Senator J.D. Vance, former President Trump’s running mate, joined me this morning:

Audio:

08-06hhs-vance

Transcript:

HH: Joined by United States Senator J.D. Vance from Ohio. He is, of course, Donald Trump’s running mate. He will be the Vice President of the United States come this time next year. Welcome back, Senator Vance. Always a pleasure to speak with you.

JDV: Thanks, Hugh. How are you?

HH: I am great. Let’s begin with a headline, Senator. Iran directed its proxies in Iraq last night to attack our troops at al-Asad Base. I know you served at Al-Asad when you were a Marine in Iraq. My son served at Al-Asad. A number of them have been wounded. We do not know the severity and nature of their wounds. How should the United States respond?

JDV: Well, first of all, hearts go out to the servicemembers, it sounds like it’s five people who were injured. Like you said, we don’t know how seriously. It reminds us a lot, Hugh, just to sort of put this in perspective, of the attack that happened in January when you had, I believe, three servicemembers who were killed. And what it suggests, first of all, is that our air defenses have been overwhelmed now twice in effectively the last six months. So this is something we have to be really, really careful about. We have a number of American troops over there who are effectively sitting ducks, because if the Iranian proxies or the Iranians directly can overwhelm our air defenses, there are a lot of very soft targets right now, and this is something the Biden administration, the Harris administration, has to fix. I mean, look, I think our response is you obviously have to hit back at the groups that did this, and you have to hit them hard. Unfortunately, I don’t think the Harris administration has shown any willingness to reestablish deterrence. And in some ways, Hugh, the most important thing that we have to do is degrade Iran and its proxies’ ability to wage war in the first place on our targets in the Middle East, and of course, on our allies. We have to remember, of course, that this is in the backdrop of multi-billion dollars of sanctions relief which the Iranians have not used to sort of, you know, welcome themselves back into the international community and start to build a more functional relationship with the United States. They have used it to build up a massive military capability that then they’re now using to kill and wound American servicemembers. So we have to stop giving them money that they’re clearly showing that they’re using to hurt our people. And if we don’t do this, then we really, I think, completely destroy the basic deterrence of the United States military in the region.

HH: Iran is threatening to attack Israel today, and they’ve been threatening it since the assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran five days ago. Should Israel strike back at Iran? Or should they even strike preemptively if they have serious intel that Iran is going to launch yet another barrage of missiles at Israel?

JDV: You know, Hugh, I always hesitate to tell the Israelis what they should do. I think that the Israelis have earned the right to do what they think is in their best interests, and I think that you know, we should be supportive of whatever they ultimately decide to do. We know the biggest threat to Israel is not an Iranian air attack. It’s an Iranian nuclear capability. And I think that the Israelis really have to do what’s necessary to prevent that from happening. It matters to us a great deal, and it obviously matters to the Israelis more. But we have to remember, Hugh, that the Israelis really can’t do what they need to do until the Americans, until we give them the weapons that they need. And there’s something just preposterous about Harris’ approach here. And again, it is Kamala Harris’ approach. This is not Joe Biden’s presidency. He clearly doesn’t know where, what he’s doing or where he is. So this is Kamala Harris’ calling the shots. What’s so preposterous about their approach is they say that they want the Israelis to wrap up the war. And of course, that’s true. We do want the Israelis to wrap up the war. But we want it to end with Hamas being functionally degraded as a military capability. And what Kamala Harris and the entire administration, their approach doesn’t make sense, because they’re prolonging the war. They’re making it harder for Israel to achieve diplomatic breakthroughs with some of the Sunni Arab states, and they’re doing all of this in a way that continues to stress Israel’s military capability when we know the holy grail here is preventing the Iranians from getting a nuclear bomb. So the policy doesn’t really make sense unless the goal is to make it easier to kill Americans, make it easier to kill Israelis, and make it easier for the Iranians to build a bomb. That is the net effect of the Harris administration, whether it’s intentional or not.

HH: Last question about Israel and Iran and our support of them. How would you characterize the Biden-Harris policy towards Israel over the last almost ten months since the massacre occurred on 10/7?

JDV: Oh, it’s been terrible, and it’s been disgraceful. I mean, we just start here with a recognition that is wasn’t just a terrible terrorist attack of Israelis, though it certainly was. I mean, almost 30 Americans, I believe, lost their lives in the attacks, and you still have American hostages. And there’s no sense here from the Harris administration that this is something that actually matters to us. There’s no sense of urgency. There’s no sense of outrage. You know, of course, they condemned the attack when it initially happened, but they immediately started to slow-walk the support of military assistance. And again, Hugh, the most important thing for us is for the war to be over so that Hamas is no longer a viable military threat, and so that Israel can re-conduct diplomatic peace. I mean, the fundamental goal of American policy in the Middle East right now should be to enable the Israelis along with Sunni Arab states to build on President Trump’s Abraham Accords and actually provide a regional counterweight to Iran, right? We can’t do everything all at once. You know I believe that, Hugh. So we would want the Israelis and the Sunni Arab states to sort of provide that counterbalance to Iran. What the Harris administration seems to want to do is to give the Iranians money in hope they don’t use it to build additional military capabilities. It just doesn’t make any sense. And clearly, if you look at how they’ve used that money, the Iranians have used that money, they’re not doing it to become a more functional partner for the United States. They’re using it to kill and attack us and our allies.

HH: Now I want to switch to the border. The three big issues in this election are inflation and the economy, immigration, and especially illegal immigration, and of course, Israel. Kamala Harris ran for president five years ago, and she spoke about the border then. Cut number 11, she is referring to Donald Trump’s border policies then. Cut number 11, Vice President Harris:

KH: This is irresponsible. It’s the height of irresponsibility for the commander-in-chief to suggest that we have to build a wall across our Southern border because there are terrorists who are trying to invade the country. It couldn’t be farther from the truth.

HH: You’ve been to the border as recently as three days ago, Senator Vance. I think between 50-60,000 Chinese Communist citizens have crossed that border. I know hundreds on the watch list, the terror watch list have crossed that border, and we know about them. What do you make of Vice President Harris’ indifference to the border?

JDV: Well, we know, of course, Hugh, she was the border czar, and they implemented a series of policies on day one suspending the deportations, reinstituting Catch And Release that made the border crisis exactly what it is today. When I was there a few days ago, Hugh, I talked to a number of folks who say they’re seeing military-age men from a whole host of countries that are not in Central America. You mentioned China. A number of African countries, a number of Middle Eastern countries where when Kamala Harris throws shade at the idea that there are terrorists coming across our border, we now know beyond any reasonable doubt that thanks to their policies, thanks to Kamala Harris’ policies, there are terrorists in the United States of America because of what she has done. So it’s not only a terrible humanitarian crisis. It’s not only a terrible crime crisis. It’s, of course, caused the wage theft from millions of American workers who are now competing with illegal aliens. It has also made the country much more susceptible to a terrorist attack. And you know, you started by asking about Iran, Hugh. One of the concerns that I have here is the Iranians have leverage over us that they didn’t have four or five years ago, because there are probably a number of Iranian-related militias that have terrorist agents within the United States. That is a difference from five years ago. And the reason those terrorists are here is because Kamala Harris has failed to do her job.

HH: Let me play one more Kamala Harris video vault best hits. Cut number 10 from a 2017 Recode interview of Vice President Harris.

KH: You know, we have to stay woke. Like everybody needs to be woke. And you can talk about if you’re the wokest, or woker, but just stay more woke than less woke.

HH: All right, Senator Vance, they like to call you weird. They like to call President Trump weird. They use weird every day in every sentence. How weird was that?

JDV: Well, it was really weird, Hugh, and I also don’t even know what she means. I think that what she’s talking about, of course, is the extreme progressive ideology that has taken root in our country.

HH: Yeah.

JDV: And you know, this is sort of the weird thing where you have the United States military doing trainings on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and making sure that there, you know, transgender support for members of the United States Marine Corps, and ensuring that our schools have bizarre materials on sexual identity for 7-year-olds, right? That is what woke means, I think, to most Americans. And Kamala Harris standing there celebrating it is really leaning into the fact that she is a San Francisco liberal, one of the more radical members of the United States Senate. And everything that she’s done on social policy, on economic policy, has pushed our country in a really, really, to use the term, Hugh, weird direction. Now here’s the thing that I just can’t quite get over about the Harris approach to this stuff is, you know, she wants to sort of present President Trump and I as outside the mainstream. And yet, if you look at a whole host of social issues, I think a lot of our approach would be that we don’t care what Americans do in the privacy of their own homes. We don’t care who they sleep with. We don’t care what people do. We don’t want them to bring it to our kids, right? If you want to get a surgery when you’re 30-years-old, fine. Get whatever surgery you want to. But we don’t want you giving cross-sex hormones to 9-year-olds. That is woke, and that is apparently what Kamala Harris has endorsed in stride. The most important thing to point out here, Hugh, is I would like to ask her what she means by those comments, and I’d like the American media to ask her what she means by those comments. But on issue after issue, Hugh, Kamala Harris refuses to sit and actually talk to the American people. She is running a presidential campaign out of a basement. She doesn’t do real interviews. She doesn’t answer tough questions. And it’s clear that her own campaign realizes that if she has to answer for her own record, if she has to answer for the fact that she flip-flopped on every, you know, she wanted to ban fracking and now she doesn’t, and she wanted to defund the police and now she allegedly doesn’t. If people know how much she has endorsed the far left elements of the liberal agenda, I think that they’re going to realize that this is not a person they want as an American president. But of course, the American media…

HH: Oh, I think she will also destroy our military, and I want to go there, Senator. In a column for the Washington Post after you were nominated, I commented that there are 800,000 veterans in Pennsylvania, half a million veterans in Michigan, 283,000 veterans in Wisconsin. Arizona has more than 450,000, Nevada more than 200,000. We have a minute to the break, and I’m going to talk to you after the break as well. But generally, do these veterans care that you are a veteran when they go in to vote, do you think?

JDV: I think they do, Hugh. They like to know that somebody has served alongside them. They like to know that somebody understands the sacrifices of military service. And they like to know that somebody like President Trump and I care about American strength and about projecting American strength to the world. They know that weakness invites aggression, and part of the reason they served is they wanted to keep their country safe. Kamala Harris, as we’ve talked about, has done a lot of things to make this country a whole lot less safe.

HH: I’m going to talk with J.D. after the break and then bring it to you next hour. Don’t go anywhere, America. Senator Vance returns on the Hugh Hewitt Show. Stay tuned.

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HH: Senator Vance, some Democrats made a bad choice to mock your military service, saying, ‘Oh, he might have been in the Marines, but he wasn’t carrying a rifle at the point.’ And I told them every Marine is a rifleman. Every Marine is prepared to do everything. What do you make of people who make light of your duties in Iraq?

JDV: Look, I think people just lie about political candidates, and the left lies about me and President Trump all the time. I did carry a rifle. I also carried a pistol. And look, I wasn’t an infantryman, Hugh. I’ve never claimed to be a grunt. But we certainly saw a fair amount of danger, and I did the job that the American Marine Corps asked me to do, and I did it proudly. And I think that’s something to celebrate and not something to attack. Of course, when you have a Vice President Kamala Harris who wants to make the military more woke and wants to make it more left-wing but doesn’t actually have any sense of what’s required to strengthen the American nation.

HH: Let me ask you want you think a Harris administration would do to our recruitment crisis, Senator Vance.

JDV: Well, it would make it a lot worse, Hugh. I mean, look, consistently, we see, and the Marine Corps is the only branch of the service that hasn’t had major military recruitment issues in part, Hugh, because it’s so small, but also because it is the one that is the least committed to left-wing ideology. Now of course, the members themselves, you know, the rank and file, the junior officers, they’re not, and even most of the generals, they’re not committed to left-wing ideology. But when you have the leadership at the political level forcing left-wing ideas down the throats of these services, a lot of American kids, Hugh, they don’t want to sign up to fight for Kamala Harris’ social agenda. They want to sign up to keep their country safe. And if you force this left-wing idea down the throats of America’s military branches, you’re going to see the recruitment crisis that we’ve seen explode under the Biden administration, it’s going to get even worse. And it’s especially profound in the bigger services, in the Army, in the Navy, and it’s going to get a lot worse. We’ve already seen the evidence here, but it will worsen.

HH: My last question, Senator Vance. We expect a running mate to be announced by Vice President Harris today. If it’s not Josh Shapiro, I will be stunned. But if it isn’t Josh Shapiro, if they pick Tim Walz, who makes Tim Kaine seem like Justin Timberlake, he’s the most boring man in America, if it’s not Josh Shapiro, and that’s because he’ll be Jewish and because he’s a supporter of Israel, what does that tell you about the Democratic Party if it’s not Josh Shapiro?

JDV: Well, look, if it’s not Josh Shapiro, I agree with you. I think that they will have not picked Shapiro, frankly, out of the antisemitism in their own caucus, in their own party. I think it’s disgraceful that Democrats have gotten to this point where it’s even an open conversation. And it is an open conversation, Hugh. I mean, even if it is Josh Shapiro, the guy has in some ways had to run away from a lot of his biography over the last few months because the far left doesn’t like the fact that he is a Jewish-American. So look, we have to be honest about this fact, and we have to call it out. Regardless of who the nominee is, Hugh, we’re ready to take them on. And it’s Kamala Harris’ policies that matter the most. She is the person who’s worsened the inflation crisis. She is the person who’s made groceries less affordable. Kamala Harris has made our country less safe, and Kamala Harris has opened the American Southern border. No running mate is going to allow her to run away from a really bad record for the American people. Do we want to give her a promotion, Hugh? I think the American people are going to say absolutely not. We should kick her out of office.

HH: Senator J.D. Vance, good to talk to you. Keep coming back throughout the campaign. Good luck to you on the trail, and I hope you spend a lot of time in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. I hope your bus is on a circular loop through those four states.

JDV: I’m going to live there for the next few months, Hugh. Thank you.

HH: Thank you, Senator Vance.

End of interview.