In conversation with JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024

00:00:00.000 | - This speaker's not on the program.

00:00:01.720 | - Not on the program, but I did notice

00:00:03.480 | there was a little bit of security here today.

00:00:05.760 | A little extra security.

00:00:07.920 | - This is your Sachs red meat moment.

00:00:10.400 | - Yes. - Okay.

00:00:11.240 | - All right, here we go.

00:00:12.080 | A little red meat for Sachs.

00:00:14.200 | Please welcome me in joining

00:00:16.120 | vice presidential candidate, Janie Vance.

00:00:18.660 | (upbeat music)

00:00:21.240 | - Your winner's ride.

00:00:22.340 | - Rain Man David Sachs.

00:00:25.120 | ♪ I'm going all in ♪

00:00:28.120 | - And instead, we open source it to the fans

00:00:30.320 | and they've just gone crazy with it.

00:00:31.920 | - Love you guys.

00:00:32.920 | - Queen of Quinoa.

00:00:34.300 | ♪ I'm going all in ♪

00:00:36.400 | - Hey guys.

00:00:37.240 | (audience applauding)

00:00:38.060 | - How are ya?

00:00:39.320 | - What's up man? - Thank you.

00:00:40.160 | - How are ya? - Good to see ya.

00:00:41.480 | - What's up man? - Good to see you.

00:00:42.300 | - How you doing?

00:00:43.140 | - Shabba, long time.

00:00:45.380 | - All right. - Good to see you.

00:00:46.220 | - Good to see you.

00:00:47.240 | - Hey guys.

00:00:49.040 | (sighs)

00:00:51.280 | - Welcome. - So.

00:00:52.360 | - Sachs is going to introduce you.

00:00:53.440 | - Welcome to the Lion's Den.

00:00:54.580 | - Who's here with us, Sachs?

00:00:56.560 | - Well, do we actually need a big introduction here?

00:00:59.360 | But I'll give a few.

00:01:01.560 | - For those of you who are really bad at context clues,

00:01:03.120 | I'm JD Vance.

00:01:03.960 | I'm running for vice president.

00:01:05.120 | (all laughing)

00:01:07.480 | - And normally, he's beside his wife, Usha,

00:01:09.920 | but now you get.

00:01:11.020 | - That's right.

00:01:11.860 | She's at like the Tar Pits or whatever.

00:01:13.400 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:01:14.240 | - Oh yeah.

00:01:15.600 | - We brought our three kids out here.

00:01:16.680 | So she wanted to take and see some fossil stuff.

00:01:19.400 | So they'll have fun.

00:01:20.960 | - Yeah, well, I'll say a couple of things about JD

00:01:22.680 | 'cause he's a friend.

00:01:24.480 | I think what I think really made me want to support JD

00:01:29.480 | for Senate and also for the VP position

00:01:33.960 | is that I think he represents two,

00:01:36.040 | you could almost say contradictions.

00:01:38.480 | Back in 2003, when JD graduated from high school,

00:01:42.920 | you know, this was after the Twin Towers had come down

00:01:44.760 | and we gotten involved with the Iraq War.

00:01:46.840 | He was gung ho to go fight America's enemies

00:01:49.800 | and he enlisted in the Marine Corps

00:01:52.200 | and went off to serve in the Middle East.

00:01:55.360 | Eventually, he came to realize that that war was a mistake.

00:01:58.360 | And I thought that that really represents

00:02:02.360 | one of the traits that we really want in a vice president

00:02:06.080 | or someone next to the president,

00:02:08.400 | which is that he had the patriotism

00:02:10.560 | and the courage to go serve America,

00:02:12.400 | but also the wisdom to realize

00:02:14.240 | when America shouldn't get involved in a war.

00:02:17.120 | So I want to just...

00:02:18.200 | (audience applauding)

00:02:21.360 | The other, like I said, almost contradiction

00:02:27.520 | that JD represents is that he had worked

00:02:30.760 | in the tech industry.

00:02:31.880 | He had been a venture capitalist.

00:02:33.680 | He had been in rooms like this

00:02:35.880 | and he understands what it takes

00:02:37.880 | to make America a more innovative place.

00:02:41.160 | At the same time, he comes from a part

00:02:44.440 | of the Midwest, Appalachia.

00:02:46.520 | That's a very poor part of the country

00:02:48.840 | and did not grow up in a privileged environment at all.

00:02:53.560 | And he still remembers those people

00:02:55.280 | and he represents those people.

00:02:57.040 | And I think his ability to understand both parts

00:03:00.320 | of the country makes him,

00:03:02.440 | I'd say a pretty unique political figure.

00:03:03.920 | So with that, let me stop.

00:03:04.920 | And do you want to react to any of that?

00:03:08.320 | - Well, first of all, thanks all for having me.

00:03:11.480 | I've been a big fan of the pod for a while.

00:03:12.800 | I think my first appearance.

00:03:13.760 | So it's good to be with you.

00:03:15.720 | The only thing I'll say to that, David,

00:03:16.840 | is I do think there is a deep connection

00:03:19.080 | between the poverty that I saw growing up

00:03:22.360 | and the fact that our entire economy

00:03:24.160 | is just less innovative than we pretend that it is.

00:03:26.760 | And I know Peter Thiel and Tyler Callahan

00:03:29.560 | and other folks have talked about this,

00:03:31.000 | but if you look at the real innovation

00:03:32.840 | in the American economy,

00:03:33.800 | it's been in the world of software.

00:03:36.560 | If you look at where the economy has been most stagnant,

00:03:39.160 | it's been in basically

00:03:40.320 | the heavily regulated parts of the economy,

00:03:42.600 | which is where 90% of the people

00:03:44.160 | that I represent in the Senate

00:03:45.600 | and 80% of the people that I hope to represent

00:03:47.760 | as their vice president actually make their living,

00:03:50.800 | run their business and go to work every single day.

00:03:53.240 | And I think that, you know, when I think about tech,

00:03:55.400 | one of the things I'd like us to do

00:03:56.880 | is broaden the aperture a little bit

00:03:58.600 | and think about innovation, not just in software,

00:04:01.000 | but innovation in transportation and logistics

00:04:03.120 | and innovation in energy and the whole suite of things,

00:04:06.600 | because unless our economy

00:04:07.720 | is actually technologically innovative,

00:04:09.760 | then the stagnant economy

00:04:12.360 | is fundamentally like the worst thing.

00:04:14.560 | And I think a lot of actually America's pathologies

00:04:17.320 | right now stem from the fact

00:04:19.440 | that we feel like we live in a very zero-sum country,

00:04:22.440 | because in some ways we do, right?

00:04:24.440 | When the economy is growing four, five, 6% a year,

00:04:28.120 | then Democrats can kind of get what they want,

00:04:29.840 | Republicans can kind of get what they want,

00:04:31.840 | and it all makes sense.

00:04:33.120 | If the economy is growing between zero and 1% a year,

00:04:36.120 | then I think it makes the whole society

00:04:37.840 | and our political system much, much more insane.

00:04:40.800 | And I think that's kind of a subtext

00:04:42.080 | of what's been going on in this country

00:04:43.200 | for the last 30 years.

00:04:44.320 | - Let me start by going back a little bit.

00:04:47.720 | I think three of us initially would have been described

00:04:52.720 | sort of like, you know, non-Trump people.

00:04:55.080 | - Yeah.

00:04:55.920 | - And in different ways and shapes and form,

00:04:59.120 | we were all vocal about it.

00:05:00.440 | Because of what was presented to us

00:05:02.520 | through the filter of the media.

00:05:04.320 | And we've all gone through an evolution,

00:05:06.000 | in large part, by meeting the person.

00:05:08.560 | And this is the first time, actually,

00:05:10.200 | where a presidential candidate I've known,

00:05:12.360 | and I've kind of known a vice-presidential candidate

00:05:14.000 | in this case as well,

00:05:15.120 | they try to corner you and pinch you in a certain way.

00:05:19.040 | Can you just talk about what you realized

00:05:21.520 | and the person that you got to know,

00:05:23.520 | and what it says about what we need to do

00:05:25.960 | so that we don't get manipulated?

00:05:27.320 | - Yeah.

00:05:28.160 | So, first of all, when Biden was running against Trump,

00:05:31.480 | one of the things the media tried to do is to say,

00:05:33.480 | "Well, you know, you have these two guys

00:05:35.120 | "who are a little bit older than average,

00:05:36.640 | "and both of them clearly aren't fully with it."

00:05:39.600 | And I would hear the media talk about Biden like this,

00:05:41.960 | and then talk about Trump like this.

00:05:43.240 | And it's like, guys, Donald Trump remembers

00:05:45.560 | exactly what I said about him nine and a half years ago,

00:05:48.640 | to the minute, to the day, to the exact line.

00:05:50.600 | Like, trust me, his memory is 100% there,

00:05:54.120 | even if it would be more in my interest if it wasn't.

00:05:56.880 | And, you know, what changed for me, I mean, two things.

00:06:00.040 | I mean, one, Chamath, you just sort of hit on this,

00:06:02.440 | is a lot of the things the press said about Donald Trump

00:06:05.720 | and says about Donald Trump

00:06:07.360 | are just straight-up fabrications.

00:06:08.800 | And so if you think the press is, like, biased,

00:06:11.240 | that's one thing, but if you think the press

00:06:13.200 | is fundamentally trying to tell you the truth,

00:06:14.840 | even if it's in a biased way,

00:06:16.680 | and then you realize that, like,

00:06:17.760 | Donald Trump never called white supremacists

00:06:19.720 | very fine people after Charlottesville,

00:06:21.600 | a total fabrication of the American media,

00:06:23.760 | it's like, okay, what other things

00:06:25.640 | am I hearing about Donald Trump

00:06:27.000 | that are actually not true, right?

00:06:29.080 | The second thing is, you know,

00:06:30.840 | we talked about this a little bit last night,

00:06:32.600 | but look, if you go back to the year of my birth,

00:06:36.680 | which is 1984, there's this chart that's really interesting,

00:06:39.880 | and it tracks corporate profits, the wages of workers,

00:06:43.640 | and the size of government.

00:06:45.160 | And for pretty much my entire life,

00:06:47.480 | the wages of workers were stagnant,

00:06:49.400 | corporate profits were going up,

00:06:51.160 | and the size of government was going up.

00:06:53.000 | And there was a four-year period

00:06:54.720 | where the wages of workers outpaced

00:06:56.560 | the size of government corporate profits.

00:06:58.280 | It's the four years that Donald Trump was president.

00:07:00.840 | And I think that we have to, like,

00:07:01.880 | give some credit to where it's due,

00:07:03.760 | the policies actually work.

00:07:05.320 | (audience applauds)

00:07:07.120 | And if you go into the presidency saying,

00:07:08.920 | I don't think Donald Trump's gonna be a good president,

00:07:10.880 | and then, lo and behold, he's the best president,

00:07:12.920 | at least in a generation, it's like, okay,

00:07:14.840 | time to change my mind, admit to myself,

00:07:17.700 | but also to all the people who listen to me,

00:07:20.080 | I was wrong about Donald Trump,

00:07:21.400 | he was a hell of a good president,

00:07:22.520 | and of course I'm running as his running mate,

00:07:24.080 | 'cause I think he'll do it again.

00:07:24.960 | - Let's flip it around now.

00:07:26.120 | What does it say about him that he,

00:07:29.200 | I mean, how is that process of saying,

00:07:31.040 | J.D., you said this, yes, I did, I changed my mind,

00:07:34.080 | but then he has to change his mind.

00:07:35.320 | So that says something, so talk us through that.

00:07:37.200 | - You know, I think the president,

00:07:39.520 | one thing I'll say about him is,

00:07:41.720 | again, the media perception of Donald Trump

00:07:43.800 | is that he's like this deeply aggrieved guy

00:07:47.680 | who holds really terrible grudges.

00:07:49.680 | The actual reality of Donald Trump is that,

00:07:52.320 | yeah, he remembers what you said about him,

00:07:54.320 | because it's like part of the inputs that he takes

00:07:56.600 | as he tries to evaluate a human being,

00:07:58.960 | but most importantly, he's asking like,

00:08:01.400 | what can you do now?

00:08:03.200 | How can you help the country now?

00:08:04.660 | How can you help me as I try to help the country now?

00:08:07.320 | And I think for whatever complicated set of factors,

00:08:09.560 | he decided that I was the guy who could help him the most.

00:08:12.440 | But no, I mean, it is interesting,

00:08:15.040 | the perception of him as this guy who holds grudges,

00:08:18.000 | he selected a guy who was very much a critic of his

00:08:20.840 | back in 2015 as his running mate.

00:08:22.840 | Clearly something doesn't make sense.

00:08:24.400 | And I think that what doesn't make sense is this idea

00:08:26.700 | that Trump is more motivated by grievance

00:08:28.600 | than he is by the public interest.

00:08:30.080 | He's actually much more motivated by the public interest.

00:08:32.440 | That's the truth.

00:08:33.760 | - That's awesome.

00:08:34.600 | - Thanks for coming.

00:08:36.720 | - Of course.

00:08:37.800 | - You're gonna replace Mike Pence.

00:08:40.760 | - I hope so.

00:08:42.520 | - Yeah.

00:08:43.340 | (laughing)

00:08:44.540 | - I have to win first.

00:08:45.380 | - It's gonna be a close election, but if you do,

00:08:48.320 | Mike Pence, your new boss, Trump,

00:08:52.600 | is a little upset at Mike Pence

00:08:53.960 | because Mike Pence refused to overturn the election results.

00:08:58.640 | And if you were in that same position, what would you do?

00:09:03.200 | Would you have overturned the election results?

00:09:06.000 | - Well, I think it's, let me take issue with the premise

00:09:08.640 | a little bit, Jason, because I don't think the argument

00:09:10.520 | was Mike Pence could overturn the election results.

00:09:13.240 | I think the argument was that Mike Pence

00:09:15.480 | could have done more, whether you agree or disagree.

00:09:18.200 | Mike Pence could have done more to sort of surface

00:09:20.480 | some of the problems in the 2020 election.

00:09:22.340 | - Would you have not certified the election?

00:09:25.320 | - Well, I think that what I would have done,

00:09:27.200 | I mean, look, I happen to think that there were issues

00:09:29.280 | back in 2020, particularly in Pennsylvania,

00:09:31.760 | even some of the courts that refused to throw out

00:09:34.880 | certified ballots did say that there were ballots

00:09:37.360 | that were cast in an illegal way.

00:09:39.040 | They just refused to actually decertify

00:09:41.280 | the election results in Pennsylvania.

00:09:43.080 | Do I think that we could have had

00:09:44.440 | a much more rational conversation about how to ensure

00:09:47.640 | that only legal ballots are cast?

00:09:49.400 | Yes.

00:09:50.220 | And do I think that Mike Pence

00:09:51.060 | could have played a better role?

00:09:52.040 | Yes.

00:09:52.880 | But I, again, the two premises that I take issue,

00:09:55.280 | one is, one, Pence was not asked to overturn the election.

00:09:58.800 | He couldn't have.

00:10:00.200 | But two, the reason-

00:10:01.040 | - He was asked to not certify it.

00:10:02.480 | - Sure.

00:10:03.320 | - So would you have certified?

00:10:04.320 | I'll ask you for the third thing.

00:10:05.160 | - Again, I would have asked the states

00:10:06.880 | to submit alternative slates of electors

00:10:09.280 | and let the country have the debate

00:10:11.200 | about what actually matters

00:10:13.080 | and what kind of an election that we had

00:10:14.600 | in these important states. - You wouldn't have

00:10:15.440 | certified, to be clear.

00:10:16.980 | - I would have asked the states

00:10:18.360 | to submit alternative slates of electors.

00:10:19.560 | - I think that's what you're saying.

00:10:20.480 | - That's what I would have done.

00:10:21.320 | Again, I've said that publicly many times.

00:10:22.960 | But again, Jason, the important part is

00:10:25.120 | we would have had a big debate.

00:10:26.720 | - Got it.

00:10:27.560 | - And it doesn't necessarily mean the results

00:10:28.680 | would have been any different,

00:10:29.680 | but we at least would have had the debate

00:10:31.320 | in Pennsylvania and Georgia

00:10:32.980 | about how to better have a rational election system

00:10:36.280 | where legal ballots are cast.

00:10:37.400 | And again, look, I have no personal problem with Mike Pence.

00:10:41.120 | I've never really talked to him.

00:10:43.000 | But I think that the idea that the reason Mike Pence

00:10:45.160 | isn't on board with Donald Trump

00:10:46.520 | is over the election of 2020.

00:10:48.480 | That's the other thing I would take issue with, Jason,

00:10:50.300 | because I think in reality that if Donald Trump

00:10:52.440 | wanted to start a nuclear war with Russia,

00:10:54.240 | Mike Pence would be at the front of the line

00:10:55.560 | endorsing him right now.

00:10:56.760 | And fundamentally, the reason the old guard

00:10:59.040 | of the Republican Party hates Donald Trump,

00:11:01.080 | it's not because of January the 6th, 2021,

00:11:03.840 | whatever your views on it.

00:11:05.080 | It's because Donald Trump doesn't think

00:11:06.880 | that we should start stupid wars in foreign countries,

00:11:09.200 | and that's why they all hate him.

00:11:10.320 | (audience applauding)

00:11:11.320 | - Brian, can I, I have a follow-up on that.

00:11:14.720 | Let me continue my line of questioning,

00:11:15.960 | and then I'll give it to you.

00:11:17.080 | 'Cause I wanna hear J.D.'s since he's here.

00:11:18.640 | I've heard yours many times.

00:11:20.080 | (audience laughing)

00:11:22.280 | - How many follow-ups are you gonna have

00:11:24.640 | about January the 6th?

00:11:25.480 | We've been spending 20 minutes talking about it.

00:11:27.200 | - I wanna hear David, especially if he gets me

00:11:28.720 | out of answering tough questions.

00:11:30.240 | (audience laughing)

00:11:32.600 | - I think we've heard, you've had like three follow-ups

00:11:35.000 | on J.D.'s.

00:11:35.840 | First of all, Freeberg, you never got a chance

00:11:37.240 | to ask your question.

00:11:38.080 | - Well, I wanna talk about policy.

00:11:39.120 | - Let's talk about January 6th for the next 45 minutes.

00:11:41.280 | I'm sure it's the most important thing

00:11:42.600 | going on in the country right now.

00:11:43.440 | - Can we talk about policy for a minute?

00:11:45.000 | - That'd be great.

00:11:45.840 | - Okay.

00:11:46.680 | - I'd love that.

00:11:47.500 | (audience laughing)

00:11:48.340 | - I'll just reflect back on your comment

00:11:50.480 | about government growth compared to wage growth

00:11:54.040 | compared to corporate profits.

00:11:55.600 | There's only so much capital, it gets sucked up somewhere.

00:11:58.020 | - That's right.

00:11:58.860 | - There's competing interests that suck it up.

00:11:59.680 | The government is a competing interest

00:12:01.080 | that sucks up capital, fundamentally.

00:12:02.960 | The government has been successful in sucking up capital.

00:12:05.680 | And ultimately, the government has been proven time and again

00:12:08.760 | to be the least efficient way to grow the economy

00:12:11.480 | of allocating capital allocators or labor.

00:12:14.600 | And Trump has made this commentary

00:12:18.120 | that Elon, who's gonna be here later today,

00:12:19.900 | should come in and help right-size the government.

00:12:22.280 | You've now spent a few years as a senator.

00:12:25.120 | This is my most distressing issue, right,

00:12:27.240 | of all the panic attacks I have that Jason teases me about.

00:12:29.960 | (Jason laughing)

00:12:31.080 | Government spending, the debt level,

00:12:33.240 | and ultimately, you reach a tipping point,

00:12:35.200 | I believe, in democracies where the government is spending.

00:12:38.560 | More people are dependent on the government than are not,

00:12:41.680 | and that ultimately leads

00:12:42.780 | to a very bad outcome for democracy.

00:12:44.760 | - That's right. - That's how I feel.

00:12:45.920 | And so, based on what you've seen as a senator now

00:12:47.960 | for the last few years,

00:12:48.800 | and based on the commentary that Elon,

00:12:50.080 | where would you go in, you know, cut?

00:12:53.360 | Where's the most kind of efficiency-gaining opportunity

00:12:57.360 | that we can kind of execute against

00:12:59.200 | without needing to go and negotiate with Congress?

00:13:01.660 | What's the opportunity ahead for the executive branch

00:13:05.520 | to right-size government, to make things more efficient,

00:13:07.800 | to hold things accountable,

00:13:09.280 | to improve the way that the government is functioning,

00:13:11.060 | which I think ultimately leads to better economic growth

00:13:12.920 | and opportunity for innovation,

00:13:14.400 | 'cause capital flows to the right places.

00:13:16.080 | - So, I agree with you, and let me just say,

00:13:18.120 | let me say two things, and I'll try to answer briefly,

00:13:19.800 | 'cause I know there are a lot of topics

00:13:20.800 | that we can get through.

00:13:21.620 | So, number one is, one of the things

00:13:23.840 | that our government should do, obviously,

00:13:25.440 | I think it should be doing less than it currently does,

00:13:27.680 | but what it does, I want it to do well,

00:13:29.760 | and most importantly,

00:13:30.760 | I want the critical social welfare functions

00:13:33.060 | of our government to go to the people

00:13:34.680 | who actually deserve to be here.

00:13:35.920 | So, as a United States Senator,

00:13:37.720 | I have asked multiple staff members,

00:13:39.340 | I've asked officials in various government departments,

00:13:41.760 | if you take the give or take 25 million illegal aliens

00:13:44.880 | that are here in this country right now,

00:13:46.560 | how much money do we spend on illegal aliens

00:13:49.320 | every single year in this country?

00:13:50.960 | And I've gotten estimates that range

00:13:52.560 | between $100 billion a year to $600 billion a year.

00:13:56.240 | And where does that money come from?

00:13:57.440 | Well, it comes from healthcare benefits,

00:13:58.960 | even though illegal aliens aren't entitled

00:14:00.560 | to Section 8 housing,

00:14:01.880 | their children are entitled to Section 8 housing,

00:14:03.720 | there's also a lot of social security fraud,

00:14:05.260 | a lot of Medicare fraud.

00:14:06.520 | So, one thing that we could save a lot of money on

00:14:09.200 | is actually focusing our national interest

00:14:11.200 | on American citizens, people who deserve to be here,

00:14:13.640 | we'd save a lot of money that way,

00:14:14.800 | that'd be a huge and transformative thing.

00:14:16.040 | - Of the $7.3 trillion budget,

00:14:17.680 | what do you estimate that impact to be?

00:14:19.120 | - Well, again, it's--

00:14:19.960 | - And I'm trying to do that scene in the movie "Dave,"

00:14:21.360 | where they go in and they just like line up,

00:14:22.680 | they're like, "Nope, nope,"

00:14:23.560 | or like Millet did where he pulled everything off the board.

00:14:25.360 | - If you call it a $1.7 trillion deficit, right?

00:14:28.480 | Again, it's between $100 billion to $600 billion,

00:14:31.440 | depending on how you cut the numbers.

00:14:32.440 | Now, the other thing about that,

00:14:33.600 | just to answer your question about efficiency is,

00:14:35.500 | I think the government procurement process,

00:14:37.220 | especially in military equipment, is really broken.

00:14:40.180 | If you go back to Eisenhower's warning

00:14:42.100 | about the military-industrial complex,

00:14:44.040 | I mean, I was a seed investor in Anduril,

00:14:45.980 | I imagine you guys have some Anduril people here today.

00:14:48.940 | Great, great--

00:14:49.780 | - We had Palmer Luckey here two years ago.

00:14:50.600 | - Great company.

00:14:51.440 | - Yeah, great chap, Jacob.

00:14:52.660 | - You know, one of the things that that company,

00:14:54.340 | as I haven't talked to the guys

00:14:57.340 | about the details of the business in the last few years,

00:14:59.560 | but one of the things that they founded the company on

00:15:01.900 | was the idea that the procurement process was broken.

00:15:04.320 | And that is definitely true in the, you know,

00:15:07.920 | we do way too much cost-plus procurement

00:15:10.920 | and way too little actual spurring of innovation.

00:15:13.760 | And what it ends up meaning is that our equipment

00:15:15.560 | isn't as good as it should be,

00:15:16.760 | and we end up spending a lot more money than we should be.

00:15:19.180 | I actually do think you could cut

00:15:20.700 | the American defense budget and make our country stronger,

00:15:24.340 | but you would have to make the procurement process

00:15:26.200 | much more efficient.

00:15:27.040 | Now, that's a big thing to tackle,

00:15:28.480 | but that's what we're in this business of doing,

00:15:30.360 | is big things. - You need legislation

00:15:31.200 | to do that.

00:15:32.020 | - I don't know that you have to pass legislation,

00:15:33.980 | but you really, as a president and vice president,

00:15:36.060 | you have to be willing to take on

00:15:37.100 | some very powerful defense contractors.

00:15:39.300 | And that's something that I know President Trump

00:15:40.740 | and I very much want to do.

00:15:41.820 | - And how would you like your role

00:15:43.560 | as vice president to be cast,

00:15:45.680 | differentially from how other vice presidents have operated?

00:15:48.300 | What would your role as an individual be,

00:15:50.340 | just speaking about?

00:15:51.380 | - I want to do all of the good things

00:15:52.700 | and none of the bad things.

00:15:53.540 | That's my goal as vice president.

00:15:55.420 | That's--

00:15:56.260 | - So the ribbon cuttings-- - I've asked.

00:15:57.080 | - Of the new federal-- - I've asked.

00:15:57.920 | (laughing)

00:15:59.420 | I mean, look, I mean, obviously joking,

00:16:01.360 | but the reality is that I want to be

00:16:05.460 | a second set of eyes and ears

00:16:06.980 | for the president's agenda, right?

00:16:08.460 | One of the things that was true,

00:16:09.820 | and he will tell you this,

00:16:10.740 | the first time he was president of the United States,

00:16:12.900 | is there were people in government,

00:16:14.940 | there were people in his own administration,

00:16:16.620 | that he was a newcomer to politics,

00:16:18.020 | he didn't fully trust everybody who was around him.

00:16:20.800 | We want to build a team

00:16:21.860 | who's actually aligned on the agenda,

00:16:23.140 | because agree or disagree with Donald Trump

00:16:25.400 | on a specific policy issue,

00:16:26.980 | assuming the American people make him the next president,

00:16:29.260 | and I think that they will,

00:16:30.660 | that is the next president.

00:16:32.300 | And his policy determinations

00:16:34.300 | should dictate the executive administration of government.

00:16:37.100 | If they don't, we don't have a real democracy.

00:16:38.820 | And by the way,

00:16:39.780 | just not to wade back into January 6th territory,

00:16:42.300 | like what is a bigger threat to American democracy?

00:16:45.460 | Is it that we had a big fight

00:16:46.900 | about some of the certification in January the 6th,

00:16:50.460 | and of course you had some rioters at the Capitol,

00:16:52.500 | or is it that, for example,

00:16:54.260 | the Joint Chiefs of Staff

00:16:55.740 | didn't obey the president of the United States

00:16:57.900 | on troop redeployments in Syria,

00:16:59.820 | which actually happened during Trump's administration.

00:17:02.300 | Like, if we're gonna talk about threats to democracy,

00:17:04.660 | we need the government to be responsive

00:17:06.820 | to the American people's elected president.

00:17:08.900 | If you don't have that, you don't have a real democracy.

00:17:10.980 | - How much...

00:17:11.820 | (audience applauding)

00:17:14.980 | A lot of this, if you design it in one way,

00:17:20.540 | it has to go through Congress,

00:17:21.500 | which, as we know, is sclerotic,

00:17:22.940 | and basically nothing can happen.

00:17:25.060 | And then the other path

00:17:26.240 | is for you guys to go ham a little bit,

00:17:27.940 | and say, okay, what can we do with executive order?

00:17:31.100 | Have you had a chance to discuss, if you win,

00:17:33.780 | repositioning the focus as basically that?

00:17:37.860 | What is the totality of everything that we can do

00:17:40.660 | from the White House, from the Oval,

00:17:43.300 | and then getting all of these...

00:17:45.460 | And the other thing that we should talk about at some point

00:17:47.220 | is it's like a "Avengers" movie now, at this point.

00:17:49.580 | You, Bobby Kennedy, Elon, Trump, so, but...

00:17:53.580 | (audience laughing)

00:17:55.380 | I don't...

00:17:56.220 | - The Justice League?

00:17:57.060 | - The Justice League.

00:17:58.460 | - I don't know which character in that Justice League I am.

00:18:00.820 | - But the point is, have you had that discussion about,

00:18:03.500 | all right, folks, let's not wait for Congress

00:18:06.420 | and get a plan ready, starting day one,

00:18:08.700 | of all the stuff that can happen through EOs,

00:18:10.580 | or how are you thinking about this?

00:18:11.860 | - At a high level, certainly,

00:18:13.660 | I'm one of the co-chairs of the transition team.

00:18:15.340 | There are a few others of us who are working on it.

00:18:17.440 | You have to sort of think about, I mean, look,

00:18:18.740 | the way the founders set up our government,

00:18:20.180 | whether you like it or not, there are certain things,

00:18:21.980 | especially when it comes to budget and appropriations,

00:18:24.500 | you just have to go through Congress, right?

00:18:26.140 | You fundamentally have to.

00:18:27.480 | Now, I do think that Congress is willing to work with us

00:18:30.340 | at least the first couple of years of an administration.

00:18:33.340 | You can largely get the budgetary

00:18:34.660 | and appropriations things that you need,

00:18:36.620 | but there's a lot that you can do through EO.

00:18:38.460 | And by the way, in a lot of ways,

00:18:39.940 | I think the enlargement of the president

00:18:41.780 | at the expense of Congress is a bad thing,

00:18:44.060 | but fundamentally, there is a lot that happens

00:18:46.300 | in our government purely through executive orders,

00:18:48.380 | through EOs, and yes, we're thinking very deliberatively

00:18:51.580 | about all the things that you could do through EOs

00:18:53.700 | on day one or in the early parts of the administration,

00:18:56.300 | and again, not to make this too partisan,

00:18:58.020 | but one of the ways that Biden and Harris

00:19:01.860 | opened up the American southern border

00:19:03.460 | was through executive orders, right?

00:19:04.860 | It was an executive order that suspended deportations,

00:19:07.540 | an executive order that ended the remain in Mexico policy.

00:19:10.300 | So you can screw up a lot through EOs.

00:19:12.660 | You can also fix a lot through EOs,

00:19:14.520 | which is certainly something that we're focused on.

00:19:17.100 | - Let me go in a different direction.

00:19:20.620 | Just in the last couple of days,

00:19:22.580 | Dick Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris for president,

00:19:26.220 | and that endorsement was warmly embraced

00:19:28.260 | by Kamala Harris and the Democrats.

00:19:30.460 | - But some people called him a war criminal

00:19:31.780 | like three years ago.

00:19:33.140 | - Yeah, well, yeah, I'm old enough to remember

00:19:35.220 | back in 2008, Obama first beat Hillary Clinton

00:19:39.820 | in the Democratic primary

00:19:41.220 | because he had opposed the Iraq war and she had supported it,

00:19:43.820 | and then he got elected president of the United States,

00:19:45.820 | and the whole country seemed to recognize

00:19:47.380 | that the Iraq war had been a disaster.

00:19:49.540 | It destabilized the Middle East.

00:19:51.640 | It, you know, I don't need to go through all the litanies

00:19:53.540 | of horribles that happened from it,

00:19:55.500 | but there seemed to be a widespread recognition.

00:19:57.140 | And like you're saying, Dick Cheney was kind of demonized

00:20:00.380 | as this, like the Darth Vader, Prince of Darkness

00:20:03.460 | type figure, which I think basically was right.

00:20:06.260 | I mean, he was the principal architect of the Iraq war.

00:20:09.620 | - Now I find myself agreeing with everything

00:20:11.340 | the Democrats said in 2008 about Dick Cheney.

00:20:14.000 | - Right.

00:20:14.840 | - Total coincidence.

00:20:15.660 | - On a separate track, a few weeks ago,

00:20:17.020 | we had Bobby Kennedy endorse Donald Trump.

00:20:20.900 | So you now have a dynamic where the Bush Republicans

00:20:24.620 | are now Harris Democrats, and the Kennedy Democrats

00:20:28.500 | are now Trump Republicans.

00:20:30.060 | - Right.

00:20:30.900 | - Clearly, something big is happening in our politics here.

00:20:33.820 | Can you explain this realignment?

00:20:35.460 | How do you see it?

00:20:36.620 | - Yeah, I mean, look, one way to think about it

00:20:38.660 | is that we traded Dick Cheney for Bobby Kennedy,

00:20:41.020 | and that's an upgrade I'll take every single day.

00:20:42.800 | (audience applauding)

00:20:46.340 | But, look, I mean, one way of understanding

00:20:49.740 | is you have to ask yourself who has benefited

00:20:52.140 | and who has harmed from the last 30 years

00:20:54.980 | of the bipartisan consensus in this country, right?

00:20:56.940 | So you wanna talk about a manufacturing policy

00:21:00.420 | that I think promoted the offshoring

00:21:02.220 | of millions of good American manufacturing jobs,

00:21:04.580 | and in the process, by the way,

00:21:06.240 | made us less self-reliant as a country.

00:21:09.080 | That really benefited people like Dick Cheney

00:21:11.780 | and Kamala Harris and their donors.

00:21:13.420 | It didn't benefit the people that I serve

00:21:15.280 | in the state of Ohio, okay?

00:21:17.020 | If you ask yourself who actually went off

00:21:18.780 | and fought these ridiculous wars,

00:21:20.540 | it was very often working and middle-class kids

00:21:22.720 | in communities like mine.

00:21:24.140 | It wasn't the family

00:21:25.420 | of our current leadership class, by and large,

00:21:27.700 | though, of course, there are exceptions.

00:21:29.140 | And you go through each of these issues,

00:21:30.500 | and what you find is increasingly Republicans

00:21:33.260 | are the party of working and middle-class people.

00:21:36.220 | You know, Bobby Kennedy has talked about this a lot,

00:21:37.940 | and I think he puts it better than I ever could,

00:21:39.380 | but that, you know, you go back even 30 years ago,

00:21:42.440 | and approximately 80% of the counties that represent,

00:21:46.740 | sorry, 80% of the wealth in American counties

00:21:50.820 | went in places that voted Republican,

00:21:52.700 | and about 20% of the wealth went to places

00:21:54.900 | that voted Democrat.

00:21:56.020 | Now it's 70% of the wealth goes for Democrats,

00:21:58.780 | and about 30% of the wealth goes for Republicans.

00:22:01.300 | And you saw this in a big way.

00:22:02.420 | I mean, just one illustration is I believe

00:22:04.420 | that in 2012, Wall Street,

00:22:07.100 | which I think Wall Street fundamentally

00:22:08.580 | has been the main beneficiary of globalization,

00:22:10.740 | of a lot of the policies that I push back against

00:22:13.240 | and criticize over the last 30 years,

00:22:15.080 | Wall Street went three to one for Romney over Obama in 2012.

00:22:19.480 | I believe they went four to one

00:22:21.560 | for Clinton over Trump in 2016,

00:22:26.040 | and then like nine to one for Biden over Trump in 2020.

00:22:29.240 | So there is a massive shift in who makes up these parties.

00:22:32.320 | - Wealthy people direct their money to Democrats as well.

00:22:35.360 | - Increasingly, wealthy people direct their money

00:22:37.280 | to Democrats, working and middle-class people

00:22:39.600 | direct their money to Republicans.

00:22:40.780 | - Why do you think that is, J.D.?

00:22:42.420 | - Again, because I think their policies have benefited,

00:22:44.500 | look, the UNA party, the Kamala Harris's and Dick Cheney's,

00:22:48.420 | their parties have benefited a certain group of people.

00:22:51.420 | Those people are increasingly Democrats.

00:22:53.800 | Donald Trump has been pushing back against that consensus

00:22:56.180 | in his party, in his policies,

00:22:57.580 | I think benefit the majority of the country.

00:22:59.540 | So increasingly, I think the working middle-class

00:23:01.740 | heart of the country is going for Republicans.

00:23:04.140 | Like another spin on this,

00:23:05.500 | 'cause I know we're focused on tech in this conference is,

00:23:08.100 | big tech has become increasingly pro-Democrat,

00:23:10.780 | little tech has become increasingly pro-Republican, right?

00:23:13.200 | So if you're an upstart, if you're in crypto,

00:23:15.080 | if you're like a small AI company,

00:23:18.120 | I think you're much more likely to be pro-Republican.

00:23:20.760 | If you're a monopolist in big tech,

00:23:22.660 | I mean, look at Facebook, Google,

00:23:24.580 | how they're putting their resources.

00:23:27.280 | It's much, much more pro-Democrat.

00:23:29.480 | So there are a lot of different spins on it,

00:23:31.200 | but fundamentally, I think the people who've benefited

00:23:33.600 | from the American decline are becoming Democrats.

00:23:36.880 | The people who have suffered from it

00:23:38.200 | and are pushing back against it are Republicans.

00:23:40.280 | - I have a follow-up question on that, JD,

00:23:42.120 | which is, you were a venture capitalist for a period,

00:23:46.000 | and Lena Kahn has essentially taken M&A off the table.

00:23:50.480 | You well know that if we can't get those singles

00:23:53.140 | and doubles in the industry, it kind of freezes the industry

00:23:56.320 | and we have a problem with returns,

00:23:58.820 | which then is creating a secondary order problem

00:24:01.700 | where we can't get LPs to put more money into funds

00:24:04.080 | because we're not getting those returns.

00:24:06.280 | What's the proper way to look at M&A?

00:24:08.560 | Because you wanna break up big tech, from what I understand,

00:24:12.000 | and you have a major problem with big tech.

00:24:13.960 | You mentioned little tech.

00:24:15.600 | What's the proper M&A architecture

00:24:19.960 | to balance those two goals there?

00:24:23.640 | - Yeah, so this is obviously very complicated.

00:24:25.400 | Jason, you probably understand this better than I do,

00:24:27.180 | but as somebody, by the way, who's defended Lena Kahn

00:24:30.400 | against some of her critics from the right,

00:24:32.520 | I think what Lena Kahn fundamentally gets correct

00:24:35.040 | is that big tech really is a threat.

00:24:37.320 | It's a threat to free speech.

00:24:38.920 | It's increasingly oligarchic.

00:24:40.360 | It controls too much of what we're allowed to say,

00:24:42.200 | and also it controls a lot of the ways

00:24:44.320 | in which capital gets invested in these various ecosystems.

00:24:47.600 | But where I think Lena Kahn goes wrong

00:24:50.360 | is that you're exactly right.

00:24:52.040 | You need the singles and doubles.

00:24:53.640 | You need sometimes a medium-sized company

00:24:56.620 | to buy a smaller company for $300 million.

00:24:59.240 | That liquidates founders.

00:25:00.280 | That gives the venture fund some money

00:25:02.080 | to go back into the system.

00:25:03.320 | And I think that, I don't know her super well,

00:25:06.480 | but my basic read on Lena is that she is so anti-monopoly

00:25:10.880 | as sort of a baseline bias,

00:25:13.080 | and that becomes anti-merger and acquisition

00:25:15.620 | as a baseline bias,

00:25:16.920 | that Google buying YouTube is a much, much different thing

00:25:20.800 | from a $2 billion market cap healthcare company

00:25:23.200 | buying a $500 million market cap healthcare company.

00:25:25.800 | And I think that we have to sort of draw

00:25:27.120 | a very big distinction between little tech and big tech.

00:25:29.440 | And look, I'm gonna keep on making that argument

00:25:31.380 | both in public and private to Lena,

00:25:33.320 | and hopefully she comes around to our view a little bit,

00:25:35.320 | 'cause I do think some of her ideas on big tech are right.

00:25:37.680 | - I think a good place for us to pivot would be the border.

00:25:40.120 | And just talking about this issue more from first principles

00:25:42.840 | when President Trump came on the podcast,

00:25:45.040 | we talked about, hey, maybe really talented people,

00:25:48.760 | we should recruit them to our country

00:25:50.520 | and give them green cards.

00:25:52.480 | But very quickly, your group walked that back a bit.

00:25:56.240 | It's such a political hot potato,

00:25:58.880 | and it doesn't seem to me that it needs to be,

00:26:00.560 | but you've spent a lot of time in government now.

00:26:02.960 | Why can't politicians just do

00:26:05.840 | what 80% of the country wants,

00:26:07.520 | which is allow very talented people into the country,

00:26:11.440 | close the border, and make it like a more point-based system

00:26:16.440 | like Canada, Australia, and everybody else?

00:26:18.120 | Like, why is this so weaponized by both of your parties?

00:26:23.120 | - Well, I think the reason why it's so difficult right now,

00:26:25.400 | and I mean, look, generally I agree that, okay,

00:26:27.960 | we're gonna let some immigrants in,

00:26:29.760 | we want them to be high-talent, high-quality people,

00:26:32.320 | you don't wanna let a large number of illegal aliens in.

00:26:34.520 | Obviously, that's President Trump's view.

00:26:37.720 | But I think that the reason why it's so broken down

00:26:40.240 | right now is because you have 25 million

00:26:41.880 | illegal aliens in this country.

00:26:43.440 | And you can't fix what I would call the minor

00:26:46.920 | or sort of less important immigration question

00:26:50.040 | until you fix the real problem.

00:26:52.120 | And part of that goes back, by the way,

00:26:53.600 | to the way in which the system got broken in the first place.

00:26:56.280 | So Ronald Reagan, of course, great governor of California,

00:26:58.860 | a great president, but Reagan did, in 1986,

00:27:02.400 | a massive amnesty program where, in some ways,

00:27:04.520 | he was trying to do exactly what you're talking about.

00:27:07.000 | Fix the problem of people who are already here,

00:27:09.140 | make sure that our immigration system is more pro-skill,

00:27:12.140 | but also close down the border.

00:27:13.960 | And what happened is we got all the amnesty,

00:27:16.760 | but we didn't get the closing down of the border.

00:27:18.980 | And so in order to do anything, I think,

00:27:21.280 | meaningful on immigration policy,

00:27:23.080 | meaning legal immigration policy,

00:27:24.960 | you've got to close down the border

00:27:26.620 | and establish some basic order.

00:27:27.980 | And to go back to first principles here,

00:27:30.080 | I think that people who are generally, I mean, look,

00:27:32.720 | this is, I'm sure, a very diverse crowd,

00:27:34.440 | and I'm sure there are a lot of immigrants in this crowd,

00:27:36.220 | legal immigrants, hopefully.

00:27:38.700 | I'm married to the daughter,

00:27:40.660 | I'm married to the daughter of legal immigrants

00:27:42.520 | to this country, and I, of course, love not just my wife,

00:27:44.880 | but the whole extended family.

00:27:46.020 | I do think they've brought a lot to this country.

00:27:47.300 | - Three of us are legal immigrants.

00:27:48.420 | - Yeah, but here's the thing.

00:27:51.860 | When you allow 25 million people into this country,

00:27:55.060 | it breaks down the entire social compact, right?

00:27:58.380 | So think about this.

00:27:59.220 | Okay, you're down on your luck.

00:28:00.300 | You lost your job.

00:28:01.260 | You get unemployment insurance.

00:28:02.380 | You're really down on your luck.

00:28:03.640 | You need food assistance from the federal government.

00:28:06.160 | I believe, as a conservative,

00:28:08.260 | that part of being in the same American family,

00:28:11.260 | whether your family's been here for a generation

00:28:13.020 | or 10 generations, is that we support people

00:28:15.340 | who are down on their luck.

00:28:16.360 | We don't want a cradle-to-grave welfare state,

00:28:18.420 | but we want to support people.

00:28:19.600 | We don't want kids who are dying because of starvation,

00:28:22.700 | because of no fault of their own.

00:28:24.240 | We want to promote some basic fairness,

00:28:27.500 | and we want to help people out when times get tough.

00:28:30.080 | But you can't do that if you extend that generosity

00:28:33.580 | to tens of millions of people

00:28:34.860 | who can't even be here in the first place.

00:28:37.060 | And I think that what Kamala Harris has done at the border,

00:28:39.900 | it's not just bad economically.

00:28:41.380 | It's not just bad for public safety.

00:28:43.180 | She has eroded the very foundation

00:28:45.920 | of the social contract in this country.

00:28:47.580 | And we talk about division in our politics,

00:28:49.580 | and Kamala has this ridiculous slogan,

00:28:51.660 | "We're not going back."

00:28:52.980 | The reason why politics is so divided

00:28:55.440 | is because she has turned American citizens

00:28:57.680 | against one another while she's placed

00:28:59.740 | the interests of illegal aliens above American citizens.

00:29:03.220 | You want to turn the page

00:29:04.440 | and get back to common American citizenship?

00:29:06.840 | Stop putting illegal aliens

00:29:08.640 | to the front of the line of American citizens.

00:29:10.260 | - Is the motivation...

00:29:11.240 | (audience applauds)

00:29:14.240 | Do you believe the motivation is endless empathy,

00:29:21.420 | or is it as simple as we want new Democratic voters,

00:29:26.220 | or is there a kind of not publicly spoken

00:29:30.220 | about economic argument about bringing wages down,

00:29:33.580 | having economic growth, having new buyers in the economy,

00:29:36.740 | that there's some benefit

00:29:37.740 | despite the $100 to $600 billion cost?

00:29:39.580 | - And I'll add another one, guilt.

00:29:41.500 | - Yeah, the endless empathy aspect, yeah.

00:29:43.420 | - Yeah, I mean, empathy is different than guilt.

00:29:45.580 | - It's all of these things, right?

00:29:47.060 | I mean, so let me tell you a brief story,

00:29:48.860 | and this goes back to my changing my mind

00:29:50.980 | on Donald Trump.

00:29:51.820 | I was probably, it's probably 2017, 2018,

00:29:54.100 | I was at a business conference,

00:29:55.460 | and I happened to be seated next to one

00:29:56.980 | of the largest hotel chain CEOs in America.

00:29:59.780 | And my wife was there,

00:30:01.020 | and we talk about this as the Monopoly story,

00:30:03.020 | because the guy is just going off,

00:30:04.900 | maybe he'd had too much to drink.

00:30:06.260 | He's going off about how Donald Trump's

00:30:08.060 | immigration policies had forced him

00:30:10.260 | to raise the wages of his workers.

00:30:12.220 | And I was like, oh, that's an interesting fact.

00:30:14.380 | Like, explain more about this, sir, please.

00:30:16.620 | I want to understand.

00:30:17.460 | And he said, well, because we can hire a lot of immigrants,

00:30:20.780 | and frankly, we can hire a lot of illegal immigrants

00:30:22.780 | under the table, and we can't do that

00:30:24.700 | because there are fewer illegal immigrants,

00:30:26.100 | so we have to pay our American citizen workers more money.

00:30:28.620 | And I'm like, oh shit, that sounds pretty good, actually.

00:30:31.180 | Isn't that like what we want,

00:30:32.260 | is for people to be earning higher wages

00:30:34.980 | for doing a good job?

00:30:36.260 | So there's definitely an economic piece of it.

00:30:38.420 | But I also think, I mean, look,

00:30:39.980 | this has chilled out a little bit,

00:30:41.660 | partially 'cause we're in election year.

00:30:43.060 | If Kamala Harris won,

00:30:44.100 | I think it would come back with a vengeance.

00:30:45.860 | But think about all these, like,

00:30:46.860 | ridiculous land acknowledgements, right?

00:30:48.820 | Where people say, well, you know,

00:30:50.900 | I want to acknowledge that this belonged

00:30:52.980 | to like this tribe before I was here.

00:30:55.460 | And if you genuinely think that you have to acknowledge

00:30:59.220 | a Native American tribe from 300 years ago,

00:31:01.940 | then one attitude that comes along with this is,

00:31:04.380 | why can I control at all who comes into the country?

00:31:07.380 | Right, I have no right.

00:31:08.460 | There's this basic, I think this is the empathy,

00:31:10.180 | it's the guilt, it's sort of all these things.

00:31:11.860 | - But all structural norms degrade.

00:31:13.780 | - Exactly.

00:31:14.620 | Like, I have no right to say who comes into my community.

00:31:17.740 | And I think, again, it's deranged,

00:31:20.260 | but I think that's part of it.

00:31:21.180 | I think the economic piece of it is part of it.

00:31:22.980 | It's certainly a vote argument.

00:31:24.220 | I mean, Democrats will say this.

00:31:25.380 | Of course, Republicans are accused of racism

00:31:27.740 | for just repeating what Democrats have said.

00:31:30.420 | When somebody like Chuck Schumer says,

00:31:32.060 | well, you know, we're going to have

00:31:33.420 | an emerging Democratic majority

00:31:34.980 | because we're going to have all these new immigrants

00:31:37.060 | and all the old Americans,

00:31:38.340 | well, they're going to vote for Republicans,

00:31:40.340 | but we're going to replace them

00:31:41.300 | with a bunch of new people who vote for Democrats.

00:31:43.060 | It's like, that's pretty sick.

00:31:45.340 | But again, if you call it out,

00:31:46.660 | you're somehow a racist,

00:31:48.060 | even though Chuck Schumer is himself calling it out

00:31:50.140 | as if it were a good thing.

00:31:51.380 | - I just want to ask on a different topic now.

00:31:53.980 | Thank you for talking about the border.

00:31:55.940 | - Can I just have one final on this topic?

00:31:57.260 | - Okay, go ahead.

00:31:58.100 | - Which is, your plan is to deport

00:32:01.700 | tens of millions of these people.

00:32:03.060 | Tell us how that will happen practically.

00:32:05.420 | How are you going to take a million of people,

00:32:07.020 | put them in cuffs, drag them out

00:32:08.380 | while people have their cell phones out recording this?

00:32:10.580 | Or is that just Trump being Trump?

00:32:12.900 | - Well, Jason, it's, I like it.

00:32:16.460 | - You like the balance in the podcast?

00:32:18.220 | - Yeah, I do.

00:32:19.660 | I do.

00:32:20.500 | (audience applauding)

00:32:23.660 | - In fairness, JD told me,

00:32:28.140 | ask the hard questions, please.

00:32:29.540 | I want to address them head-on.

00:32:30.620 | You did say that.

00:32:31.460 | - No, nothing's off limits.

00:32:32.660 | - I think Jason should be on the left

00:32:34.060 | and David should be on my right,

00:32:35.220 | if we're doing this appropriately.

00:32:36.460 | - Where am I going?

00:32:37.300 | He's been pulling me to the right.

00:32:38.460 | - I'll go to the audience.

00:32:39.340 | - It's funny, he didn't have any of these hard questions

00:32:41.580 | for Reid Hoffman.

00:32:42.420 | I don't know why.

00:32:43.260 | (audience applauding)

00:32:45.820 | - I'm set, I'm set.

00:32:47.460 | - Well, Jason.

00:32:48.300 | - Wait, do you want me to leave the left

00:32:50.220 | and go to the right?

00:32:51.300 | I'm on the left right now, but I could go right.

00:32:54.380 | - Okay, yeah, I guess it depends on perspective.

00:32:56.460 | My perspective, you're--

00:32:57.660 | - It's good debate prep, right?

00:32:58.500 | - But, you know, Jason, if the VC thing doesn't work out,

00:33:01.620 | you'd make a great panelist at CNN, so.

00:33:03.620 | (audience laughing)

00:33:06.620 | By the way, I love this.

00:33:10.220 | And I genuinely think this is what a person

00:33:13.500 | who wants to be your vice president should actually do,

00:33:15.660 | is answer some tough questions.

00:33:16.740 | - I do give you credit for that.

00:33:18.140 | You will face the hard questions.

00:33:19.460 | So, back to the question.

00:33:21.340 | Tell me about dragging millions of people

00:33:22.980 | out of the country.

00:33:23.820 | - Jason, here's why I find this question a little off,

00:33:26.740 | and I will answer it, but it's like somebody

00:33:29.220 | who comes to me and I'm like eating my lunch,

00:33:31.220 | and they say, "Look, that sandwich is 10 times

00:33:33.700 | "the size of your mouth.

00:33:34.660 | "How are you possibly gonna eat that whole sandwich?"

00:33:36.700 | And it's like, "Well, I'm gonna take a first bite,

00:33:39.540 | "and then I'm gonna take a second bite,

00:33:41.060 | "and then I'm gonna take a third bite."

00:33:42.100 | And eventually the problem's gonna be,

00:33:43.540 | look, you start out with a million people

00:33:46.020 | who are what we call criminal migrants,

00:33:48.180 | people who have committed violent crimes

00:33:49.780 | in some form or another, get them out of our country.

00:33:52.180 | Yes, handcuff those people and force them

00:33:54.220 | out of the country.

00:33:55.140 | But you also do other things simultaneously.

00:33:57.540 | First of all, you stop the bleeding, right?

00:33:59.540 | You undo Kamala Harris's policies

00:34:01.460 | that opened the southern border in the first place.

00:34:03.700 | I've got a piece of legislation in the United States Senate

00:34:06.580 | that we've got a lot of colleagues who have signed up for it

00:34:09.060 | which would tax remittances, right?

00:34:10.580 | 'Cause we know a lot of people are earning money

00:34:12.900 | and then sending it back to Central America

00:34:14.580 | or wherever they came from.

00:34:16.100 | If you end that practice,

00:34:17.380 | then you have a lot of people who go back willingly.

00:34:19.460 | I think you ought to make it harder

00:34:20.820 | for people to hire illegal labor

00:34:22.660 | as opposed to American citizens.

00:34:24.340 | You tick through these things,

00:34:26.020 | and I do think that's the sandwich approach to this,

00:34:29.220 | is you try to take it one step at a time.

00:34:31.460 | But the most important thing,

00:34:33.220 | and I think the deportations focus, again, it is important

00:34:36.020 | because we're eventually, we are going to deport people,

00:34:38.820 | but the most important thing is to stop the bleeding.

00:34:41.380 | You've got to stop the millions of people

00:34:43.540 | flowing across the southern border every single year.

00:34:46.340 | It happened because of Kamala Harris's policies.

00:34:48.580 | It's gonna stop when Donald Trump is president.

00:34:50.420 | - Let me ask a national security question.

00:34:52.420 | (audience applauding)

00:34:54.820 | There's a lot of videos, Elon's gone down there,

00:34:57.060 | Bobby Kennedy's gone down there, you've gone down there.

00:34:59.060 | - Sure.

00:34:59.940 | - And the interdictions are not necessarily coming

00:35:03.060 | from countries in Central and South America anymore.

00:35:04.980 | They're coming from places near, around, near Asia.

00:35:09.300 | And a lot of places that you wouldn't normally think

00:35:11.220 | people coming from Middle East, et cetera.

00:35:12.740 | From a national security perspective,

00:35:15.620 | what do we think is happening?

00:35:16.740 | - Yeah.

00:35:17.220 | - Why is that happening?

00:35:18.340 | - Yeah, so, well, part of the reason it's happening--

00:35:20.740 | - Right, it's not Hondurans necessarily.

00:35:22.340 | - No, no, that's right, no.

00:35:23.220 | - It's Iranians.

00:35:24.020 | - It's Iranians, it's people from, you know,

00:35:25.860 | all over Asia, Africa, Europe.

00:35:27.860 | I mean, look, if you look at this,

00:35:29.460 | that is the open door, right?

00:35:32.180 | So if you want to come to this country,

00:35:33.700 | that is the open door.

00:35:34.580 | And God knows why some of them want to be here.

00:35:36.260 | I mean, you know, given what's going on in the Middle East,

00:35:38.500 | I do worry about military age males from Iran.

00:35:40.980 | I mean, into this country through the southern border.

00:35:43.220 | But, you know, I actually asked a border patrol agent

00:35:46.820 | about this on one of my visits.

00:35:48.980 | And, you know, great guy was actually kind of heartbroken

00:35:53.140 | because he signed up to protect his country.

00:35:55.700 | And he's a relatively recent immigrant.

00:35:57.220 | I could tell that by his accent.

00:35:58.500 | This guy's like very nervous and very heartbroken

00:36:01.380 | about the fact that he can't do his job.

00:36:02.580 | And he told me this story.

00:36:03.540 | And I, you know, I feel like an idiot in hindsight

00:36:05.620 | because he's like, we have a guy who came in here.

00:36:08.340 | I asked the guy, like, you know,

00:36:09.300 | why do you think this guy's Iranian?

00:36:10.580 | And he said, well, because he came through

00:36:13.220 | and he said that he was Mexican.

00:36:14.340 | And I was like, well, couldn't he have been Mexican?

00:36:16.020 | And he said, well, he didn't speak Spanish.

00:36:17.460 | I was like, oh, that's a tell.

00:36:18.420 | You know, a guy from Mexico, an illegal alien,

00:36:20.900 | doesn't speak Spanish.

00:36:21.700 | That's probably a pretty significant tell.

00:36:23.620 | But it's happening because this is what Kamala Harris

00:36:27.060 | has done.

00:36:27.700 | She's created this massive gap in our national security.

00:36:30.420 | And people are taking advantage of it.

00:36:31.780 | It's really not that surprising.

00:36:32.820 | - JD, let me just ask you one more foreign policy question

00:36:35.860 | on China.

00:36:37.140 | So there's a balancing act with China.

00:36:39.540 | But the rhetoric is, that's our enemy.

00:36:42.100 | There's going to be a Cold War.

00:36:43.300 | The structural relationship that the United States

00:36:47.860 | has with China is a very kind of codependent relationship.

00:36:51.780 | They buy our bonds.

00:36:52.900 | I guess they're selling them off now.

00:36:54.020 | We buy a lot of product from them.

00:36:56.980 | It allows us to go into a Walmart

00:36:58.820 | and get, you know, $40 scooters for our kids

00:37:01.540 | or $20 scooters for our kids.

00:37:03.460 | The technology industry is deeply dependent

00:37:05.940 | on a supply chain coming from China.

00:37:07.940 | There is a great commercial interdependency with China.

00:37:10.580 | They have historically been a very important partner

00:37:13.620 | to the United States and our economic prosperity.

00:37:15.780 | And I know the argument about hollowing out the middle class

00:37:18.340 | and so on because of moving everything offshore to China.

00:37:21.460 | But how do we rip that bandaid off

00:37:24.900 | and not cause massive problems with inflation?

00:37:28.020 | How do we not, you know, drive the cost of everything up

00:37:31.620 | by tariffing things that are coming in from China?

00:37:34.180 | What's the way forward with China?

00:37:36.820 | Is it necessarily a deeply kind of divisive Cold War,

00:37:41.540 | or is there a path here that allows us

00:37:43.140 | to maintain a balanced trading relationship

00:37:45.540 | and kind of a peaceful transition with China

00:37:49.460 | as they continue to build up

00:37:51.540 | their kind of capabilities economically and with energy,

00:37:54.580 | which I think is one of the biggest drivers

00:37:55.780 | for their success.

00:37:56.500 | - Well, so there's a lot there.

00:37:58.020 | And let me try to sort of take a few pieces of it

00:38:00.180 | 'cause I know we're relatively short on time.

00:38:01.620 | So number one is the energy piece of it's very important.

00:38:03.940 | Part of the way that you reshore American manufacturing

00:38:06.420 | is that you open up American energy.

00:38:07.940 | It matters for crypto, it matters for AI.

00:38:10.340 | You've got to open up American energy

00:38:12.260 | or you're never going to have,

00:38:13.700 | whether it's the next generation of manufactured goods

00:38:15.860 | or the past generations,

00:38:17.060 | you've got to open up American energy.

00:38:18.420 | Okay, that's number one.

00:38:19.620 | Number two is, look, I don't want to go to war with China.

00:38:22.180 | I think it would be hugely destructive,

00:38:23.940 | but I do think that we have to reshore

00:38:25.940 | more American manufacturing.

00:38:27.140 | And one of the weird things about China,

00:38:29.060 | if you think about past eras of developing nations, right?

00:38:32.980 | So go back to like when the UK

00:38:34.900 | was the most advanced economy in the world

00:38:36.660 | and America was a developing nation.

00:38:38.660 | Well, one of the things that happened

00:38:39.860 | is that like capital was flowing

00:38:41.860 | from the UK into the United States, right?

00:38:44.580 | From the developed into the developing nation.

00:38:46.900 | What's really weird about China

00:38:48.660 | is that it's like Americans borrow money

00:38:51.940 | from Chinese peasants to then buy the things

00:38:54.580 | that Chinese peasants are making for us, right?

00:38:56.340 | So it's not just the goods flow that's jacked up,

00:38:59.220 | it's the capital flows that are jacked up.

00:39:01.300 | And I really think that the next,

00:39:03.220 | Donald Trump is going to be the next president

00:39:04.580 | of the United States.

00:39:05.140 | And this is something we're going to have to figure out

00:39:06.820 | is that you need to balance

00:39:08.020 | both the capital and the goods flows, okay?

00:39:10.900 | I'm not saying we're going to have

00:39:12.020 | absolutely no trade with China,

00:39:14.020 | but right now the relationship is fundamentally

00:39:16.580 | that the Chinese have figured out

00:39:18.420 | they can create a massively powerful producerist society

00:39:22.500 | while America becomes a weaker,

00:39:24.180 | weaker consumerist society.

00:39:26.020 | That is the broken nature of the relationship.

00:39:27.860 | And I think rebalancing is the right way to think about it,

00:39:30.260 | but we have got to do it.

00:39:31.300 | And I think we're way, way behind.

00:39:32.420 | - You, maybe final question,

00:39:34.340 | but you said something which I thought

00:39:35.700 | was incredibly well said, so I just want to repeat it.

00:39:37.860 | When U.S. growth is one and 2%, everybody's fighting.

00:39:41.060 | - Exactly.

00:39:41.460 | - But when U.S. growth is 4% to 5%, everybody prospers.

00:39:44.820 | - Yeah.

00:39:45.300 | - Can you walk us through just how you think about

00:39:47.460 | how we get that extra 200 or 300 basis points of growth

00:39:50.340 | and where you need to have less regulation

00:39:52.740 | so that you can have more entrepreneurship

00:39:54.500 | or more regulation to kind of constrain folks?

00:39:56.580 | How do you think?

00:39:56.900 | - And less regulation for that energy sector.

00:39:58.580 | - Yeah, I mean, I really do think

00:40:00.660 | that we have to recognize that we have massively

00:40:04.500 | over-regulated the real world, right?

00:40:06.660 | Over-regulated transportation, over-regulated energy,

00:40:09.460 | over-regulated home construction.

00:40:11.140 | I don't know that it's, I don't know how easy it is

00:40:14.020 | to get another 300 bps of growth,

00:40:15.940 | but I think you get a lot more growth,

00:40:17.860 | whether it's 300 or 150, just by massively reducing

00:40:22.020 | the amount of regulatory burden in the real economy.

00:40:24.740 | And again, I'm an optimist.

00:40:26.340 | I'm fundamentally an optimist on both, you know,

00:40:28.980 | crypto, blockchain, web three stuff, but also on AI.

00:40:33.460 | And, you know, the way out of this may very well be

00:40:37.060 | to radically open up the way

00:40:39.140 | the technological innovation drives things

00:40:41.620 | in the United States.

00:40:42.580 | And just on this point about China,

00:40:44.260 | I don't know how much time we have,

00:40:46.820 | but I'll try to be quick about this.

00:40:48.100 | One of the things that Bob--

00:40:48.980 | - Whatever time you need.

00:40:49.940 | - Okay.

00:40:50.420 | - It's more about you.

00:40:51.380 | - All right.

00:40:52.020 | Well, I'm a politician, so buckle in.

00:40:54.340 | We're gonna be here for three hours.

00:40:55.300 | (all laughing)

00:40:56.660 | But one of the real conceits of the 30 years

00:41:01.540 | of globalization that I think was really, really deranged,

00:41:04.180 | in hindsight, very wrong, Bob Lighthizer,

00:41:05.860 | who is Trump's trade representative,

00:41:07.140 | talks a lot about this is we had this conceit

00:41:09.620 | that we could separate the manufacturer of things

00:41:12.340 | from the design of things, right?

00:41:13.540 | So if you get an iPhone right now

00:41:15.540 | and you get it out of the box,

00:41:16.660 | you will see that it says designed

00:41:18.580 | in Cupertino, California.

00:41:19.860 | Of course, the implication is that it's manufactured

00:41:22.340 | in Shenzhen or wherever they're manufacturing iPhones

00:41:24.580 | these days.

00:41:25.540 | The idea that the iPhone is designed in Cupertino

00:41:28.980 | is increasingly no longer even true, right?

00:41:31.140 | It's something that we lie to ourselves about

00:41:32.900 | because the people who are doing all the manufacturing

00:41:35.300 | of the hardware of the iPhone are getting much better

00:41:37.780 | at design and innovation.

00:41:39.300 | And part of the reason why I care so much

00:41:40.980 | about this manufacturing thing

00:41:42.260 | is whether it's antibiotics, for example.

00:41:43.860 | Why hasn't America invented an antibiotic in 30 years?

00:41:47.620 | It probably has something to do

00:41:48.900 | with the manufacture of antibiotics

00:41:50.340 | is done almost entirely

00:41:51.860 | in very low cost manufacturing areas.

00:41:54.340 | You can go through a whole host of goods like this,

00:41:56.740 | but if you want to build a high tech,

00:42:00.100 | high dynamic growth economy,

00:42:02.580 | you have to have some native manufacturing

00:42:06.260 | and some self-reliance.

00:42:07.380 | And so these two things are very related.

00:42:09.780 | And I think it's a big part

00:42:10.820 | of getting back to four or 5% growth

00:42:12.660 | is accepting that, yes, we're going to have trade,

00:42:14.980 | but we can't let everybody make all of our stuff.

00:42:16.820 | - Sax, final question for you.

00:42:18.580 | - Yeah, well, I want to wrap this up

00:42:23.060 | because I think we're basically out of time

00:42:24.900 | by just observing that both Donald Trump

00:42:28.660 | and J.D. Vance have been on this podcast.

00:42:30.900 | And it's not because I'm a crazy right winger.

00:42:33.860 | It's because we invited them.

00:42:35.540 | - It's not just because.

00:42:36.180 | - Not just because.

00:42:37.140 | (audience laughing)

00:42:40.260 | It's because we invited them and they accepted.

00:42:43.460 | We have similarly invited Kamala Harris

00:42:46.660 | and Tim Waltz to be on this.

00:42:47.620 | - And Biden before that, but he forgot.

00:42:50.180 | (audience laughing)

00:42:54.180 | - So we're still waiting.

00:42:55.620 | - He said yes, he forgot.

00:42:56.980 | (audience laughing)

00:42:58.100 | He lost the Zoom link.

00:42:59.940 | (audience laughing)

00:43:01.620 | - So we want to re--

00:43:02.580 | - I'm not supposed to be on this call?

00:43:03.780 | - Yeah, we want to re-extend the invitation.

00:43:06.420 | - Yes, to be very clear.

00:43:07.860 | - To both Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz.

00:43:09.140 | You're welcome to come on the podcast anytime.

00:43:11.380 | And the format will be similar.

00:43:12.820 | - Yeah, and I just want to say, J.D.,

00:43:14.660 | I think your answers were fantastic here today.

00:43:16.660 | And I really do appreciate you coming on

00:43:18.420 | and answering these questions.

00:43:19.940 | Very thoughtfully.

00:43:20.980 | And, you know, from my perspective,

00:43:23.220 | when I heard that you were announced as the VP,

00:43:25.380 | I thought, well, this is great.

00:43:27.140 | A young person who's got a lot of experience

00:43:30.180 | in venture capital and building things in the world.

00:43:33.220 | And somebody who comes from humble beginnings

00:43:35.300 | like the four of us and believes that a meritocracy

00:43:38.900 | where people work hard and get reward for it.

00:43:41.140 | So you check all my boxes in that way.

00:43:43.300 | And I really think I feel much better.

00:43:46.980 | I, you know, I have my issues with your boss,

00:43:49.060 | but when you talk about, you know,

00:43:53.380 | the bite-size, you know, steps to it, you know,

00:43:55.620 | I think one framework to look at your relationship

00:43:58.260 | with Trump is he says things, you know,

00:43:59.860 | at the top of the, at the highest vibration,

00:44:02.180 | we're going to deport 20 million people.

00:44:03.540 | And then you have a very practical approach.

00:44:04.980 | 60% tariffs makes no sense, but hey,

00:44:07.700 | we've got to rebalance this.

00:44:09.140 | And so I really do like your measured approach to this.

00:44:11.220 | And I think that you're a great counterbalance.

00:44:13.220 | And I think we understand why he picked you.

00:44:14.500 | - I want to say one thing.

00:44:15.540 | (audience applauding)

00:44:22.980 | And this is not really related to anything,

00:44:25.140 | except that you are not supposed to be here.

00:44:27.460 | - That's exactly right, yeah.

00:44:29.060 | - And that is really inspiring to other people

00:44:32.020 | who are not supposed to be here.

00:44:33.220 | Thank you.

00:44:34.180 | - Yeah.

00:44:34.580 | (audience applauding)

00:44:35.060 | And if you haven't read J.D.'s book,

00:44:36.900 | I read your book long before all of this.

00:44:39.780 | - Incredible.

00:44:39.940 | - And I just want to say your book was so inspiring

00:44:42.020 | and I have recommended it long before today

00:44:45.300 | to literally hundreds of people.

00:44:47.380 | - Let's read it.

00:44:47.460 | - It's a fantastic read if you haven't read it.

00:44:49.460 | - Yeah.

00:44:50.020 | - Well, and by the way,

00:44:50.980 | available wherever books are sold.

00:44:52.500 | (audience laughing)

00:44:54.100 | - You're like J.Cow.

00:44:54.980 | - Exactly.

00:44:55.940 | - Do you have an affiliate link?

00:44:58.100 | - 529 account for the kids.

00:44:59.460 | - J.D. Vance dot com slash Jason.

00:45:01.900 | - Can I just, just two things.

00:45:03.780 | First of all, Jason, I appreciate what you said,

00:45:06.660 | but I also just want to defend my running mate here

00:45:09.380 | because I think that, again,

00:45:10.980 | the media doesn't often tell you the truth

00:45:12.500 | about Donald Trump.

00:45:13.300 | Donald Trump cares more about the details

00:45:14.980 | of public policy than almost anyone

00:45:17.140 | I've ever met in public life.

00:45:18.820 | That's actually real.

00:45:19.940 | He thinks about how this stuff affects

00:45:21.700 | the real economy and real Americans.

00:45:23.460 | So if you're on the fence,

00:45:25.220 | whether you like what I said or dislike what I said,

00:45:27.460 | I just encourage you, listen to what he actually says

00:45:30.260 | because I think that you'll become a believer

00:45:32.020 | that he can make the country great again as he promises.

00:45:34.740 | But separate from that, I just want to say,

00:45:37.620 | this is such an important conversation

00:45:40.340 | and you guys hold and host important conversations

00:45:43.140 | every single day.

00:45:44.020 | We should do more of it as a country,

00:45:45.380 | but I'm glad to participate today.

00:45:46.580 | God bless everybody, thank you.

00:45:47.460 | - Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, Katie Vance.

00:45:48.900 | (audience applauding)

00:45:54.260 | - That was great.

00:45:55.220 | - That was great.

00:45:56.020 | (audience applauding)

00:46:04.180 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

In conversation with JD Vance | All-In Summit 2024

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