The FRONTLINE Interviews
Dan Driscoll
Vance Friend
Dan Driscoll attended Yale Law School with JD Vance. He is currently a North Carolina-based businessman.
The following interview was conducted by Gabrielle Schonder for FRONTLINE on August 13, 2024. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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JD Vance at Yale Law School
So James' background was in particular contrast to many people at Yale Law School.I wonder if you can talk to me about how he was articulating his personal differences from some of your classmates.
… I'll kind of answer in a reverse order, but when his book came out, that was the first time I had heard most of that.He didn't make it a part of his identity in some sort of way that, like, he wore it on his sleeve.And right when he met you, he kind of told you his background.And we were pretty good friends at that point, had done couples’ trips and spent a lot of time together.I think the way that you could tell that JD was so different is he didn't seem to get kind of sucked up in the power dynamic that exists at a place like Yale Law School.I think a lot of people—I can remember him being nervous about a lot of the things, and that was incredibly helpful for me when I was coming in.
I had just finished the military, and JD ran this group called the Yale Veterans Association, which was, I think they had four returning members, maybe three, among the two classes we were joining.And then there were three or four of us.And so he took us out for pizza the first night before school started and basically said something along the lines of, “Hey, look, you're going to be self-conscious.You're going to be nervous.You're going to feel like don't belong.You're going to feel like all these people are smarter than you.And it's just not true.And so if you can just kind of make it through these first couple of months, you'll settle in.”
That was really powerful to me.When I think about how he could convey that to us, I think he was probably feeling a lot of those same things.It didn't feel kind of like he had come from the elite boarding schools and done all of the kind of résumé-building activities that a lot of other people had.He certainly didn't have the money.But I don't think it manifested itself in a way that he would kind of, like, tell about the differences.I think you could just kind of feel that he was different.
What was he like back then?
He was beloved.I think a lot of people forget.I would say that when he and Usha started dating as a couple, they were both like, as a couple, the most popular people in the school, which like, when you have Yale Law School popularity, it doesn't define it.It looks very different from like Mean Girls, but just thought of [him] as competent and kind and outgoing.Individually, I think he was beloved.Teachers loved him.If you look back on how Amy Chua got in his life, there were a ton of faculty like that, that thought he was something special and kind of just an amazing student and worked really hard and [was] kind to everybody.I ended up becoming friends with this guy, Kevin Rose, who ended up—he was at the school for a long time and ran the facilities there, and Kevin adored JD.If you thought of the faculty, the students and the administration, I think he would have been one of the most well liked at the time.
What was that about?That was an energy that he sort of gave off?
He's incredibly genuine.The moment you meet him, you kind of know [what] you're getting, and this is one of the things I think a lot of people would disagree with today.My perspective has been that genuineness has been there the whole time.You know you're meeting somebody who kind of cares about you immediately.There's no pretense.You can kind of hop into substantive conversations about anything.I think what was leaked in <i>The New York Times</i> about his emails with his … old friend, I think that really highlights who he is today and who he was then.
I think a lot of people would shy away from those kind of uncomfortable intellectual conversations on any topic, and he was always very comfortable to kind of, from a place of genuine curiosity and intellectual safety, engage in those conversations.So I think people really appreciated that, because that is the exception rather than the rule at a place like Yale.
It sounds a lot different than the period we're in now, where we're all sort of staying in our silos and we're not engaging with friends that have differing ideological beliefs.That wasn't him.
It's not.It was not him then, nor is it now.I mean, I think if you look at some of the bills he first co-sponsored, it was with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.And if you heard his convention speech, he's willing to state a lot of populist things that go against a lot of kind of the CEO culture.If you took that JD from then and kind of, or today, and rewound it to then, he's always been the same guy.You can't put him in a box.If he disagrees with something, he's just going to say it politely.He does not bow to convention.
And I think people found that very interesting.And because it's coming from such a loving, genuine place, I think it has endeared him to a lot of people.
Vance’s Military Service
How significant is JD's experience in Iraq to understanding who he is?
I think there would be a couple of different ways to answer it.I think if you were looking kind of—we'll go highest level to lowest.High level, if you think about his perspective on foreign policy back to—I think he is willing to kind of take unpopular positions when he thinks it's right, I think what he saw in Iraq really made him second-guess American decision-making for when they send America's kids to war.I think a lot of us that were there look back on it and are kind of horrified when you see how those decisions were made and what the cost was to the actual, what he calls the least of these that were on the ground actually doing the work.I think that that has given him a backbone to kind of go into those spaces against maybe what convention would say and say what he believes is right and what he believes is best for those kids who are deploying.
I think if you went down a level and thought about how it impacted him from an organizational perspective, I think he and Usha would both say it kind of gave him a framework for success.With his upbringing, he didn't have a ton of people in his life, I think, that had models for kind of efficiently taking down tasks, and I think one of the amazing things about the Army or the Marines is it gives you a framework with which to approach a problem and then kind of solve through it.And so I think he would give a lot of credit to his later success to that time in the military, and Iraq in particular.
And then the last one that I think, kind of to the lowest level, I think it made him an even kinder person that's more understanding and more thoughtful and more caring to those around him.The people that he met there, he's still very good friends with a lot of them.It kind of broadened his base of friendships.The people he met in Iraq, he speaks incredibly highly of the locals and I think that was a diversity-building experience for him that kind of opened his mind up in a way that maybe his childhood experiences had never given him the opportunity to.
Vance’s Admiration of Peter Thiel
You know, in law school, Peter Thiel comes to speak, and I think JD has referred to this as one of the most formative moments of his time at law school.And he also met his wife in law school.So it's obviously significant to him.Were you at that speech?
I was not.The place I plugged into the Peter Thiel story is we were at his kitchen table, and I was remarking to him how amazing it was that when you send emails, coming from my upbringing, that makes it more dramatic than it seems coming from just normal life.The open rate to an email that you send to a stranger is let's call it sub 5%.There was something magical about sending an email with the @yale.edu domain, so I had been able to email some people to come speak or ask advice, and the open rate, let's call it, was in the 80% or higher.
So we're sitting at the kitchen table.He was talking about having just seen Peter Thiel, and I was like, “Why don't you just email him?” And he was like, “Well, I don't know how to get to the email address.” And so we sat there with both our laptops open and basically googled “PeterThiel@” and then we picked his companies.Then we picked all of these different things to try and find his email address, and he ended up finding one at Stanford, so I guess Peter taught at Stanford.So we sent him an email from the kitchen table that basically said, “Hey, I'm JD.I just saw you.I'd love to get together sometime.” And Peter wrote back pretty quickly saying, “Hey, when you're on the West Coast, swing by my house; I'd love to meet you.”
I can remember from that moment JD kind of having a strong desire to get to know Peter more.But I don't think anybody ever guessed that it would have turned into this like deep, long relationship.That was so incredibly valuable to JD over the last 10 years.
And what did he see in Peter Thiel in that moment?
I think what he saw in Peter was somebody who had created something from nothing and kind of forged their own way.And then I think what kind of uniquely made them spirit animals together is that they are both unwilling to be bent to kind of existing social norms.They are comfortable going to a place like Davos and having a kind of contrarian opinion, where I think it's very, very, very hard for most people, including very successful, rich and powerful people, to go among their peers and stand out, fundamentally disagreeing with them.
My perception of Peter, though I don't know him, is that he is like that.And then I do know that JD is very comfortable going to any group of people and kind of just genuinely and honestly staking his position and openly being comfortable defending it, and I think that both of them are kind of abnormally willing to do that.
Origin and Publication of <i>Hillbilly Elegy</i>
I think now people see JD as the firebrand that we're kind of discussing.But in 2016, he was not that.When the book comes out—well, let me actually go back a little further.I've heard that the book's origin story was a paper at Yale.Are you familiar with that story?
Yes.
OK, tell me about that.
In order to graduate Yale Law School, there's essentially two papers you have to write.I can't quite remember the name.Maybe a Substantial is the first one.Whatever the first one is, it's a 20- or 25-page document that you have to write something of substance.And then that checks this one [box].And then the second one is called a SAW.It's an acronym [Supervised Analytic Writing].The SAW has to be, call it 80, 100, 150 pages, like a pretty substantive document on something that you're passionate about.You find a faculty adviser to sponsor it.
You write it.They check the [box] that you have done it.JD wanted to write something kind of tying in his background and his experience set with the law.I don't remember what the tie-in with the law was, but he was doing this paper with Amy Chua.He submitted his first draft, and I think she said something along the lines of, “That's just not very good.You're making a bridge to nowhere.There's no real compelling way to tie this in.” But what's kind of amazing about Yale Law School is there aren't really any formal grades per se.
For all intents and purposes, it's pass-fail, and they pass virtually everyone.So the faculty have a lot of discretion to kind of approve whatever they want to count as a SAW, so Amy went back to JD and said, “Hey, why don't you drop all the legal stuff, write about your background?It's really interesting and compelling, and you can make a difference with this.” And so that's what started it.Then I think very early on, she read a first draft of that new version and said, “Oh, man, you've got to meet my agent.” I believe—I'm fairly confident that's the origin story.
And help me understand who Amy Chua is on campus and who she was to JD.
When we were in law school at Yale, Amy Chua was probably—I would say if JD was the most beloved person and JD and Usha were the most beloved couple, Amy was the most beloved faculty member.And she was—everybody wanted to be in her class.She taught international business transactions or international business course, IBC or IBT.But it was packed. ...Everybody wanted to be around Amy.She would host get-togethers at her house.She was the face that was most inviting to students.…
She essentially had a ton of relationships with judges across the country and became what was like a feeder faculty member, so that was somebody that could help you get a clerkship.And then if you pair her relationships and you pair it with her kindness, what ended up happening is she would have a group of people that in each class she kind of mentored more than others.So in any given class, let's say there were 30 people Amy Chua was close to, and she would just invest in them.The way that that would manifest is she would introduce you to her agent; she would call employers for you; she would call judges for you.So at the time, everyone wanted to be in those 30 people that Amy was close to.…
I'm just thinking about the ambition in that small group alone.It must have been pretty robust.I mean, I'm sure it's robust throughout Yale Law School, but specifically in that group.
I'd say the outcomes of the group have been superb.The ambitious desires are probably evenly spread among everybody there, so I don't think you would necessarily, if you were looking at any other group, would have thought of them as any less ambitious.I think you might have said, wow, coincidentally, that group landed with a bunch of really talented people who went on to do amazing things.
Let's jump to 2016 and the book being released.That's pretty good timing for JD.… How is he talking to you during this time period when he's doing the media circuit?
I can remember talking to him kind of right when the book came out.If it wasn't the day it was released, it was the next day.And he was doing a radio show, and I can remember thinking, man, that's the coolest thing ever; you're on the radio talking about your book.And then they were talking about pushing it online, and it was kind of those first couple of weeks, like a relatively slow start, at least from where I was sitting.And then all of a sudden, it just kind of caught fire, and so everyone was kind of inbounding him and wanting on their show.
He had former presidents reaching out, telling him how impactful it was.He just had kind of the entire world saying, “Hey, you are a voice that can help us understand and explain to us what this other portion of the population are thinking,” that I think many of them would say, “I don't have exposure to that group of people.” And I don't know that JD would have ever identified as wanting to take the mantle of explaining what 50.1% of the population thought at any given moment.
I think he felt very comfortable talking about his background and how that community impacted him and kind of going one step farther, let's say, to talk about things he saw with his own eyes.And then I think a lot of people wanted him to start to be the middle-class and the lower-middle-class whisperer.I don't think he was ever really all that comfortable with that position.And if you look back then, I think a lot of people emotionally feel like he's changed from the person that he was.Other than a couple of main things, like perhaps who he supported in the 2016 election, I look back and I remember the same person.And when I read the things he's written and said back then, they're not incongruent to me to the person that I know today.
Vance’s Shift Into Politics
Did he have politics on the mind at that time period?
Um, no.
Other people had it for him?
Yes.
Tell me a little bit about that.
I think at that time people started to talk about it, but I'd say if you were right before the book coming out, I don't think it was meant to be a political manifesto.If you read it, it doesn't seem to be catering toward one primary voting population or the other.You probably wouldn't be writing that as your book if you were going to try to run very soon in either political party's primary.And so I think that's the best evidence that I respect his intellect a lot.He would probably have done it a little differently.I think as the book caught fire and as he received praise on both sides, I think what is forgotten a lot is that it wasn't just kind of the left-wing media that was praising him and people who are now disheartened by him praising him.
It was also people on the right.So he was hearing a lot of stories and getting a ton of inbound from people who suffered through similar things but were conservatives.And so I think it gave him a passion and a fire to go out and start to represent that band of people.And then I think because of his political leanings that took him to the right, but I don't think it was this kind of very deliberate like, release a book, take the momentum, and then go run for office.
Let me ask you about what he does after law school.How does he end up working for Peter [Thiel]?
I believe that Peter said something along the lines of, “I try to find talented people and surround myself with them.And I don't particularly care where you go in my orbit, but if you are willing to take the risk, I will slot you somewhere, and we will do great things together.” I believe the ordering was he first went to work at one of Peter's venture capital or private equity funds, Mithril.And then from Mithril, either they had a company in their portfolio that they had invested in or they had a company that was trying to raise money and then they had a close relationship but didn't invest.I don't quite know that part of the story.But then JD went there as like a VP of something, and he was not there very long.I think kind of the more important thing was staying in Peter's life and learning all of these things that he had never been exposed to.
I think what a lot of people kind of miss about JD's story is it didn't all just kind of come together through luck.He is absolutely one of the hardest workers that has ever existed.If he goes into a new space, even if it has its own set of vocabulary and norms and rules to understand, whether it's the law or finance or being a politician, he will work harder than everyone else and pick it up faster than everyone else because of his just like insane work ethic.
I can't help but wonder, I mean, you go from guessing Peter Thiel's email address at a dining room table in New Haven to several years later, JD is sitting and working with Peter Thiel in San Francisco.How does that happen?
I think it speaks a lot to his character.And I don't know this to be true, but I would guess Peter Thiel got a lot of inbound emails from strangers, and I would guess that he had a lot of first meetings with people, and I would even guess that he hired people for first jobs reasonably often.But my best guess would be that almost none of them, when you got to know them to the core of their soul, both performed as well and effectively and worked as hard as JD.
And I think what kind of makes him so unique to this world is you mix it with this kind of incredible character that is unwavering in its belief set.And so I think what Peter probably saw is most people can quickly become sycophants, or they can give into the beliefs of the day.And I think what Peter, who's kind of this famous contrarian, really loved about JD is he found a similar spirit who's willing to just say and hold to his convictions regardless of public preferences at the time.
Let's jump back to JD's decision to move back to Ohio.Does he talk to you about that decision when he's kind of in the middle of it, to leave San Francisco?
I think he had always intended to go back.I think even in law school when him and Usha were kind of early on, I think that they were talking about the idea that they would maybe settle in Ohio if they got married.So I think that was always a guiding force for him.And when he moved back, and if you think of his life at the time, he had started to have some pretty big successes.And I think what that success does for a lot of people is they get addicted to the positive feedback loop that comes from your friends and your peers and other successful people, and they want to stay exposed to that group of people.And so I think what would have happened to a lot of people is they would have stayed on one of the coasts.They would have stayed in San Francisco.They would have gone to D.C.They would have based out of a place that young, successful, wealthy people do, and I don't think that was a temptation for JD or Usha for even a second.I think he always thought the biggest difference that he could make was going back home and taking that back home, and he was going to be taking all of these lessons and these relationships and this experience that he had and going to apply it to his neighbors.And so as far as I can remember, it was always going to be Ohio.
He becomes pretty deeply religious around this time period and will convert.Does he talk to you about those decisions?
We did a trip two and a half years ago.It was before or right after his primary for the Senate, and we went to Israel.And I can remember he was not yet in elected office, but he could have been.So they set us up for some tours, and we ended up kind of going and seeing a lot of the holy areas.And I remember them taking us down where they were digging up the steps from, I think it's the Pool of Bathsheba, up to kind of the temple.And at least as the story, or as I remember it, it's like this one place that almost definitively you know Jesus walked.
I can remember them telling a story of like the Romans coming in and burning it down, and the person shows you the ash of the wood that had kind of remained, and I just remember looking at it over JD, and he had kind of these misty eyes as he was kind of reflecting on the moment.And we talked about it in the airport afterwards.And it's just kind of this genuine return to, I think, what he always believed existed.And I think of him as kind of reentering the church at that time, where I think he was always believed in kind of a spirituality and a God existing.
And he hadn't yet taken the steps to kind of formalize it.But I don't think, at least in my memory of the thing, I don't think it was like this complete pivot from like he didn't believe that something existed to then joining the Catholic Church.It just kind of felt like a very natural expansion or next step to joining something that he had always kind of believed was there.
[In 2016], there's this culture war that's sort of revving up.I wonder if you can help us understand what JD sees there and what the battle lines are for him in some of these earlier periods.
I think people will see a much fuller version of JD when they see something like one of his wedding pictures where Usha is dressed up in kind of her Hindu outfit and he's dressed up in the same thing, and then they did the traditional wedding.As long as I've known him, he’s chosen to be in worlds that are complicated and filled with inputs and people that are just not necessarily always mixing.
So his wedding in the mountains of Kentucky had kind of rednecks from where he was from, like from my hometown.It had brilliant people from the Yale Law School.It had scientists from California where Usha's family was from.It just had this mixture of people that was—and I've been to a lot of weddings—absolutely unique.And people came together, and they had a great time.I can distinctly remember thinking there is no other person I've ever met that can bring all these people together and have them coexist in this kind of very unique way.
I think he, JD, can very comfortably exist among those people.My perception is that his preferred place would be to be in the middle and be able to be the uniter.I think if you listened to his speech at the convention, he genuinely says things about, “Hey, we're the party for everybody,” and I believe he means it and backs it up with his actions.But I think what he has found since 2020 is people on the left of center and then the farther left you go, the less likely they are able to tolerate him and be in a room with him.
My understanding is that Donald Trump Jr.and Eric Trump were big fans of the book and that that was sort of the beginning of that relationship.Is that your understanding, is that those two ...
Whether it was the book that precipitated it or what their first meeting was, I can't speak to, but Donald Trump Jr.and JD have become great friends.I think it's been reported, but from what I've seen, they do text near daily, and they talk about their friends, and they talk about their kids, and they talk about political issues.And when JD was needing President Trump's endorsement or wanting his endorsement, I have no doubt that Donald Trump Jr.was kind of pushing on his behalf.
But I think it was from a genuine place of friendship, and at least as the vice presidency nomination was coming up, that I can attest to was kind of deep and regular conversations about how could the universe of people that adore JD be helpful and supportive in helping him achieve that goal.
Trump Picks Vance as Running Mate
Maybe now is a good time to ask you how that nomination happened.My understanding, of course, is that it's again, Donald Trump Jr.who's pretty instrumental.
My understanding of it is, if you look back in time, I think Donald Trump in January maybe had said, had picked the person.I think that what Donald Trump saw in JD was somebody similar who was kind of, what we said earlier, the same thing that drew him to Peter Thiel or Peter Thiel to JD, this person that was unwilling to bend in the face of public pressure and was holding to their convictions.
I believe that very early on, Donald Trump and his team were very intrigued with the person that JD was and thought his time as a senator had kind of reinforced this idea that he was willing to go and do and say things against his party and against whatever was kind of standing in the way of what he believed.So my understanding of like the January until the nomination was that it was an exploration from President Trump and his team to test out, are our hypotheses about JD true?Can he hold to be the person that we think he is?
There was a set of formalized tests or experiences to expose him to, whether that was doing rallies with Donald Trump or going on the Sunday talk shows or doing fundraising events to test out what they already believed to be true and what I think that they confirmed, which was that JD would be an amazing VP candidate.I think that that process went through, as told by the news, up until right before the tweet or the Truth [Social] post that went out.
But as I understand it from JD, he did not know until five minutes before the post went out, so they were just as surprised as anybody.
What was that like for him?
If you think about truly not knowing, they had booked other hotel rooms.They were heading to the convention with the very different roles in mind.They had maybe thought about packing clothes in case they needed to go on stage for something.They hadn't written speeches.They didn't do any of the things that you might expect you would do if two days later you were going to be having the biggest nights of your entire lives.And then all of a sudden the post goes out.Five minutes later Secret Service shows up.You're switching hotels.They have their kids with them.I think any mere mortal of a couple would cave or buckle or at least be affected by that massive transition over such a short period of time, and they were able to solve through it with just heroic intellectual discipline to, by the time I showed up Tuesday night to the hotel, it was almost as if they had been the nominee couple for months at that point.
JD has said some pretty brash things on women's issues in the past and family issues and the decision whether women have a family or are unable to have a family.And I just wonder if you can speak to that, because to a lot of people, those statements are pretty harmful.And yeah, I'm curious if you can help me understand JD's positions.
I think if you look at, and I've gotten to see a lot of his speaking and events and fundraising in the last 27 days, so basically since he was the VP nominee, I would guess I've heard him speak 90% of the words that he's uttered from that moment to now.And I would say 98 or 99% of those words that I've heard him speak are thoughtful and balanced and loving and supportive and inclusive.
And he truly is.His heart is to represent all of the American people and to viciously fight on behalf of a group that have been neglected.I'd say of the things that sometimes can come across as crass or hurtful or harmful, many of those things I think are said in the spirit of engaging a crowd and getting them to understand the more nuanced positions.So some of those topics are—you're speaking to a lot of people; it just kind of slips into your mind.… The crowd cheers, and you may, if you could go back in time, choose a different set of words for some of the tweets and trying to be viral.I don't know if people have realized it yet, but moderate, nuanced tweets don't do all that well.
When you're fundraising or when you're trying to capture the public attention or imagination, you're oftentimes, I think, choosing a set of words that you might not use if it was in real life.So I would say there's some set of things that he has said that he would probably—there's probably three categories that he would say, “I wish I hadn't said it, that didn't come across as I intended.I didn't mean to hurt people's feelings.” Some set of them would be, “No, I meant to say it.I needed something to spice this up.The actual substance of what I was saying was perfectly fine and represents what I want to say, and … this needed to be said.”
And then I think there's probably a third set that just is, "Hey, you're running in 2024; you’ve got to break through the noise, and sometimes that requires saying things that are kind of to the outer boundaries of how you would typically speak or think or present to the world."Specifically around the issues you're talking about, I couldn't categorize those for him, but I would say that there would be some number of them that he would say, “Yeah, if I could go back in time, I would reword that.” I guess [put] another way, I can't recall ever hearing him utter a word publicly or privately that was intended to hurt someone's feelings.
I think, sadly, what has occurred in the population's feelings about him is that I think because of the high that people got from his book and feeling like, man, they have finally found the conservative in my life that I can relate to, all the people that were at Yale Law School who don't have a ton of conservative friends, all of the faculty members that have said, “Yeah, we would hire a conservative to be on faculty if we could find the right one,” all of those people finally had somebody that kind of spoke like them.They were nuanced; they were thoughtful.And then I think when JD continued to talk and continued to evolve, he really hurt their feelings.So this visceral reaction to virtually everything he says I think in a lot of ways comes from the fact that so many people felt genuine love and admiration and respect for this person they may have not met, and when he says these things that are, from my perspective, oftentimes just like what politicians say, people react even more negatively.
That doesn't excuse the harm that is perhaps caused by it.But I think people are, in my opinion, holding him to a different standard than maybe every other politician on the planet.
But when he says things like folks that have not had children don't have a stake in our future, what does he mean?
I think—as I've seen what I think you're referencing, I think the point about that whole, I think it's kind of losing the forest for the trees.I think that that was the opening to a broader point that families have it really hard in this country sometimes, and the government and programs aren't always set up to care for them.And just as a species, we should probably keep having kids at some sort of rate that replaces us, or many smarter people than I have thought about that.
But I think his whole intent behind that was, “Man, wouldn't it be interesting if we were more pro-family?” I don't think he intended any of the kind of anti-anything.I think he was pro-family, and in setting up that point, his opening discussion or opening point was that some people, the decision makers aren't maybe weighting that as accurately or as heavily as they should.
There's a lot of talk about the administrative state, dismantling the administrative state, replacing the administrative state.Help me understand that perspective, because it sounds to a lot of people like it's increasing the power of the executive authority, and I'm curious what JD's perspective is on this.
I believe what he would say is these are complicated issues where you ultimately—it's a default question.It's the default of who has the decision-making authority in a given area of government.And I think what he would say is the administrative state has grown and taken on more decision-making authority than either the founders or the legislators ever intended, and a lot of that has come from basically open questions in the default of who owns this.
So when you have people existing and working in government for 20, 30, 40 years, they accrue decision-making authority and power and all sorts of different things in their realm, and I think what he would probably say is that Chevron deference that was recently overturned, it's actually just shifting the norm back to the elected, to the people who choose to go make decisions on their behalf, and it's just resetting who should be the one making the decision.I think it's less specifically against any given person in the administrative state and much more specifically about, hey, we need to get this thing back to a more direct relationship between the voter and their will and the decisions that impact their lives.
Has he talked to you about the shift to President Trump, his personal shift to President Trump from 2016 to 2020?
I think—so yes, I think there is a genuine love and respect.I think from the outside, people want to view, again, JD as this kind of power-hungry, flattened character who's just seeking to one day rule the world, and that just couldn't be any further from the truth of the man I know.He grew a deep respect for what I think he would say was Donald Trump's contrarian nature and his ability and tolerance for going against popular opinion.And whether that aligned and they agreed on every single issue, I don't think had anything to do with the fact that he seemed—I think JD believed he was the kind of person that did what he thought was right, and that, I think from JD's perspective, was rare.Then I think President Trump saw that.
From what I can tell, they've developed a very genuine relationship of mutual trust and respect that goes a lot deeper than I think people want to believe, because I think it's easier to kind of have this view, this view that JD's this caricature of some power-hungry person who will do anything to get power.And I just—I fundamentally disagree with that view.
I just want to push back on this question of—on Trump specifically.Again, you've described a friend who's very authentic, very much filled with moral clarity, personal clarity.He's on a ticket with somebody who's vastly different and has a very different background than himself.I think people have a lot of trouble seeing the evolution of JD from 2016 to where we are right now.Can you help us understand that?
I think that people have a fundamental misunderstanding of who JD is and how consistent he's been in his belief set since I've known him for the last 10 years.I don't think he has wavered much from the person I originally knew.And even though there may be individual topics or people that he's changed his opinion on, I think the same person shows up in all of the things that are from law school graduation until now.
I think the evidence of that is if you look at most of the things he's done, it's a little bit confusing because it doesn't quite look like somebody who's going to be in a Republican primary someday.And I think if he was deliberately doing that, he would have taken different steps.And it also doesn't look like somebody who one day is going to try to be the president of the United States or the vice president of the United States.Much of what he said along the way, whether it's writing <i>Hillbilly Elegy</i> or co-sponsoring a bill with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, those are not the types of things that somebody who is just simply selling their soul to the preferences of the day and the preferences of the current Davos crowd are doing.He has been this complicated, nuanced character willing to say things that are perceived to be as incongruent that entire time, and I have a ton of respect for him for holding true to that.
So I think when people want to paint this picture of him as this person who's changed their opinions on a lot of different things in their core belief set, I just fundamentally think it's a misunderstanding of who he is and his convictions.
This is somebody that's evolved; this is somebody that has changed opinions; this is somebody who has learned along the way—that's how you see it.
I think that's right.Back to what I was saying, like when he goes into a new space like private equity or working in a company or doing the law or being a politician, he works incredibly hard and he gets more data points in that space than most people could do in 10 years because he's getting so many reps so quickly, whether it's talking to more voters than anybody else or reading more material or engaging in deals faster.His brain is able to take those lessons and change and evolve and grow.He's also almost second to anyone I've ever met, or second to none for anyone I've ever met.
I think what we've seen is the diversity of his experience over the last 10 years and returning to Ohio and getting to meet a lot of the people that he hadn't gotten to live in the community in a while and see their struggles and kind of figure out what could he do to make a difference.I think people want to assign those changes and that growth to some sort of desire for power, and I think instead he has changed as a human being into somebody that thinks he has figured out a path to go make a difference for them.
How is he adapting to this new reality?We've covered a lot of meteoric rises in this town.This is pretty extraordinary how fast he's ascended.That's a big shift.I think about how you describe the nomination and when that news is delivered to him.Give us a sense of, in this moment where we're talking to you, what is life like for JD Vance?
… He and Usha have one of the healthiest and most balanced relationships of any couple I've ever seen.JD, I would put in the top 10 smartest people I've ever met, and I'd probably put Usha in the top two.They just have these incredibly powerful brains who can approach problems as a couple and solve through them really quickly.So I would say within four days of being the vice presidential nominee, they had created systems and structures and figured out how to balance their three kids and get them to camps and to school and work with Secret Service and get JD on the road for all of the responsibilities that he has.
This will be kind of a boring, unbelievable answer, but I think they've returned to normalcy in their home life in just kind of a remarkable amount of time, even though his days look very different than they used to.Usha is an incredibly balancing and grounded force in wanting her kids to continue to live and to be able to live in a world where they can be happy, the life of just normal little kids.So she is incredibly anchored in not having this impact them.
And I think by virtue of that, and JD's both buy-in to that idea and respect for her as a human being, he has valiantly contorted him[self] and the system around maintaining that order for their kids, which has kind of made home life look remarkably similar to what it looked like before he was the VP nominee.
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