If you’re subscribed to this substack, you probably have a sense that I am an internationalist; that I support Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel. That I believe in democracy and American global leadership, and worry about the growing axis of evil that is China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. In short, I’m not a fan of J.D. Vance.
Per The Dispatch’s terrific John McCormack, this is a man who has “called Trump ‘noxious,’ ‘reprehensible,’ an ‘idiot,’ and ‘cultural heroin’ during the 2016 campaign. ‘What percentage of the American population has @RealDonaldTrump sexually assaulted?’ Vance asked in one 2016 tweet that has been deleted. ‘I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler,’ Vance wrote in a text message to a friend at the time.”
But you know, people grow in office. They mature. Their views evolve. And then they call “Hitler” “boss.”
I appreciate entirely that there are good people who are certain that J.D. Vance’s growth in office is a fully principled maturation. But a maturation from 2016’s “cultural heroin” to “a hero for our time” is quite the leap.
And there’s more. Marc and I work at the American Enterprise Institute, and we are well aware that there are some who don’t share our world view, even inside AEI. That’s what the battle of ideas is all about. But it’s one thing to look at AEI and our championing of freedom and American global leadership and say, I’m not persuaded, as Vance now insists, and another to leap into the arms of George Soros, as Vance did in a speech at the Quincy Institute for “Responsible Statecraft.” (The sneer quotes are mine.) Sure, he used the precious oxygen at Quincy to underscore the difference between Israel (he’s for it) and Ukraine (he’s on Team Putin). Did he not know the Institute is home to two of the country’s dirtiest antisemites? That it is at the forefront of apologia for Iran in DC? Or did he just not care?
Am I being ranty? Yes I am. Because I do not want Joe Biden or Kamala Harris to be President of the United States. This was an opportunity for Donald Trump to prove he is indeed a different man, not simply post the terrible assassination attempt, but post January 6. And instead, he’s doubled down, naming a sycophant and an isolationist as his VP. A man whose worst sin is not his indifference to a Putin victory in Ukraine (or anywhere else, presumably), but who actually criticized former Vice President Mike Pence for upholding the constitution on January 6. What the hell indeed.
Here’s what Fox News’ Brit Hume had to say on the pod hours before Vance became public:
BH: I think that would be an unfortunate choice. The first thing is he's a rookie senator, 39 years old. And although he's dazzlingly articulate and no doubt, very smart, this is a guy that at one time was a hardcore Trump opponent who made a miraculous and almost sudden reversal of his view of it and has been sucking up to Trump arguably ever since. And I think the lack of experience, I mean, would be glaring. And on top of that, of course, one would sense that the choice was made because he's been so effusively admiring of the former president. So I don't think... I'm not sure he'd be a very strong pick. I don't think he adds much.
What would Vance as VP mean for Trump’s position on American alliances and American global leadership?
BH: If he's the pick, it will then be even more interesting to hear what Donald Trump has to say about such matters as Ukraine, an American defense buildup, which seems in the eyes of many to be needed and what he says about NATO and the rest of it.
Of course, in response to the question of what Vance would add, the answer, as Marc makes clear in measured terms during my on-air tirade, the man underperformed Trump and every other Republican in Ohio, so he’s not bringing Ohio. Perhaps he’ll be gold in Michigan or Minnesota where his Appalachia to Yale narrative might swing a few votes. Then again, he could also be a liability — a younger, brasher, louder, and more isolationist version of Donald Trump to remind people just what they didn’t like about DJT.
It’s just all so exhausting, and yes, I miss Ronald Reagan.
HIGHLIGHTS
Will Americans be paying attention to Trump at the Republican National Convention this year?
BH: I think a lot of people will be watching in this case because they want to see how he seems. They want to see what he's like and they want to see above all whether maybe after all they can vote for him. And of course, if they do, I think his polls will improve. His candidacy will be stronger and he will have taken advantage of the opportunity he's been forwarded.
How do you think Trump might change his typically aggressive tone following the assassination attempt on him in Pennsylvania?
BH: I think he's always had a tendency to overshadow the things that he does with the things that he says… Look, there's nothing about Donald Trump's personality that suggests unity. He's been a kind of a belligerent figure and you saw a little of that when he was being pulled off that stage as he shook his fist in defiance. That's sort of the Trump we knew. And there's a character question involved in that for sure, which shows you one thing about him. He is the toughest son of a gun I've ever seen. But being a tough son of a gun and being a unifying figure are not necessarily the same thing. And so it'll be a stretch to appear a unifying figure. I think he'll take a stab at it and it may help him if he does.
What does Trump need to do now to put him in a place to win the election?
BH: I think if you think about this race, you think, "Well, how can he win it?" Well, we've all kind of come to agree, I guess that the critical state, especially for Biden, is Pennsylvania. And you think about places where Republican candidates were once strong, the suburbs of Philadelphia being a conspicuous example, Trump had trouble in places like that. Suburban women in particular. So if you're rooting for Trump and hoping he'll do well, you're thinking, "Well, let's hope he can do things that would win over the kind of voters in areas like that area around Philadelphia where Republican Party has lost ground under him and where if they gain it back, they can win the election and maybe winning Pennsylvania blocks Biden's chances of winning at all."
What major obsticals to a Trump election victory is he facing right now?
BH: If you think about it, it's hard to picture a period of time in which things have come up roses for a particular candidate more than they have in the last few weeks. First of all, there was the emergence of something that I think the public had sensed for a long time, and that is that Joe Biden is senile and not just a little bit senile. He's really senile and that's a big deal. And then on top of that, you have Trump surviving an assassination attempt, which is bound to produce sympathy.
His defiance and one might argue courage in the face of that is another plus for him. And now we have Judge Cannon dismissing the classified documents case in Florida, which it could be reinstated by an appellate judge, but it certainly means that there's no chance that that case will go to trial this year if there ever was. And a great many people have thought, a lot of legal experts have thought, that that case was the strongest case of the several that had been lodged against him.
Can Biden still call Trump a “threat to democracy” following the assassination attempt?
BH: I think that issue is basically bunk. One thing that we have learned, and I'm old enough to have lived through a bunch of these assassinations and assassination attempts, and when you look back at them, it's striking how many there have been over the past half century and more.
But I would say that one thing that they have shown is the striking durability of our democratic system, of our democratic republic system. And there's a lot of hyperbole now about how Trump is a mortal threat to it and all that, and it's mostly all bunk. I mean, and you keep hearing this saying, "Democracy's on the ballot." Well, no, democracy is the ballot. And it happens also to be the very way in which this man is supposedly a threat to democracy is pursuing higher office once again. So it's grossly overblown, and I think the public probably senses that, and that the people who adhere to that idea are largely partisan Democrats who don't like Trump anyway.
What purpose does Trump’s vice presidential pick serve in this election?
BH: Normally when you do vice presidential picks, or at least in the great many instances, they're done for the purpose of unifying the party behind a particular candidate. That doesn't really apply here at this convention. He's got the bulk of the Republican Party, and nearly all the delegates in his camp, and doesn't have to worry about that.
And the first qualification must be, and this is a cliché, and everybody always says they're doing it. Biden was saying that the other day about Kamala Harris, imagine that. Is that this person is someone who could step in and be president right away if necessary. And I think a seasoned public figure with some kind of an admirable record would go a long way to reassuring people. On the other hand, if the President chose somebody who one senses was done principally because he seemed to be the candidate who is most admiring of Donald Trump, which is something he loves, of course, I think that probably would hurt.
After everything that’s happened, do you think that Biden will be the Democratic nominee?
BH: It will depend, I think, to some extent on what the size of the Trump assassination and convention bounce turns out to be. Now obviously, any poll that would come out on that Monday, Marc, would be maybe a little early. But if we see Trump building a 7, 8, 9 point lead in the polls, that is only going to further panic the Democrats. And it just might be enough to get to a certain critical mass where the people he has pays attention to could go down to the White House and do the same thing that all those people did with Richard Nixon all those years ago and say, Mr. President, "I'm sorry, but it's all over. You've got to go. We can't win with you. You're in deep trouble." But we'll all be watching the polls.
I think the reason why we haven't seen any bigger bounce from the epic failure of Biden in that debate was that I think people, unlike a lot of media, particularly in Washington, had long since figured out that the guy was senile and around the bend, and they processed that into their thinking, and there wasn't that much ground to be gained in the polls because of that. Although it became absolutely undeniable and unmistakable after that, which is... And I think it nothing that Biden can do after that will ever get people to think, "Oh, he is made a remarkable recovery, and he's as sharp as ever." I don't think that's possible for that to happen. So I think it's baked in.
What about Vice President Kamala Harris? Does she have the support to be the Democratic nominee instead of Biden?
BH: I think you said a small faction supports her, but I think that faction is growing, and you hear it in the words of people like James Clyburn who say she'd be a strong nominee and so on, and you're beginning to hear people size her up and say, "Well, she brings assets." She's young, she takes the senility issue off the table, and so on. I think the party could rally around her and probably would have to, because of what you suggest, which is that this party's in no position, given all that it's been and all that it's become, to shove an African American woman to the side to make room for a more moderate and a more widely-appealing candidate.
How would Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket hurt down-ballot Democrats?
BH: I think that the political gravity that would normally attach to a weak candidate at the top of the ticket pulling other candidates down I'm sure will be present to some extent in this case. However, it all comes back to Donald Trump. When you think about people voting, not a lot of people do strategic voting, but at least some do. They may be thinking that, "I'll vote for Trump, because Biden's completely out of it and we can't have him. I want a Democratic House and/or Senate to act as a check on him, because I don't completely trust him." I think that's a potential factor that has to be kept in mind as we consider how much of a problem it'll be for down-ballot candidates, particularly for Congress, with a Trump win.
How often do Americans split their ticket between parties?
BH: I think Americans have been ticket splitters for quite some time, more so than they used to be. You hear an awful lot of people say, "I vote for the candidate, I don't vote for the party," and so on. I think there's a lot of that. You see politicians in, for example, the State of Ohio, which is now pretty bright red, and there is old Sherrod Brown up there, having survived many turns at bat in a state that was trending away from his party for years. I think there's enough of it, and it's a hope for survival for some of these candidates who would be weighed down under other circumstances by such weakness at the top of the ticket.
Can Biden recover from his debate performance?
BH: I don't think Biden can recover from the debate and the previous impressions that he continues to give us that he's not playing with a full deck mentally. Trump could run a really smart campaign, not do a lot of dumb stuff. I look at Trump now and I think he's shown, as I mentioned, some signs of being a political grown-up that he never used to exhibit before.
The best example of that came when Aishah Hasnie asked him about Larry Hogan. Now, here's Larry Hogan, a popular Republican governor in a very blue state, who's out of office now and running for Senate. He has said publicly and repeatedly that he will not vote for Donald Trump. Yet, when asked by Aishah Hasnie about his race, Trump, first he said, "Yeah, I'd like to see him win." Well, Trump obviously understands a lesson that he was taught while president, that it matters a hell of a lot who's in charge of the Houses of Congress. He says, "I'd like to see him win," and Aishah just said, "Well, does that mean you're endorsing him?" He said, "Yeah, I guess it does." Now, that is a Donald Trump we did not use to know.
How much does Trump really reflect the views of the broader Republican Party today?
BH: I think there's still some distance between Donald Trump and much of the Republican party. Now, they're all lined up behind him because he went out and won the nomination by getting the votes in the primary season, and he won it easily. But look, if he wins, yes, I think the mark of Donald Trump will remain on the party. It will anyway, but I mean it'll be even more indelible if he wins.
If he loses, there'll be an agonizing reassessment. Some of this stuff that's associated with the new conservative party, the new conservative movement, may go by the boards. We have outcomes we have to keep an eye on in places like Ukraine and Israel, to mention just two. We have serious questions about the national defense buildup which seems to be necessary that he may or may not bring. His skepticism about our foreign alliances and so on are in play here. There's a lot on the line, and a lot will depend on the results, particularly about his results in this election.
As we’re recording this episode, Trump has not yet chosen his VP pick, but there are rumors that it will be Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio. What do you make of Vance as an option for Trump’s VP?
BH: I think that would be an unfortunate choice. The first thing is he's a rookie senator, 39 years old. And although he's dazzlingly articulate and no doubt, very smart, this is a guy that at one time was a hardcore Trump opponent who made a miraculous and almost sudden reversal of his view of it and has been sucking up to Trump arguably ever since. And I think the lack of experience, I mean, would be glaring. And on top of that, of course, one would sense that the choice was made because he's been so effusively admiring of the former president. So I don't think... I'm not sure he'd be a very strong pick. I don't think he adds much.
What would Vance as VP mean for Trump’s position on American alliances and American global leadership?
BH: If he's the pick, it will then be even more interesting to hear what Donald Trump has to say about such matters as Ukraine, an American defense buildup, which seems in the eyes of many to be needed and what he says about NATO and the rest of it. Now look, I think Trump actually has made a positive contribution by his threats to NATO members.
We're not going to continue to finance your defense when you won't stand up for yourselves in the midst of a war in Europe. I think Trump's threats, I think had an effect. And of course, the person who had the greatest effect on that was Vladimir Putin by the reckless invasion of Ukraine.
What is your metric for a successful convention?
BH: It'll depend more than anything, on the tone it sets and on the Trump speech, I mean, there'll be an audience for that because people I think will tune in just to see what he sounds like, what he looks like, guy's been shot, how he reacts to all that. And if he strikes the right tone, it will probably enlarge the boost that he gets out... the traditional boost that nearly every candidate gets out of a convention. So you remember that at one point, it was one poll in 1988, I was covering HW Bush at the time, came out of his convention. When he got into that convention, there was a poll that said Michael Dukakis was 14 points ahead. I never believed the poll. It was an outlier, but it gives you an idea of the size of the bump you could sometimes get out of a convention. It usually don't last, but anyway.
Read the transcript here.
SHOWNOTES
Inside the fallout from the Trump shooting (Punchbowl News, July 14, 2024)
Nikki Haley to Speak at RNC as Republicans Unite Around Trump (Wall Street Journal, July 14, 2024)
What to know about the 2024 Republican National Convention (Politico, July 13, 2024)
Nate Silver on Biden’s Chances of Winning (Nate Silver on Twitter, July 12, 2024)
CPR Biden vs. Trump 2024 National Polling Average (Cook Political Report, July 12, 2024)
Cook Political Report Changes Electoral College Ratings (Cook Political Report Twitter, July 9, 2024)
2024 Republican Party Platform (American Presidency Project, July 8, 2024)
Trump urges Americans to show "True Character" after assassination attempt (Axios, July 14, 2024)
Trump shooting: Reactions in the US from political and business leaders (Reuters, July 14, 2024)
Susan Crabtree On Issues with Trump Security (Susan Crabtree on Twitter, July 14, 2024)
Rep. Mike Collins Reacting to Trump Assassination Attempt (Mike Collins on Twitter, July 13, 2024)
Russ Latino on Twitter (Twitter, July 13, 2024)
Trump rally shooting upends Democrats' Biden crisis (Andrew Solender, Axios, July 14, 2024)
Why Sanders, AOC threw Biden a lifeline as his candidacy floundered (Jeff Stein, Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2024)
Who are the Democrats calling time on Joe Biden? (BBC, July 12, 2024)
Nate Silver expects ‘further decline ahead’ in Biden polls after debate (The Hill, July 2, 2024)
Trump has been moderating his view on a number of issues: Brit Hume (Special Report, Fox News, June 26, 2024)
Trump is aligning himself with the Republican establishment: Brit Hume (Special Report, Fox News, June 17, 2024)
The low road, the high road, and the way the wind blows (Nate Silver, July 14, 2024)