The FRONTLINE Interviews
David Frum
Author, Trumpocalypse
David Frum is a political commentator and staff writer for The Atlantic. He is the author of several books, most recently Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy.
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’s Political Leanings During Law School
How did you meet JD, and what were your observations of him at the time?
I had served in the George W.Bush administration.I strongly believed in its principles of compassionate conservatism, free trade and strong American leadership in the world.During the first Obama administration, I became alarmed that my party was trending in a dangerously radical direction, dangerous from a political point of view, dangerous from a government point of view.I founded a website that tried to modernize the conservative message, and it attracted a lot of young people with similar ideas, many different variations of the ideas.So I had dozens and dozens of people who were in contact with me, who wrote to me, who contributed to the site.It was a group effort.JD Vance, who was then I believe in his first year at Yale Law School, was one of those who reached out and said, “I'm interested in what you're doing.I'd like to be part of it.” And he contributed, under a pseudonym, about a dozen articles to the website over those years of the first Obama term.
The website I ran, immodestly called <i>Frum Forum</i>, had a three-part slogan: that we wanted to be conservative, of course, but culturally modern, economically inclusive and environmentally responsible.That was the vision that I was trying to promote, of this is what the conservatism of the future would look like.And we had many people contribute under pseudonyms, because, look, I, halfway through the <i>Frum Forum</i> experience, I was fired from my job at a conservative think tank because I drifted away from the intensely radical mood of the early Tea Party years, and many of the other contributors were worried that things like that might happen to them.So we had many people who, for good reasons, said, “I want to explore some ideas that my employers might not like, might get me in trouble, might jeopardize my career.” Now, many of the people, many of those pseudonyms are still intact, by the way, and many of the people who wrote for me went on to very different positions than they held between 2009 and 2012.And I've always felt myself obliged to protect their secret.They trusted me.And even in some cases where I disapproved of their future evolutions, I've never embarrassed them, because we had a relationship of trust.
What is JD writing about at the time, and how would you characterize the JD Vance and his politics at that time?
Well, he was then still very much exploring the person he was going to be.But he was very much interested in de-radicalizing the Republican message.He was proud of his service in Iraq.He was proud of the record of the American forces there.One of his pieces was a defense of the record of U.S.forces in Iraq.He was interested in a kind of more intellectual form of conservatism.One of the pieces he wrote was a celebration of Jon Huntsman [Jr.], who became ambassador to Russia, over and against the more loud-mouthed governor of Texas, Rick Perry.
Actually, this reminds me, I want to say something and just put it on your video.It may not be important to you, but it's important to me to say, which is the reason we are having this discussion, the reason that the world knows that JD Vance contributed to my site is because of a decision by JD.I would have kept the secret even to this day, because I felt myself honor-bound to do that for the people who had trusted me.When he ran for the Senate, he commissioned self-opposition work, and one of the items that emerged in the self-opposition work was that he had contributed to my site.
And then through mistake and misunderstanding, his campaign publicized and published their self-oppo, and so then other people found out about this.But if it had been up to me, this would not be public information today, because with him, as with the many other people who wrote under pseudonyms, I keep those secrets.
How would you characterize his politics at the time?
At the time, JD's politics were very much in flux.He was developing the person he would later be.But there were some strong themes.He was interested in intellectually-rigorous politics.He was interested in de-radicalizing the Republican Party.He was interested in expertise and knowledge.He was interested in defending the achievements of the United States armed forces in Iraq.He'd been a part of that.One of his pieces for me was a defense of the good conduct of American forces in Iraq.
He was aghast at the extremes of the Tea Party movement, the birtherism, the crazy remarks about Obama.He was always very emphatic about his intense personal admiration for President Obama and his identification with President Obama.They had in many ways similar kinds of life stories.And he hoped that he could build a life—I'm sure he was thinking about politics, but what he talked more about was build a private life, the kind of marriage that Obama had, the kind of solid family that Obama had despite Obama's own boyhood troubles.So he was in line with the general mission of the site, which is to build a more modern and more responsible kind of conservative politics.
The Origin and Publication of <i>Hillbilly Elegy</i>
You talked with him about an idea to write a book early on.What was he hoping to do at the onset?
Well, in those periods, we met in person a couple of times.I mean, I was in Washington, D.C.; he was in New Haven, Connecticut.He would come back and forth.I would see him occasionally.And he was developing an idea for a book that would offer solutions to the problems of rural poverty, rural addiction.I was very excited by this idea.I thought this was a terrific thing for him to do.I thought he was just the person who could do it.And he was developing what would it mean to try to include rural America in the promise of American life.
Now, there's an important back story here, which is in the 21st century, as compared to the 1980s, Americans were about half as likely to move for a job as they were a generation before, even after you adjust for the fact that society is a little bit older.Still, you compare age group with age group.Americans in the 2010s were half as likely to move for opportunity as Americans in the 1980s, so that meant people were getting stuck in places where economic activity was not progressing as fast as it was in other places.
So those are the kinds of things he was worrying about.As the book advanced, he wrote a personal foreword to the book, and some genius of an editor said, “That personal foreword is the book,” and that became <i>Hillbilly Elegy</i> and a national bestseller.
And prior to that, it was a wonky policy book.
The original plan was a wonky policy book with a short personal introduction.
When the book comes out, [he’s] really lauded by mainstream media as someone who can help translate rural America to perhaps folks on the coast.How was the book received, and how did he take that?
Well, the book was an enormous bestseller because of the coincidence with the Trump election.I think a lot of people in the parts of America that were doing well said Trump was something that was done to us by the parts of America that were not doing well, and while we reject what was done to us, we are trying to understand the message that is being sent.So JD was there to interpret this message and to explain why was it that the parts of America that were not doing so well would do something as seemingly self-harming, and he joined <i>Hillbilly Elegy</i> to some of his most emphatic pieces written for <i>The Atlantic</i>, where I was also working, about the harmfulness of Donald Trump to the very people who supported him.He compared Donald Trump to opioids.And if you are from the Hill Country, that is not a light comparison.I'm sure he knows many, many people who died because of opioid addiction, or suffered because of it, many families that suffered because of it.
So to compare a candidate to this thing that has brought so much misery to the people you care about, that's a heavy accusation.So he was both explaining but not justifying.And the power of the book was he was quite tough on the people he wrote about.He didn't make them out as victims.He said they have choices, but here's why they're making bad choices.
The week of the inauguration, JD reaches out to you.There's a meeting.Can you tell me?Can you tell me everything about that meeting?Can you tell me who's there?Where are you?And frankly, what is the purported purpose of it?
Well, I won't tell you everyone who's there because many people have chosen not to identify themselves with it, but it was a meeting held in central Washington under the auspices of one of our nonprofit institutions here with many smart and distinguished people.And while JD didn't chair it, he had convened it.He had done the invitation.And of course, everyone was there because they had a relationship with him.And it's important to stress that there are people you meet in life you just admire and you say this person, JD, is a hugely impressive individual.He's gifted, energetic, capable.And he also is—and Americans so respond to this—someone who's overcome these extraordinary personal difficulties to build a solid and successful life, and that's something that Americans rightly admire.So people always wanted to come at his call.And I think a lot of people had—a lot of his circle had an idea that he's going somewhere, possibly to the presidency, but certainly somewhere important along the way to the presidency.So when he convened a meeting, you went, of course.And the question that the meeting was to address was, can anything positive come of this moment?Is there anything to be gained by working with Trump?And I'll admit, I was kind of the Debbie Downer of the meeting, but I said, “Look, I'm not saying nothing, and I'm not saying no one.If you have national security credentials or obligations, or if you are called on to work in national defense or to be an ambassador somewhere, you should do that.And if you are asked to serve on some independent agency, of course, where you are far from the White House, if you want to, if you are asked to go on the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, to work on [the] Occupational Safety and Health [Administration], of course you should do that.But beware of getting anywhere close to this White House, because it is malignant.” And that was not the answer that I think most of the attendees were hoping to hear.
If there were subsequent meetings, and I don't know whether there were or not, I wasn't invited.Maybe there weren't any subsequent meetings.But I would say some of the people at that meeting agreed with me, but most did not.And eventually most of the kind of person who was at that meeting would drift in one way or another into the Trump orbit, either directly supporting Trump and the Trump administration or at least stifling criticism that they would otherwise have made.
Donald Trump ran the most protectionist administration, for example, since the end of the Second World War.That is something that many of the people in conservative Washington would've once have been up in arms against, and remarkably little was said about it.
JD Vance’s Shift to the Right
What is the shift that JD is making out of that meeting and shortly after?
Well, the big question about Donald Trump and his administration was, was this some kind of freak event that is going to rapidly blow over, or are we witnessing here a permanent change in what it's going to mean to be a Republican and a conservative?And it didn't have to be a permanent change.There have been a lot of moments in the past where parties took on adventures and corrected themselves.
The Democratic Party swung pretty far to the left in the middle 1970s and then pulled itself back in the 1980s and 1990s.And the extreme economics of the Tea Party era, the Republicans also corrected that.But the question was the lawlessness, the brutality, the cruelty, the stupidity of the Trump administration—was that going to be corrected?And instead, that became the future.
And Republicans really got a chance to vote on this in 2021, 2022.I mean that there were candidates, Gov. [Ron]DeSantis in Florida, who said, “Let's try to find it; let's try to keep some parts of the Trump message, but redirect the party,” and they were just brutally rejected.And a lot of them—by the way, it wasn't that no one tried.Ron DeSantis raised tens of millions of dollars.He had a major operation to say, “Well, let's try to redirect the party somewhere.I'm going to reinvent myself as Trump's successor but not be exactly like him.” And that message went nowhere.And it became apparent by the time JD ran for the Senate that Trump was not only the past; he would be the future.
Can I ask you about something you call “moral flexibility”?What do you mean by that exactly, and what exactly has JD changed his mind about other than Donald Trump?
Well, in politics, there's a certain amount of intelligence that you need, but the greatest politicians are not always the most intelligent politicians.They are people with character and empathy.Politics is about representing most people, and most people are everyday people.That's the whole meaning of it.
So the greatest leaders, the most admired leaders of American democracy, are people like Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, who—they weren't Oppenheimers.They weren't out on the frontiers of science.But they are people who had something so important to them, something so special about them, but also had deep characteristics of personality, of caring, of understanding, of being able to communicate to other people, and a deep sense of—you know, it's crazy to say this about FDR, who was himself so flexible, they had a kind of character.There are things they stood for.There are things you could not push them away from.And above all, at their core was a deep sympathy for people, respect for people—not disdain, not contempt.You know, contempt is one of those, like one drop of it just curdles the whole personality.
So when I talk about moral flexibility, I'm talking about those gifts of character and empathy and sympathy, that gift of respect that makes you someone who can be safely trusted with the enormous power of the American government.
Does JD have that?
I would say at this point he's emphatically proved that he does not.Look, one of the most striking things about Donald Trump, the most immediately striking thing, is his personal cruelty. And he has—you know, he hates pets; he's hostile to children; he makes fun of the disabled; he takes pleasure in the suffering of others.And you just say, “This is a dangerous human being; this is someone with something wrong with him.” And everybody can sense it.And what we sense about more normal politicians is that they have a gift; they have an interior.And politics is a tough business, and you often have to make very hard decisions, but you make those hard decisions in the name of some vision of kindliness, some vision of goodness.
So when you say, … what I'm going to do is start from a position of psychological normality and model myself more and more on Donald Trump and adopt his ways of speaking and call people names and mock people, I mean, from JD Vance's point of view, for example, children are so important to him, and that was such an important part of his life was to be a good father.So if someone is for some reason or another denied what you regard as the highest gift, how do you react to that?With contempt?With cruelty?Or with compassion and sympathy?I mean, not everybody gets every gift.Some people are born with good health; some people are born with bad health.And if you regard children as the greatest gift, some people will not have them.So how do you talk about such people, with contempt?
The Rise of National Conservatism
I wonder if you can help put JD in the larger context of what's happening on the right, and specifically the New Right, the rise of national conservatism.
Well, I'm never comfortable with these broad labels because they're advertising slogans.They don't usually have as much content.But what has been broadly happening on the political right over the past decade is a turn away from not just the extremes of free market economics that we saw under Paul Ryan, but from almost any kind of free market economics, from a determination to use the state to reward friendly economic actors, to punish corporations that speak out, as Ron DeSantis punished or tried to punish the Disney Corporation, to seal the United States off from international competition, to try to imagine that there's an American prosperity that can exist without reference to what's going on with the rest of the planet.There's a different vision of American leadership.It's one without values.It's a vision of American leadership that says countries should follow the United States because the United States is mighty and strong and can punish them, not because the United States speaks for values that are shared by so much of humanity.
When Ronald Reagan or George H.W.Bush or George W.Bush spoke to the world, they spoke about what was inspiring about America, and they tried to take seriously that other countries had interests, too, above all participation in this global free market from which everybody benefited—Americans most of all, but everybody.And we've turned our back on that.And what they're—I think the most noted element to me of what's going on in conservatism is in the 1980s, conservatives tended to believe either that we were a majority or we potentially were a majority, and we had things to say that if more people heard them, most people would like them.I think the big development of the Trump years has been to accept, you know what?That's not true.Our message is one for a minority, and the great majority of our fellow citizens are hostile or indifferent to what we say, so that means two things.One is we have to find a way to govern, bootstrap our minority position into a majority of the political power, which means basically turning off many of the mechanisms of democracy or perverting them.And second, it has bred an attitude of real dislike and hostility between the conservative movement and the rest of the country, that they look at their fellow citizens as enemies who are to be commanded or punished.
That's a very scary thought to a lot of people on the other side.
It's both a very scary thought; it's also a very self-harming thought, because look, the American political system is not a perfect democracy.It doesn't exactly—the majority doesn't always win.But it's not going to be feasible for a hostile minority to govern an unwilling majority for any long period of time, especially when the hostile majority are producing most of the country's wealth and paying most of the country's taxes.So the project is not workable.It never was.And I think that's going to be one of the themes of 2024, is that the 55% of Americans who reject Trump ideas, the 55% of Americans who produce 70% of the country's wealth who reject Trump ideas, they're just not going to be dictated to in the way that the Trump-Vance coalition imagines they might do it.It's just not going to work, in addition to everything else that's wrong with it.
Why is he navigating into this lane?
This brilliant man, this author of so empathetic and wise a book, fell into a circle.He didn't fall because he volunteered for it.He sought it out of people who are very alienated from American life, many of them insulated from contact with American life by extreme wealth, others by extreme ideas.They didn't believe in the democratic idea.They were hostile to many of their fellow citizens.They were suspicious of the role of women in modern life.And they talked to each other in places where no one else was listening, so you didn't have to worry about—you go on the Steve Bannon podcast, the crazier the thing you say, the better.And because podcasts are so endless, typically people who are not sympathetic to what's being said on the podcast don't show up.So you can go on and on and say all kinds of weird, crazy things, and you get invited back by saying even weirder things than the last person who was on before you.
So this network developed.And they had these gurus, and the gurus were crackpots, anti-democratic crackpots, sometimes people who literally regarded themselves as fascist, sometimes people who just looked like fascists to others.… Women were topics.They talked about women all the time, and women were disappointing and failing to do their reproductive duty.…
Let me ask you about some of the ideology that we just discussed related to the podcast.So I'm thinking about things that Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin have said about democracy.Do you think—and you mentioned authoritarianism or fascism—do you think that's JD?… [What] are we to make of those thoughts and those extreme views?
Look, I can't tell you what's in JD's head, but my observation of politics is that it's very rare—true hypocrisy is very rare, hypocrisy being you think one thing and you say a different thing.That's just too much work.It requires too much memory.Most of us, if we think something, we end up saying it, and if we say something, we end up thinking it.So I think it's just a good working assumption that the words that come out of JD Vance's mouth are more or less the words that are inside his head.
What does that tell you about JD Vance when he goes on to Bannon's podcast and says, “I don't care much about what happens to Ukraine”?
Sometimes people have holes in their soul, and most of the time those people conceal those holes.If you tell me where the holes are, that's important information.
Do you believe him when he says those things?
I think you have to.It might turn out to be that he changed his mind again.People change their mind a lot, and they change their mind a few more times.But politicians are usually more or less committed to the things they've said on the campaign, and they are brought to power by people who believe them.So the people who believe them are going to enforce it.
What's happened on Ukraine is the Republican Party has talked itself into a position that it's now very hard to retreat from.And while many older Republicans disbelieve it, and we've seen the Republican majority in the Senate did eventually get aid to Ukraine after a six-month delay, which cost many, many people their lives, Mitch McConnell and other Republicans over age 60 may think differently.But it's very striking.When you look at the most pro-Ukraine Republicans in House and Senate, they're old, and when you look at the most anti-Ukraine Republicans in House and Senate, they're young.
The Importance of the Role of Vice President
Let's zoom out for just a moment, and I wonder if we can look at these two men that are on the ticket as vice president.Why is the VP role playing such a prominent role in this cycle, and what do these two men represent about the country right now?
Both the candidates for vice president are unusually forceful speakers, and both of them have had extraordinarily interesting lives, and both of them are running with tops of the ticket who are more circumspect.So Trump, because he's kind of familiar and old, we all have our views about Trump; there's not much to say.And Harris has always been a quite guarded person, quite cautious, and so she shows some of her personality, but she doesn't show her inner self in a way that other candidates for office have shown their inner selves.So the vice presidents, in a way, are more accessible, and they're more combative in this cycle, and so they've come to the fore.
And I think, in the case of JD Vance, I mean, he is such a remarkable person.How can you not be interested in him?
His back story is so interesting.
His back story and his front story, both how he came to be the person he is and the person he is.Most politicians are careful about risks.They're careful about what they say.The point's been made about JD Vance.It's quite remarkable to have someone who, before he entered politics, always spoke very carefully and after he entered politics, stopped speaking so carefully.So that's interesting.
They're interesting people, so of course we're interested.
Any contrast to Walz?
Walz is also a big figure.Walz was not as aggressively ambitious, wasn't as eager for wealth and fame, but he was, within his community context, always an important and admired person.The career of Walz raises the question: There is a different path for JD Vance.
What if, after he finished law school, he had gone back to Ohio and really practiced law, not this pretend Silicon Valley stuff, but really practiced law; done a little business on the side, made himself an independent fortune, not one that was given to him by billionaires but one that he earned and accumulated himself; became someone who's rooted in his community, took part in philanthropy, raised money for good causes, served on the United Way board, got on the board of Ohio State University, and then built his own political base that wasn't given to him by some donor or by some top of the ticket, by some president?He built his own base and then became mayor of his town and governor of his state and senator and someone who, when a Donald Trump said boo to him, could say, “Mr.President, in my state, you have a 50% approval rating and I have a 70% approval rating, so you don't say boo to me; I say boo to you.”
That didn't happen here.
No, but I think that was true of Walz.Walz had an independent base.Harris gave him the spot on the ticket, but she didn't give him his political career.Walz built his political career from the ground up.
They're both competing for a similar voter.They also are coming from similar places, and they're concerned about similar problems.But they have different ideas about remedies.
They're not competing for the similar voter; they're competing for voters in similar places.But when JD sees that voter, he sees a man, and when Walz sees that voter, he sees a woman.
The Stakes of the Election
What is this election about in your mind?What are the stakes?
There has always been a lot of violence in American politics, and there have been a lot of debates about whether to be a democracy or not.But what there has never been until 2021 was an attack, a violent attack, on American democracy from the top, from the president himself.Donald Trump tried to make a coup d'etat to overturn an election, and because we've been saying that fact so often, it's acquired a kind of dullness of familiarity.
It's hard every day to remember the astonishing fact that the president of the United States attempted a coup d'etat against an American election by violence, first by fraud, then by violence.Now, he lost, and so his defenders will say, “Well, it didn't work.” Attempted murder—what's that?Is there such a thing?“But he failed in the crime.” But he attempted the crime, and it's the worst constitutional crime in American history.It makes Watergate look like peanuts, truly.
And so the question is, if you try that once, do you get a chance to do it again?That's, to me, what the election question is about.And so I remain a registered Republican.I think if you were to give Harris and me a 100-point policy quiz, there'd be maybe 15, 18 questions where our answers would overlap, maybe a little more.Not many, though.Certainly not a majority.But to me, the question is, if you lose an election, should you step away from power?You don't even have to be a good sport about it.You can complain.You shouldn't complain, but if you want to complain, complain.But can you mobilize, by fraud and then by violence, an attempt to overthrow the election?No, that you can't do.And that, to me, is what the election is all about.
JD has distanced himself from—well, I should say Trump … has distanced [himself] from the Project 2025 plan.… Why are they doing that, in your view?
Project 2025 has become a symbol for everything that people are worried about in the Republican platform, so it's very natural for politicians to say, “Those things you don't like, I want nothing to do with them.” But every campaign contains an office that is in charge or should contain an office that is in charge of the transition.So when John McCain and Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, both of them had operations to say, “Well, if we win, who's going to be deputy administrator of the Social Security Administration?We have to hire lots of people, and we have to hire them very fast.And we have to start governing at noon on Inauguration Day.We have to be ready at 12:01.We're in charge.We have to be ready for that.” And so campaigns have big operations to do that transition.Donald Trump has never bothered with that kind of work.The transition has always been done for him by somebody else.So in this case, the Heritage Foundation, an important think tank with a budget of many tens of millions of dollars a year, said, “We'll do that work for you.We'll prepare the document.We've got a list of the people.”
Since Trump's not doing any of those things, and if he wins, those things have to be done, Project 2025 is it.You can't say, “I don't know anything about it,” because when it, should Donald Trump be returned to the presidency in January of 2025, he's going to have to staff it, and he has no idea how he's going to do that.He's going to have to start doing things.He's going to have to do things that he doesn't care about at noon on Inauguration Day.So who's going to develop all of that work?Someone has to do it.Heritage Foundation is doing it.No one else is.
So you can complain about it, but that's the document, and those are the people.
A lot has been made about Vance's extreme views at this point.You've seen this evolvement firsthand.How do you make sense of that?
I can't fully explain the transformation of JD Vance.Ambition is part of the answer, but there are a lot of ways to be ambitious.I can just observe the change happening, and I can, as a citizen and as someone who admires him, say it's alarming and also heartbreaking, because he could have been something else; he could have been something better.
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