hagseth does one. If the president does one, I see it. I see the whole thing. Okay. I don't know why, but I that I I'm very, very interested in US politics because it does impact the whole world. Sure. And as I've watched these interviews, there's been lots of false deals. You flew out there. Topakistan.

52:29 And you flew right back. The deal wasn't done. Um I think I saw a report the other day that said uh the president has said roughly thirty times that there's a deal done. Or that there's a deal on the table. Usually on a Sunday, then it's not, then we go back into this negotiation thing. So I'm like I don't have any trust anymore for the for a deal getting done. Well this one's real. So Okay, good. Okay. So interesting. People can always change their minds, but this one is real. For sure. So what what does that mean? Does it mean that there's a contract that has been sent with terms on it and they've provisionally, like a term sheet, said we agree. Yes. Okay, so they they've agreed to a time sheet. Yes. And then as is the case in business than investing, that becomes more of a formalised contract. Correct. And then that's signed. That's right.

53:08 So what is in the timesheet? Well, a few things. So the the first is that the Straits of Hormuz opens effectively immediately and the blockade is lifted effectively immediately. Now when I say effectively, that's doing a little bit of work there because You know, p part of what's going on is there's a different risk tolerance for different shippers in the Gulf.

53:29 So some again, like I said earlier, some of these guys are already shipping a lot of oil through the streets of war moves right now, even though the Iranians are threatening to shoot at them. But what what this means is that over time We're gonna demine the street of four moose. The Iranians are gonna stop shooting.

53:44 We're gonna lift our naval blockade. And you're gonna see, I think, a pretty quick resumption of full flow of traffic in the Strait of War moves. That that's number one. And there's one thing. There's minds in there. There are minds in there. But it it's you know, it's a very big waterway. There's a lot of traffic moving right now. So we know where the mines are. They're not everywhere. And you know, again, the ships are able to move. The biggest obstacle and impediment to ships moving right now is actually not the mines themselves, it's the Iranians who are shooting drones and missiles on the other side. Now I say that we have seen a precipitous decline since we signed this agreement.

54:18 We've seen a precipitous decline and even that happening. So you're already again seeing the fruits of this negotiation that we have. Number two. is it contemplates the Iranians giving up their highly enriched stockpile of material. Committing to a long term inspections regime.

54:35 on their nuclear program. In an exchange having a totally different economic relationship with the United States of America. So like there's a stack of of sanctions that the US has on Iran that is like sixty pages long. That is incredibly destructive to the Iranian economy by design, right? The the the deal is You're not gonna behave like a normal country.

54:55 We're not going to engage in normal trade transactions with you. What this agreement provides is that if the Iranians take significant steps to behave like a normal country, they're gonna get significant reintegration into the world economy. And I think that's that's that that is in in some ways the most profound thing. And what the United States gets out of that is is the long term guarantee that they never become a nuclear power. I think people always sort of it's hard to to appreciate how temporal this is. The Iranian nuclear program has been completely destroyed. Like it doesn't exist right now. But

55:29 Over time. You can try to rebuild it. And so what we're trying to say is We don't want you to rebuild this program if you make real commitments and verifiable commitments that you're not going to then you're getting a lot of economic benefits on the side.

55:42 You drop those. Uh bunker bust buster bombs. Correct. Um that whole Yeah. Series of of military operations and um It the nuclear material is now buried pretty deep underground, for I understand. With this deal, do you get to go and get it? Do they hand it over to you? What happens? So the way the deal is struck is structured is that the Iranians, the Americans, and the International Atomic Energy Agency will actually work together to go get the material and destroy it. That's that's the basic idea. Is that we're all gonna work together again. The the agreement contemplates a new era in relationship. So the idea is that we're all gonna try to work together, destroy this material. And again, if that happens, the Iranians are gonna

56:23 have a totally different economic relationship with the West. And if it doesn't happen, then the United States is no worse off. And you do you get to check that they're not just Going to a different mountain and building new nuclear. That's where the verification element comes in, but we have a very good sense, you know, you can probably guess why. We've a very good sense of what's going on in the country of Iran. We could probably keep that material just permanently buried, but we don't want to do that. We actually want to solve the problem and we want the Iranians to have a different relationship with us, and that's what we're trying to do. And the specifics of you being able to go and check that they're not just building new nuclear weapons. Uh it sounds to me like the specifics haven't been defined yet. Like how those checks take place. Well it's yeah, it's it's it like you said, it's it's a term sheet where We've got broad agreement on principles and how we're gonna approach the negotiation.

57:06 But there are a lot of details that we gotta figure out from here. So I've got straight up for moose opens. Um nuclear inspections, but also a coalition to remove the nuclear waste. Correct. Um from that they get the opportunity to participate in the in the economy and sanctions will be lifted. Yep. Is there anything that's in that term sheet that's not Included there. I mean there are other like little details and things like that. There's you know, obviously the permanent cessation of hostilities. We're trying to bring in a a regional era of peace here, but that's pretty much the main thing.

57:33 And Israel. Um there were some uh some interesting words exchanged. I saw that the the Fox reporter had called Trump I think yesterday, because Netanyahu had started f f firing some bombs. And he had some

57:49 Select words. Kind of like your grandmother's words. Yes. Indeed. Apparently he said Uh Trump said he'd phone Netanyahu and told him he had no fucking judgment. Why did BB have to do a fucking attack? I'm so pissed off. An hour before we were supposed to sign the deal, Trump called Netanyahu a very difficult guy. He should be very thankful for us for doing this, because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, Israel wouldn't be around for two hours. Um Lots of cussing at Netanyahu and what he had done. You I've heard you actually say that you think Israel and the United States have two different objectives.

58:20 As it relates to I don't want to mischaracterize your words but I'd say is that we're different countries with different interests. I think in the United States sometimes people characterize You know, Israel is a is a good partner to the United States, that is true. But sometimes people mischaracterize it and say that Israel and the United States are fundamentally always aligned. It's just not true. We're different countries, we have different needs, we have different geographies. Yeah, I don't trust anybody. Um when it comes to international affairs and diplomacy. Do I think that they're they're very capable? Absolutely. Do I think that again, when we have shared interests, we work together very well? Absolutely.

58:53 But but do I but I I don't trust anyone. And I think that we we just have to continually be laser focused on what our interests are. And and you know what the president said about B. is Yeah, sometimes You know, we we are the world's superpower and obviously we're Israel's most important ally anywhere in the world. And sometimes to ensure

59:14 That's we are able to accomplish our objectives, the president has to have a very frank conversation with the Prime Minister of Israel. Sometimes he does that, sometimes everything works smoothly, sometimes it doesn't. It's just the nature like any relationship, right? Any relationship is gonna have moments Where You have to be more direct. Sometimes you're working together and sometimes there's a little bit more conflict. The ones

59:37 U opinion and thoughts about the US Israel relationship has never been more widely discussed. I agree. And I d I almost I almost don't know why, but it's it seems to be the case that over the last I'd say six to twelve months people are really now questioning what is this relationship? And who is who is the dominant part partner in the relationship. What f for someone and just in super simple terms, because I don't really know a lot about this particular point. Sure. What is the relationship and why and where did it come from? Well, you know, I'm I'm hardly an expert in US Israeli relations, right? But but let me just say

1:00:11 They're obviously in some ways the only democracy in the Middle East. Okay. Uh very advanced economy, very high skilled people.

1:00:20 Technological ingenuity. I mean it's a country of nine million people. They generate a lot of the world's inventions just from nine million people. It's a very impressive country economically. They're also probably better at intelligence collection than any country in the world. So they're again and and again, because they're an advanced economy, because Yeah, there are people generally speaking Wanna live in peace and harmony, just want to go to work and raise their kids. There are a lot of shared interests and a lot of shared objectives. And I think that, you know, over time, especially, for example, when one of our biggest problems going back to you know, the early two thousands was the rise of Islamic terrorism.

1:00:53 Um Islamic radical terrorism, I should say. There was a sort of broad recognition that there's a lot for us to work on. But but again, even even if you go back to then the early two thousands. very large alignment between Israeli interests and American interests. But even in like the early two thousands, the Israelis were much more worried about Iran than the United States was, right? We were much more worried about Al Al Qaeda, like a different branch of Islamic terrorism. So even when we've been very aligned, we're just different countries that have different objectives. And You know I will say having seen the president of the United States operate, I feel quite confident that, you know, they are the junior partner, we're the senior partner, we're the world's superpower. That's the way that it works. But you know, again, sometimes it it's like with the UK.

1:01:34 I would say the UK is our closest ally, our oldest ally. I'm not just saying that'cause you're Britt the UK. Uh again, I don't really trust anybody. But do I like do I like a lot of Brits? Absolutely. Do I have a gr I mean, incredible fondness for the United Kingdom as a country and a culture, absolutely. And I really like a lot of the people, even the Labor government, even though they're politically misaligned uh with with me and and the rest of the Trump administration. But you know.

1:01:58 Like we have disagreements from time to time. So we work really well together. And sometimes we have misaligned interests and we have to pursue our interests in the best way we can. What does it And please do tell me like what does Netanyahu want? Because I sit here with these experts and they say they want to overtake the whole of the Middle East, they wanna run the Middle East. What does he want?

1:02:17 I don't know. I don't know. Um Well, I mean I I I don't I can't get inside somebody's head. Have you asked them what they want? I I think that in this particular operation, again, where interests were aligned is

1:02:32 We wanted Iranian conventional military power to be much weaker to be decimated. Yeah, the the Israelis shared that objective. Do I think that there are maybe I don't know if BB thinks this, but do I think there are people within Israeli society who would like to turn Iran into Libya? Basically a failed state with ninety million people. Probably, but I I don't know that BB wants that. I've actually never had that conversation with him. It'd be an interesting conversation to have. I'll tell you right now, is Iran turning into a Persian Libya good for the United States of America?

1:03:01 Absolutely not. And that's one of the reasons why the president has set us on this course of working on our interests, which is the elimination of the nuclear threat. And it and a change dynamic with the Iranians, which is very much on the table. You run for Senate. Yeah. Um

1:03:16 And you're successful. And this is really from what I could see from my research where you entrump first. Uh made friends, I should say. Uh before then you weren't friends. No, that's right. You were quite critical of Donald Trump before then. I mean you've been probably asked this a million times, but what I actually didn't know this until literally today. Okay. That y I read the piece you'd written in The Atlantic where you criticised him for taking advantage of the struggling working class.

1:03:39 What Trump offers, this is your quote, is an easy escape from pain to every complex problem he promises a simple solution. He can bring jobs back simply by punishing off shore companies into submission, as he told the New Hampshire crowd, folks are too similar with the opioid scrooge. He can cure the addiction epidemic by building a Mexican wall and keeping the cartels out. He will spare the United States from humiliation and military defeat with indiscriminate bombing. It doesn't matter that no credible military leader has endorsed his plan. He never offers detail for those plans to work. Because Trump's Trump is cultural h heroine. He makes some people feel better, but he cannot fix all the ails. All that ails them, and one day they'll realise it.

1:04:17 Very Tough words against Trump. Long time ago, but twenty sixteen? And ten years ago. Watch films. Well let me let me pick up first of all

1:04:27 You always have to be able to acknowledge when you're right and when you're wrong. And There was r a lot I was right about in twenty sixteen, but but just pick up on something. Can you read the line for me again where I talk about no no is it no credible military leader has endorsed these plans? Yeah, it says, um it doesn't matter that no credible military leader has endorsed his plan. Okay. So

1:04:51 What I would say is I wrote that. I believed it when I wrote it. And reading it now, I'm almost embarrassed that I wrote it'cause it was so obviously absurd. In fact the the the fact that Donald Trump

1:05:03 was misaligned. with the military experts and the military leadership of twenty sixteen was a good thing. Not a bad thing. Think about those military leaders. I mean, I have a lot of respect for the troops, the people who serve, the people who put on a uniform.

1:05:17 But You can make a very credible argument. That from The Early nineties.

1:05:23 Until You know, at least twenty sixteen. America hadn't won a war in thirty years. Like There's a reason why Donald Trump mistrust mistrusted the military leadership, and he was right.

1:05:36 And so much of what I think. the president represented at the time was a recognition that American institutions had become sclerotid and broken. And He was a weapon. to break down those institutions.

1:05:51 You Assessment of him is similar to the democratic assessment of him. Your assessment of him back in two thousand sixteen is similar to the democratic assessment of him. There there was a private message between you and a remained where you you look said he was either a cynical asshole or America's Hitler. How do you go from that position?

1:06:07 Two Vice President of the same person. W what is that journey? A crazy journey man. But but again, I mean i i it it's You have to ask yourself

1:06:18 First of all I thought Trump would be a failed president if he got elected. He was not. I thought that America's institutions were fundamentally functioning. They were not.

1:06:30 I thought that the military leaders who told us this about a war, or the scientific e experts who told us this w other thing about a pandemic were fundamentally maybe not always right, but fundamentally wise people who were mostly right. I was wrong. What can you observe behind the scenes that that J D didn't see. So in operation, when you see him making decisions Yeah, so I mean I I want to caveat this with with saying that

1:06:55 You know. I didn't know him well. By the time You know, I'm I voted for him in twenty twenty. um obviously you know very, very involved in the twenty twenty four campaign, well before I was ever his vice presidential nominee.

1:07:08 I I had that change based purely on what I saw from the outside. It's not like I had insider knowledge about Donald Trump, but that's what caused me to change. Now what I will say is that having the insider knowledge One thing that that Really mistakes. Or gets wrong that peace in the Atlantic. That's when that

1:07:25 That that's where that piece was published. Is that Дональ Трам із муч диффер. As a human being than the media makes him out to be.

1:07:35 It's very warm. He's a very like loving person to his kids, to his grandkids, he's incredibly generous. Like if you see Donald Trump. You know, in the Oval Office. It's like he has to give you a gift.

1:07:47 Like he has it, whether it's, you know, a water bottle or a MAGA hat or a coin or a pen. Like he he just he's one of these people who he really likes hospitality. He really likes making other people happy. I had no understanding of that from him from the outside. What I would see is you know clips of him arguing with a journalist And that was it. And that gives you a very, very one dimensional view of a person. So yeah, I definitely from the inside have seen a much, much more multi dimensional figure. The thing that's about about Donald Trump is I remember this in twenty sixteen.

1:08:19 And in hindsight, it's just so, so dumb. People would say that he was dumb. Or that he wasn't very smart. He's super smart. Like

1:08:28 He reads a lot. He understands people at an instinctual level better than anybody that I've ever known. But He is a very, very s like from a pure IQ perspective, he's a very smart person. And it's interesting that so many people like Yeah. If you give Donald Trump an IQ test with the other

1:08:47 forty five, forty six presidents that the United States has had, I guarantee he he'd be either Near the top or at the top. And the entire American media in twenty sixteen had convinced me at least that he was not a smart person. And by twenty twenty two, he's endorsed you.

1:09:04 And you uh you win your race in the U U S Senate. Correct. And then sometime after then Um, at some point you're gonna get introduced to him and he's gonna ask you to be the vice president of the United States. Yeah. Bring me if I was a fly on the wall, was that a phone call or was it a meeting? Well, there have been meetings before that. W just generally at that point, I was involved in his reelection campaign. I was one of the first, maybe the very first senators to endorse him in twenty twenty three, I believe is actually when I endorsed him very early on in twenty twenty three. When again, I I thought he would win, but the conventional wisdom was that he would not win, even the Republican nomination, that his political career was over. So I endorsed him very early. He and I became quite close We talked a lot about it.

1:09:43 Issues. He gave me some advice on various bills that I was working on in the Senate. We just became pretty close. He and I worked very closely together over there. And he and I became quite quite close over that. So we just sort of developed a relationship. We were friendly and then we were closer and then he was sort of, you know, a person that I really looked to in politics. And then the twenty twenty four campaign really start heating up. And there were all these rumors about possibly me being his running mate. And you know he and I didn't

1:10:12 ever have that conversation like about being his running mate. Until like a day or two before he picked me. And that was an in person conversation. It was actually the morning he was shot. In person. He goes to that rally in Pennsylvania.

1:10:25 He gets shot. Um, obviously is okay, thank God. And then two days later he asked me to be the nominee. So where where were you when he asked you? Uh, I had just landed Milwaukee for the R and C convention.

1:10:37 It was there's like a deadline to it because the way the convention works is you have to be formally nominated by the delegates on Monday at like three or four o'clock. Mm-hmm. And it was Eleven o'clock. I had just arrived in Milwaukee. I had no idea what was going on. And I thought I had a good chance, but I wasn't sure.

1:10:54 And he called me. I didn't answer the phone. Yeah. Uh I think that it was like It was just It was one of those things where I was getting so many phone calls.

1:11:02 And the call went straight to voicemail like it never rang. And so I get a text message from a friend of mine who's now the White House chief of staff. Said you just missed a very important phone call. I called him back. I said, What's up, Mr. President? He said, JD, you must just missed a very important phone call. I'm gonna have to pick somebody else up. Yeah.

1:11:21 Uh, but then he asked me and the rest is history, man. For the last couple of years I've been working on something that I realised every podcaster listening to this, but actually probably every creator listening to this might just need. Podcasting is difficult for many reasons, and one of them is that these hosting platforms don't give you much information. And also because they're so fragmented, you kind of have to go through every single platform, uploading it to YouTube and then taking the same big old video file and uploading it to Spotify's platform, it takes huge amounts of time and that friction means most of us don't do it. That is the problem we set out to solve. And so we built something called Flightcast, which you can find at flightcast.com. And today Flightcast is also one of our show sponsors. And some of the world's biggest podcasters are now using our platform to run their shows because it gives you an edge. It saves you time. It gives you analytics most people won't typically get it allows you to use AI to be more informed on your show and it has growth tools that other hosting platforms don't have. So podcasters that are using Flightcast have this unfair advantage. So go to flightcast.com slash D O A C now.

1:12:23 Did you know at that time what you were signing up for? No, I had no idea. No idea. So why did you want to do it? And y you know, people say I represent my country. But why why

1:12:32 It's it's a lot. It's a big cost to your family. When I when I when I arrived here today I saw I don't know, if it felt like fifty men with guns. Probably. Yeah. They'd scoped out the whole building. They've been you know, they've been searching this building I think for a couple of days and I thought, wow, like How does How does the vice president live life with his His family

1:12:51 When you have this Going everywhere with you. But did you know what you were signing up for? No, no, I didn't. I mean I you know, you sign up because you want to make a difference and because you know, I was already a senator, so I'm already in the politics business. I might as well try to serve at the highest level possible. Yeah, you think you could help, right? Part of the being the V P is you help on the campaign trail. You you know, six months really the part of the campaign that is the most intense is the part where you're sort of writing a side saddle with uh with the presidential nominee. So just like all these things for why people get into politics in the first place. But no, I mean look I I I'm not a whiner and I would never complain about this, but If I was a whiner.

1:13:30 The one thing I would say is It was very hard on the kids, in particular our oldest son. And I just had no idea what I was getting myself into. I mean okay, so the president He and I have this brief phone conversation. You know, my kid is talking to me about Pokemon cards at the hotel in Milwaukee. We're still like unpacking our suitcase. And it's like okay, I'm now the V P nominee.

1:13:51 I have to get on my suit, I have to get prepared to be nominated like three or four hours later. And All these thoughts are swirling through my head. Knock at the door. And it's the secret service. And it's like all right, you're under our protection now. We have to move your entire family to the president's hotel so that you're in the same protective bubble and

1:14:09 All of a sudden I just realized my life is totally different now. It'll never be the same. I I was okay with that. You know, like you sort of you just get used to it. I'm a grown man. But it was very hard on you know my my oldest boy who's nine years old now. He made a comment, didn't he? Oh yeah, he hated it. He he hated the attention. He hated how people treated him differently. It was like one of these things where you know he would go to a school And people would treat him like he was special.

1:14:34 And he just wanted to be a normal kid. And I felt guilty. I felt really guilty about that. And I felt this sort of sense like, Oh my God. I've conscripted this kid into this life. I had no idea what he was he was s what I was signing him up for. He didn't sign up for it. I signed him up for it.

1:14:51 And that was pretty tough. Sometimes I feel like I ruined His life without even asking him. You wrote that in your new book, page hundred and ninety eight. Yes. In reference to your seven year old son. Sometimes I feel like I've ruined his life without even asking him. Yeah.

1:15:07 Yeah. That's That's how it that's how I felt. I mean I I think that I've I've gained certainly some perspective about it. Yeah, one of the things we've been quite good at is just finding communities where he's more isolated from all the attention and all the pressures of it.

1:15:22 Yeah, we have a very, very good school community for him, a a Christian school that he goes to and he loves There's also, by the way, a flip side is you know kids As you may know. You realize how much Nature matters more than nurture.

1:15:35 You know, our oldest boy is an introvert. Um our six year old is a little bit more like me. He's a bit of an extrovert. He loves it. And so you you you kinda have to balance the way that it affects the kids

1:15:47 But you know, I don't feel like I've ruined my nine year old's life anymore, but I certainly At that time I felt extremely guilty about what I had signed them up for. And in your new book, Communion, you say, Dad, he you you quote him and say that he said, Dad, I just want every everyone to go back to treating us like they used to. Yes. That's right. These are these things hard to hear? Of course, man. Of course. I mean you you know Do you have kids? No yet fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good for you. I I think

1:16:19 Your kids have an emotional effect on you. That is just totally profound and revelatory. And yeah, man, when when your son tells you that he wants something that you can no longer provide him.

1:16:33 That's a very, very tough thing. Now, the flip side of it is And you can say this a rationalization, but I think it's true. The flip side is there are a lot of blessings that come along with this life. And you know, I've talked to a lot about this. I've actually, you know, I write this in the book that Charlie Kirk was probably the person who was most influential in helping me think through this conversation is

1:16:54 Yeah. Don't try to pretend. That it's not a sacrifice to'em. Like I you know, don't pretend that you haven't signed him up for something that has changed his life. You have.

1:17:06 Well, there are benefits too. You've gotten to see the world and got to see the country in a in a way that no kid has ever gotten to see it. And we get to live in this cool house. I live in the Naval Observatory here in Washington, DC. We would not get to do that if I was not the vice president. So what I've I've I've learned to do with him is not to minimize the negative. But to try to contextualize it. but also to try to emphasize the positive. And it's funny. You know, I I asked him this probably about a year ago. I said, Are are are you still unhappy that I became the vice president? This is probably four or five months into it. He said, Absolutely.

1:17:37 I asked him that question recently and he said I actually it's pretty good. So Kids adjust. You know, lives change, you figure out a routine for the kids. But I also think that you know that that guilt motivated certain conduct.

1:17:50 would we have built the life that we have around him were it not for this recognition that we had caused this change and this disruption. No. So You take the good with the bad, you accept that you've caused some problems, but you also

1:18:03 Except that you can make things better. I love this photo. I think she looks beautiful. This is actually the day. Or at least the weekend that I met her mom.

1:18:15 We were this is at the high line in Brooklyn, have you ever been to the not in Brooklyn in South Manhattan. Uh, the Highland Park. Uh there's this little observation deck we're sitting there taking a photo. And you know, that that first summer we were together, we started dating in March of two thousand and eleven. And so I was doing a research assistant thing in New Haven, Connecticut, about an hour and a half train ride. She was in New York City.

1:18:42 And um You know, it it w it was in some ways like a metaphor for our relationship because I found New York just this totally intimidating place. I didn't know how to ride the subway, I didn't even know how to like buy a subway card to get on the subway. But I was just because I was in love with her. I went down there every chance I could get. We spent every moment you know like when you when you're when you're newly in love with somebody, it's just like an obsession.

1:19:04 And We sort of explored New York City together as this young couple this summer. And uh that was the day that I met her mom. And I pass the test because Here I am.

1:19:14 What surprised her most about you becoming the vice president? What what didn't she expect? She doesn't get surprised by much. So that's actually a very, very hard question. I do think the secret service protection surprised her too, the way that it changes your life. You know, we went to Rome. For

1:19:33 The Pope's inaugural mass. The new Pope. The American Pope. And Like my favorite thing to do in the world. Like if you said

1:19:41 I'll give you two hours. You can do whatever you want. what I would do is I would go to some place, whether in the country or in a big city And I would just take a walk with Usha. Like that's that that is my ultimate way to like vacation or relax.

1:19:54 And You know, we try to take a walk in Rome. And it was like You know. SEAL Team Six had dispens descended upon Rome. They were shutting down every traffic intersection. There's a helicopter flying overhead. And

1:20:08 Just I think that's surprising to her how much the security protocols have changed just the way that you know we we do things like take a walk together. Can you make that decision still yourself? There's none Okay, I can't see any secret service at the moment. But I know they're behind that curtain. They're all behind the curtain. Yeah, they're outside, they're everywhere. They're putting the room. But can you just are you the one that still gets to make the call of of what you wanted to do? So could you say, Listen, I'm I want to walk down the street to Walmart. There are actually like statutory prohibitions. Like th they they have legal obligations in order to protect me. They are I will say great people, amazing people, and we found accommodation. Like we found a way of taking a walk without disrupting everybody, right? But it's taken a little bit of work and a little bit of practice.

1:20:53 And the the biggest change is just Again it it's not that you can't Take a walk. It's that the basic protocol, the thing that they've gotten used to.

1:21:03 is much different and m more misaligned. With the way that we want to live our lives. So we figured it out. Like we've gotten things to a good place, but in the in the in the first instance, man, it was crazy. I I just couldn't imagine. It was actually getting here today, like you hear about secret service, but when you There's someone like me who I was here yesterday, so making my way into this building today, which is like our studio, yeah, I couldn't believe it. I was being tapped down, pocket checked, people were handing me stuff, keep this on. Uh I went downstairs to the toilet in the basement, there was a guy down there with a gun. I was like there was a guy outside my door with a gun, the gun's gun I was like, wow. You've never been safer than you are right now. Yeah. Yeah. Um you've written this new book called Communion. Yeah.

1:21:44 Which is about it's I mean the subtitle is Finding My Way Back to Faith. Back to faith. Yeah. That's right. So for your thirties you you you became atheist? In your in your ear your late twenties? Yeah, I would say my twenties. Even in yeah, in my early twenties. So

1:22:00 I was raised in an evangelical household. Very conservative. You know, very evangelical Christianity. My grandmother was one of these people, you know, she read the Bible five, six times a day. She prayed five, six times a day. Was was a woman, you know, mammal was was devoutly religious, but we were what you you would call unchurched. So I would go to church with my dad.

1:22:19 I would occasionally go to church with my mom. occasionally with my mammal, but You know, our religion was very much experienced at home. It was you would watch televangelists on TV. Uh you would watch Billy Graham revival um things on TV, but we didn't go to church that much.

1:22:35 And so Yeah, I got to a point w in my life where I I just felt like My faith.

1:22:45 It didn't seem to have particular relevance to my life. There was a certain, you know, new atheist element to it where I assumed that I knew more than these, you know, bumpkins that had raised me and you know her faith is all superstition. I'm rational and I'm a college educated kid and I know things that other people don't. So there's a certain intellectual arrogance that was built into it. But sort of all these things But fundamentally I I think that the Yeah, with all

1:23:11 I I think the thing about my faith that just never took root Is that I never saw why it actually mattered that much. It was just a thing. It was in the background. It was something we believed. I mean, I really did believe this stuff when I was a teenager. But it didn't really matter.

1:23:28 And so when that Boy. collided with reality. and collided with a lot of things that were going on in the world, I just was not properly prepared to actually Integrate my faith into this new world.

1:23:43 Well w so so okay, so so I've become an atheist. I'm I'm sort of one of these like angry atheists, you know, where all like Argue with people who say that they're religious and I I pretend that I'm smarter than everybody else and it was like very embarrassing in hindsight, but You know, I I I go back and

1:24:01 So Just a flaw that I have. All of us have many flaws, many virtues, but a flaw that I have is I just I wanted to rise above. Now where it came from a good place is I wanted stability, I wanted a decent income, I wanted to provide my kids that stability that I didn't have. But where it was a very bad thing is I cared way too much about

1:24:21 What credentials I had. Where did I go to school? How much money that I made. And so this sort of new atheism actually was like the perfect philosophy for the creed of a kid who just wanted to get ahead. I wanted to make as much money, I wanted to have the most prestigious profession. I was super ambitious for ambition's sake. And you know, so I I'd want every

1:24:44 competition that life had put before me. You know, I'm I'm at this point in my late twenties I've got A beautiful girlfriend. Things are going pretty well. I'm at Yale Law School.

1:24:54 Right, the top law school in the United States of America, very prestigious. Everybody thought I was very smart because I went to law school. I cared about that back then. I don't care about it now. And I sort of realized I'm actually not like a happy person. I'm not a good person. I care about where I went to law school way more than whether I'm good to this girl. Right. I mean I like I I I really was like madly in love with her.

1:25:16 But Was I like a particularly good boyfriend? No. I I learned from my youth to be chaotic and I threatened to break up with her every other month and You know, if we had an argument I'd just like disappear for a couple of days I'm never just like not

1:25:29 Yeah, I I sort of realized, okay, there's something missing here. There's something that all of this obsession with achievement And being smarter than everybody else and being rational. It has not actually made me a good person. And I sort of looked around and said, Well, who are the people that I like actually want to be like? Who are the people that I most admire in the world?

1:25:50 And I slowly realized that the ones who are the most virtuous, the ones who are the best at the things that actually mattered. They were Christians. And They're faith motivated, not an obsession with getting ahead.

1:26:03 But an obsession with treating people well. Or an obsession with developing the strength of character that mattered so that you could withstand in a very tough circumstances. And I start to think to myself, Okay, wait a second. There's like these rays of sunshine.

1:26:18 From Christians that I knew in my life. from Christian ideas that it sort of were in the background of my own, you know, intellectual curiosity. And if there are all of these rays of sunshine Where Christianity seems to be warmer and truer.

1:26:34 Then something else Maybe the rest of it actually has something to be said for it too. And that kinda led me down a pathway of thinking about my faith in a way that I never had when I was a teenager. I never had to when I was a teenager. And it finally just hit me like There is something deeply profound about this.

1:26:51 And at first it was an intellectual thing. Right. But over time it became a more emotional and more practiced thing. And eventually I got baptized. I'd never been baptized as a kid. And you know, even though my wife is not Christian, I force force her to take m take take uh our three kids and husband to to to church.

1:27:11 Every single week. And she's remarkably patient about it. But It's it's it's one of these things where it really did transform me. But in a slower way. Atheism is a form of religion in a in a way, isn't it? Exactly. It has the same level of sort of certainty.

1:27:26 And that's that's why I'm gonna myself to as an agnostic,'cause I it feels a little bit arrogant to say that I know. Yeah. Yeah, no that's that's that's interesting. I'm gonna take a little bit of a hot ten, which is uh AI. AI is gonna cause a lot of job disruption. Sure. Um It's a big topic of conversation for my audience, but also as an entrepreneur and investor, we we're talking a lot at the moment about the impact of AI. When you look at the the words of the big AI CEOs over time, one thing I find fascinating is if you look at Sam Altman's words about the impact AI is gonna have, it's very dystopian. You look at Elon, very, very dystopian. Yeah.

1:27:57 And right now I think The only thing's Up there with being as unpopular. As AI is ice. In the US.

1:28:08 In terms of how unpopular it is. Eric Schmidt, who I know you know because he was an investor in your company, I believe. Yeah. The other day when he was doing that commencement speech in front of the college students, he was booed every time he said the word Are you scared about the potential economic impact and unemployment impact of artificial intelligence at this moment in time? Yeah. So I'd say I'm less scared about that than I am about other things. Okay. Okay. So Historical analogies are always fraught.

1:28:34 And by the way, I think the AI companies themselves, the CEOs, there's a certain incentive To be super dystopian. Yeah. form of viral marketing. that if people were really scared of your product, that must mean that it really works.

1:28:48 And if they're not scared of your product, maybe it actually doesn't work that well. So I think there's something weird. There there's something synergistic about the most pessimistic predictions about AI and some of the people who are making it. But like set that to the side'cause I I do have some real concerns. But on the job displacement thing, okay, so Let me back up for a second because I bring a certain bias to this. So when I was again this is a this is an almost religious idea that I developed in

1:29:14 The ear twenty tens. Yeah. I think it's just preposterous now. And that religious idea was that There was like this inevitable march of economics.

1:29:25 From Agricultural to industrial to service based. Mm-hmm. The reason that all of my friends and family were losing their jobs was because that was just an inevitable economic trend that advanced economies they de industrialized. Okay? And there was even this argument at the time

1:29:45 that the reason why manufacturing employment was going down in the United States was because of automation, because of technology. That's It had nothing to do with outsourcing or with immigration, but it was purely because of technology had replaced all these workers with robots. I think that story is totally false.

1:30:04 Now the robots that exist in manufacturing did they make people more productive? Absolutely. Did they cause a change in what a manufacturing line worker was doing in say two thousand five versus nineteen fifty five? Absolutely. So the change is there. But in reality There was a ton of manufacturing job growth. It just wasn't happening in the United States of America. And I think sometimes we tell ourselves a story that technology always leads inevitably to job loss.

1:30:32 That what often leads to job loss among populations Is either outsourcing or immigration. You ship the job to another country, or you have somebody else take the job of somebody who currently hasn't. So What do I think is actually going on with AI?

1:30:48 I you know, if you go back to the industrial revolution, right, the last Significant. major disruption of the labor market. You actually had way more people working at the end of the industrial revolution than you did beforehand. Again, some of the jobs were different. There was some job disruption. But when I look at AI

1:31:05 I don't see mass unemployment as the most likely consequence. I think people will become more productive. I think some people's jobs will change. Some people will lose their jobs. But I I just don't buy this idea and I haven't seen any evidence in the data. That's gonna lead to mass unemployment.

1:31:21 Let me tell you what it does what does worry me. Again, historical analogies are always fraught. You go back to the industrial revolution, was mass joblessness the main consequence of the shift from an agricultural to an industrial economy? No. But what did happen? Rich people got way richer.

1:31:38 And that led to In Europe. Fascism and communism, in fact, your country and my country are pretty much the only two countries that successfully avoided either a fascist or communist revolution. In the in response to the industrial revolution. That's by the way, one of the real interesting things about you know, Christianity.

1:31:55 is The the seminal text. About how Capital and labor. could work together about how you could have social harmony

1:32:05 Compared to Marx who was sort of saying there was an inevitable social division. Was Pope Leo the thirteenth. who wrote in his famous encyclical That the way to preserve harmony between the social classes was

1:32:18 To ensure that the workers could bargain. This is where sort of the idea of collective bargaining had a Christian underpinning. the capitalists weren't able to take advantage of the workers, they had to sort of respect them. And

1:32:33 That that that model of social harmony, I think, is something we're either gonna follow that Christian concept of social harmony in the age of AI Or we're gonna wake up. And we're gonna realize That rich people have gotten way richer.

1:32:46 The average American, the average Brit, the average Western society member has stagnated. And people really hate relative poverty. You can give people iPhones and you can give the cr people the creature comforts. of a twenty first century economy. But if you make rich people way richer

1:33:03 you're gonna have significant problems. And so I think that is like one of the consequences that I see from me. I th the one of their just'cause you asked about it. The thing I really worry about with AI is surveillance. A I is you know fr a friend of mine once said that AI f is fundamentally a communist technology. In that it allows

1:33:20 governments and corporations to surveil people. in very profound and different ways. And that scares me a lot. Like I don't want a social credit system that's powered by AI. I don't want you to not be able to buy a beer because Some tech CEO has given you a score based on

1:33:40 an artificial intelligence algorithm that nobody actually understands. That scares me too. But I don't think you're gonna have mass unemployment. We might have mass inequality That's its own problem.

1:33:51 It's a different problem though. Um, according to the the current twenty twenty six Federal Res Res Reserve and Census Bureau data, financial inequality in the United States has reached its highest level in nearly four decades. And obviously we've seen this headline this week of The US's first trillionaire. Yeah. Which again has been talked about everywhere around the world in the past park this debate. You think about the the explosion we're seeing in robot robotics and Elon Musk's pay packet rewarding him for getting a a a million humanoid robots out there. at at a certain timeline and Elon himself saying there'll be a billion humanoid robots at some point. There'll be more humanoid robots than humans. It appears to me that there will be some kind of job disruption. We can obviously there's new jobs created, which are like hard to forecast. Yeah.

1:34:31 And you've got these big like um frontier model companies like OpenAI and Tropic that are gonna be Benifactors of This evolution. Wealth is presumably gonna accrue to these large, large corporations, the metters, the anthropics the canarians. How would you think about We're already we already have crazy, crazy inequality. How do you think about redistributing that wealth?

1:34:53 Bernie Sanders is saying. People need to end fifty percent of these AI companies. Which the president, by the way, likes that idea too. He likes that idea. Um I don't know that he would say fifty percent, but he does like that idea. So there there's a um there's a concept in uh in in like the social welfare literature of redistribution versus pre-distribution. The idea of pre-distribution is that you give workers and you give people normal people a seat at the bargaining table. And I don't think it's just economic. The economic thing, by the way, is very important.

1:35:22 Like you you want The the the worker. whose life has been transformed by this technology to have a seat at the table. You want them to be able to actually bargain with the company for better wages. Now that's impossible if you think about it. Like the individual worker to negotiate against

1:35:39 you know, Dario from Anthropic, it's not gonna happen. But workers working together. This is where the idea of collective bargaining came from. But there's all kind of interesting things and again I I think there's like a deeply Christian concept to this. I know you're sort of, you know, fascinated by faith, but not a person of faith yourself. There is a very deeply Christian concept. That

1:35:58 You have to give Everybody in the country A seat at the table. So for example, like okay, there's the economic piece of it. What about the cultural piece of it? How will AI transform the culture that we consume, that we distribute, that we make?

1:36:14 You know, back in the fifties and sixties. It was broadly accepted. that now it wasn't a censorship regime. There's nothing legal going on here, but it was broadly accepted that Hollywood would consult With the religious leaders of the time. in order to ensure that the content they were making

1:36:31 was actually consistent with the sensibilities of their membership and consistent with some basic Christian ideas. Again, that wasn't forced, but there was this mechanism that gave Everybody is seat at the table. And I think that's one of the the bad things about the dec there are many bad things about the decline of institutional Christianity in this country. But We do not have a mechanism

1:36:52 That Gives powerful people. That forces them to actually work with everybody else. Religion was one of the way that happened in the West. I think probably probably the most profound and effective way that happened in the West.

1:37:05 We just don't have it anymore, and I really worry about that. So the president is supportive of of the United States owning these big AI companies. He likes the idea as sort of a sovereign idea of the United States taking some stake in these AI companies. He said so publicly. I'm not breaking news. But you know the again the f the president He is a very unconventional person. You would say a Republican's not supposed to think like that. The president doesn't care. The president just thinks

1:37:31 The thoughts. That he has. He develops them whether they're you know he he he tries to determine is this a good idea or a bad idea. I would c cort of a ra radical pragmatist, though I think most Europeans think that he's this hyper ideological person, he's extremely pragmatic about this stuff. But but it's one one one very important thought.

1:37:50 The idea That we're gonna allow These companies, let's say ten, twenty years down the road. To accumulate.

1:37:58 trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars of wealth. And then we're gonna be able be able to successfully redistribute it to workers. I'm very skeptical of that. Very sceptical though. I think that's that's a That's a very modern, I call it a liberal concept. This idea that you can just tax people and give it to poor people and it works out.

1:38:19 Then you turn the poor people And effectively. subservience of the rich people. You have to give everybody a stake in the society. I haven't quite figured out how this is gonna work in the age of AI. I think labor unions are a very important model here. But

1:38:34 This is the the the model where you just take from some people and give to other people, that's never provided a stable society. You've got to give the workers a seat at the table. Mama Mama? Mammal. Mama. Memo.

1:38:48 She passed away when you were twenty one years old, rushed to hospital with a collapsed lung two days after her Seventy. second birthday. Yep. And she was taken off life support. She was clearly the most important um figure in your life from reading your story for so many reasons. Sure. She hasn't gotten to see The the position you rose to today. I read that you didn't cry when she passed away.

1:39:08 Um you didn't process those emotions either because You sensed that your entire family was on the verge of collapse and you wanted to give the impression of emotional strength. That's what you say in your book um Hilbert and on page one hundred and sixty nine. What would she think of you today? What what sh would she have said? Well, I think you know, she she

1:39:29 She was a again a deeply patriotic person. He should be amazed by this. I mean the the pageantry, being able to go to the White House, just things like that would have been very, very meaningful to her. Um What would you say to her? I think that I would say thank you.

1:39:44 I mean the the Well the the through the the maybe the most important l lesson that I've learned is that the difference between good people And

1:39:57 people who struggle is good people have a good sense of gratitude. And I don't know that I would be alive were it not for this woman. I certainly wouldn't be here. And I think the the one thing man won't worry about, and I think I've done a pretty good job, just to be clear.

1:40:13 But Mammal would worry a lot about the pomp and the circumstance in the same way that she would be amazed by it. She would find it incredible and she would love to participate and see it. She's always really, really worried. She would always say, Don't get too big for your brushes. And what that means is

1:40:28 Don't let it go to your head. Don't think that you're better than somebody just because you have a title or because you have more money than they do. And I think that I I have to Constantly remind myself That's I get to be vice president for four years.

1:40:40 I'm gonna do as good of a job as I can for that four years, but it doesn't make me better than anybody. And it doesn't mean that I know more than anybody. I mean I mean more about like CIA reports. But Fundamentally. If you start to see yourself, I think as better you become

1:40:58 unable to successfully govern a democratic country. Because Oh, absolutely. I mean I you know, I think I wrote in the book I didn't cry when she died, I I cried a lot two days later. Yeah, I mean I've I've grieved. I've creed her for a long time. I mean, my my biggest regret with Mammall. It's just she never met Usha.

1:41:18 And There's something so similar about them, but so different. Like they're both incredibly smart. Even though Mammal left school, middle school.

1:41:29 Usha went to law school. They're incredibly blunt. People. Right. I mean Usha just doesn't have a filter. It's one of the things I I was immediately attracted to about her is that sh even she she was gonna offend you, she was gonna say exactly what was on her mind, but they came from such different worlds. And I think my grandmother would be fascinated by her. You know, when Mom Medusha

1:41:49 You know, Usha. ethnically is Indian. She was born in the United States, but Yeah, my mom said Just goes to show sometimes how how uh How little some of us knew about the world.

1:42:02 She said, Well, what is she, like ethnically? And I said, Mom, she's Indian. And my mom says, Which tribe? So they came from very different worlds, both mom euxa, but also mammal euxha. But that that is the biggest regret about our death is that

1:42:19 You know, if she was the most important person in my life for the first twenty years. And I really wish those two people could have met'cause they're amazing people. The emotion's still right on the surface for you. Very much so. We have a closing tradition on this podcast. Okay. Where the last guest leaves a question to the next next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for.

1:42:39 Okay. The question that's left for you is uh I think it was slightly biased. But the question is. Are aliens real? It's interesting.

1:42:51 Answer is I don't know. It it is it is something that I have sworn to myself. I'm now a year and a half into this job. that I would go through all of the highly classified information about everything that we know about UFOs. I just haven't done it yet. It's like one of these crazy things where you get in the job and the day to day just takes over. So I haven't done that yet. But I mean look I I am

1:43:12 I believe in things And I think that they're true and I think that they're rational, but I recognize that there may be even crazier than the idea that they're extraterrestrials. Like I believe that A Jewish man about two thousand years ago. was the only begotten Son of God, was literally crucified and then rose from the dead three days later. Like I recognize that sounds a little out there.

1:43:32 But I think that it's true. And I a hundred percent believe that people have mystical experiences. I've I've talked to

1:43:41 People who have been involved in exorcisms. And I again I think the rational mind says, well, it's just schizophrenia or that's some other mental illness. I've talked to people who said, Yeah, 99.9% of the people that I've looked at to do an exorcism on were schizophrenic or had some other mental illness. But there's something there are weird things out there. that we cannot explain. There are weird moments. I mean I remember Not long after my grandmother died.

1:44:04 My sister lost you know She's really lose her temper, but like got kind of angry with her daughter. And her daughter's I was seven or eight years old at the time. And like the light bulb. Just exploded.

1:44:15 And both of us looked at each other like That was Mammal. Remember I was talking, I I write about this in communion. I was talking to the New York Times writer. Um about the Pope.

1:44:26 in sort of different perspectives on the Pope. And he was more critical of the Pope and I was more my attitude is like ah, you know. He's not a politician. You can't judge him by politician standards. This is the last pope. And we're like having this conversation and it's like I'm telling you, man A glass.

1:44:41 Just Falls off. The bar. In a totally crazy way and shatters and like stops us dead in our tracks. We both just looked at each other and said, What the hell was that? And

1:44:52 I I I I'm a believer in mystical experiences. I don't think they happen that often. But I think that people have experiences that are impossible to explain if you have a purely narrow hyper rational view of the world. In other words, I think the hyper rational view of the world is actually not totally accurate. There's some weird shit out there.

1:45:11 So you think aliens could be real? I do. Communion.

1:45:16 Um it's really interesting because I I I went on a similar journey to you in terms of new atheism. Very rational. How can any of this be true, arguing with Christians every time that I had the opportunity to in part to try and figure out my own opinion. Um and I now find myself as being an agnostic person and being open minded and curious to new ideas. And I've it's almost a humility Mm-hmm. That I wasn't humble before in that in that season of my life, but now I'm like open that I could be completely wrong. Sure. And listening intently. And I think this is why this book is so interesting because you represent I think the journey of a lot of people who have rationally talk themselves out of the possibility of faith? But then have felt something.

1:45:55 Yeah. Is missing at some level. Feel like they've been lied to by themselves or society or some kind of culture. And then have op uh had the sort of open minded exploration. Back to a place of meaning. And I'd say that that meaning in that sense of purpose is so absent in society at the moment. And also, like you said, the Christians that I've interviewed here. It doesn't feel to me to be a coincidence that they're the most virtuous Anchored.

1:46:19 Stable. There are P empathetic, charitable individuals I get to sit with. And that itself appears to be proof of something. And so your book here, Communion, Finding My Way Back to Faith, is I think a w a wonderful journey in that direction for anybody who is finds himself at any stage in that journey and it's outright. No.

1:46:40 Mr. Vice President, thank you so much for your time. I realise you're very busy, so it's a true honor that you chose to give me some of your time today. I really really appreciate it. I really enjoyed this. Thank you. Thank you.

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