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MY THOUGHTS: How JD Vance Went From a Never-Trumper To Vice President

Ok folks, the VP pick is in, and it’s JD Vance.

I thought President Trump was going to rope-a-dope us and tease these four names and then name someone totally different in a surprise move.

Turns out there was no surprise, we officially now have Trump / Vance 2024.

As someone who was rooting for Vivek (in my opinion, the best “Assassination Insurance” Trump could have had), I want to share my current thoughts on why JD Vance and what I think going forward.

I’m going to start with the simple premise that I trust President Trump.

He is privy to way more information than I have, and it’s possible he saw different angles we haven’t seen.

So I start with that basic premise (although I posted the same thing in 2016 when we got Mike Pence, and with all due respect to 45 I think I got that one right).  So let’s just hope we don’t get a Pence repeat.

But even as someone rooting for Vivek, Vance seems much strong than Pence.

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Next up, Elon Musk applauded President Trump’s decision and I respect his opinion greatly as well.

So seeing Elon Musk and Donald Trump both in alignment here tells me it’s a good pick.

Next let’s go to simple logistics.

To win the Presidency you need to win Ohio and the rest of the “Rust Belt” and Vance should easily deliver Ohio:

From BioClandestine:

For those asking “Why J.D. Vance?”:

Trump told us his logic with the announcement.

Currently, the tightest races are in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The Rust Belt states will decide the 2024 election.

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Vance is from Ohio, and Trump told us in his announcement, that Vance’s job during the campaign will be to focus on winning over the hardworking people in these states.

Vance is a Midwest/Rust Belt guy, who hopefully can appeal to these voters, and put Trump over the top in these battleground states. That’s the thought process behind the pick.

Logically, it makes sense. Now we just have to make it work.

So it’s a basic utility pick.

Ok, although Vivek also likely would have delivered Ohio.

Next, I want to go to Vance himself, who explained in this clip how he went to being anti-Trump in 2016 to voting for him in 2020 because he’s the best President he’s seen in his lifetime.

That’s pretty strong.

Watch here:

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Full video player here:

I asked all of you on Twitter if you like the pick and 75% say YES, so that’s good:

Ultimately though, the very best thing I’ve seen so far is this 2-minute clip from Tucker Carlson.

Tucker knows all these people and he is an excellent read of character.

And seeing him say this is all I need to see.

I’m good now.

I want to end with an excellent summary video from my friend Kevin.

Watch here:

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Full transcript here:

Donald Trump has just picked JD Vance for vice president. That makes it a Trump-Vance 2024 ticket. Who is JD Vance and what do I think about JD Vance? Well, I’ll just be upfront—cleaner than Viv but not exactly what you think of when you think of the hillbilly from Ohio, which he sort of pitched himself as when he published his best-selling memoir. Now, we’ll talk about that in just a moment, but let’s try to take this in the most unbiased manner possible.

First of all, he’s a junior US senator. What does that mean? He’s basically brand new, okay? He joined the Senate on January 3, 2023. He took over Rob Portman’s seat. He’s from Middletown, Ohio. He served in the Marine Corps, so he’s a former Marine, and he studied philosophy at The Ohio State University. After he studied philosophy, he then went to get a JD from Yale Law, which is huge. That means, after he got his undergrad, he sat for the LSAT and got into Yale Law, so he probably scored pretty high on that LSAT. Okay, that’s pretty good. In the Marine Corps, he was a Corporal, and he was involved in the Iraq War.

His memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” was about the hardships of growing up as a poor white person in social isolation and poverty, in a white community affected by drugs and addiction. A lot of people, he said, would describe the neighborhood he grew up in as hillbilly, redneck, or white trash, or the sticks. He says no, these are neighbors, friends, and family. This is how he built his reputation—as your classic, clean record, salt-of-the-earth, Rust Belt American, ready to work hard and serve the country. In fairness, shoutout for serving in the Marines. An attorney at Yale, went to Ohio State—this is a great background, right?

When I say cleaner than Vivek, he doesn’t have the background where it’s like, hey, you picked up the rights to a drug that were proven to be worthless, repackaged and rebranded it, IPOed it, and in partnerships with other pharmaceuticals, it also failed. But you used that IPO leverage and the money gained to start investments into other drugs, some of which became successful. Some argue there like, did you trick your way into making a lot of money to produce successful drugs, or is that just the way the game is played? This is not a Vivek video; we don’t have to go deep into that. I’m just saying JD doesn’t have that kind of issue.

The issue that JD has, if it’s even an issue, is he started working in venture capital and has a lot of connections. It’s worth knowing this. He worked in venture capital with the co-founder of AOL. He argues that he came from the poor white folk but then went to Yale Law, worked at venture capital firms, then eventually started his own venture capital firm, receiving checks ranging from $5 to $10 million. This is a very well-connected person. When he entered the Senate race, he didn’t come from nowhere. Peter Thiel donated over $10 million to the Protect Ohio Values Super PAC to support JD Vance for running for office. In 2019, he co-founded Narya Capital with the backing of Marc Andreessen and Andreessen Horowitz, one of the most famous venture capitalists in the world, Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, and Peter Thiel, and raised $93 million for that. Before that, when he was working at the AOL co-founder’s venture capital firm, he worked with $150 million and then raised another $150 million in October of 2020. He was a managing partner over there. He’s been around a lot of money and has a lot of connections.

Now, is it possible that he grew up in a poor area, got scholarships to Yale, and worked himself up by the bootstraps? Absolutely. I do not want to discredit any of that. It’s totally possible to go from super poor to making it in America. I love the message and I support it. If that’s the only criticism of JD, this guy’s squeaky clean. This is why I’ve been saying on the channel I think this guy is probably going to be Trump’s pick. Now we know it’s Trump’s pick because there really isn’t anything to criticize here. His memoir, which I ordered, is from 2016. Some things have changed since then. It actually turned into a Netflix film in 2020. Good for him. His venture capital company is based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Viv is also from Ohio. Viv congratulated him on X, saying congrats to his fellow classmate and that they used to watch the Bengals games together during law school. So, he’s connected. He’s 39 years old. He also beat Tim Ryan, who used to be in the House of Representatives. Remember that TikTok video during the stimulus days where Tim Ryan would do the “I’m in the house” videos? This was back when they were trying to get Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell to actually get some stuff moving. JD Vance beat Tim Ryan, who was trying to go from the House to the Senate. One reason JD Vance beat Tim Ryan is because Donald Trump endorsed JD Vance and JD Vance won.

Previously, JD Vance called Donald Trump “cultural heroin” and “irreprehensible,” but obviously at some point there was a flip-flop. In fact, he was quoted saying in 2016, “I think I’m going to vote third party because I can’t stomach Trump. I think he’s noxious and he’s leading the white working class to a very dark place.” That changed in 2021 when he met Donald Trump. I actually respect this answer. Donald Trump told JD Vance how some generals were manipulating the timing of troop redeployments in the Middle East so they could tell Trump, “Troop levels are coming down and we’re still succeeding,” when they were really just manipulating the timing of when and where troops were. At the time of any given count, it seemed like there were fewer troops in an area. Donald Trump was really frustrated by this. This account was later verified by James Jeffrey, an envoy to Syria, which suggested these shell games were always played in Washington. I believe that because politics is about gamesmanship. I think a lot of folks in the military get frustrated by Washington and having to wait for permission to do what they want to do. The media viewed this as motivated by a Trump grudge, whereas JD Vance is like, no, this actually just upset Trump—the generals were lying to Donald Trump. It was really that story that helped JD start appreciating Trump. That’s what he argues, and that’s when he started coming to like Donald Trump.

Is this to say that the flip-flop was not motivated by getting an endorsement? No, of course not. In 2021, we know the 10 Republicans who went against Donald Trump in the House of Representatives had an 80% chance of losing their jobs because going against Trump going into the 2022 election cycle was a guaranteed way to lose in the Republican party. This is a cool story, but it’s politics and I appreciate it, so I can’t be mad about this.

The guy’s pro-nuclear, which is great. He’s pro-building natural gas pipelines more easily and cleanly. I’m super for that. I hate that California is like, no more pipelines unless they’re 100% green. They’re not going to be 100% green, but they could be more green. Nope, you said you’re not 100% green, so we’re not going to do it. That’s the stuff that limits progress, which is a mental issue. He wants to build more housing and doesn’t like raising taxes on the middle class, even though Joe Biden argues that JD Vance wants to raise taxes on the middle class. JD Vance argues that there’s way more to taxes. What you really need is an economy that’s growing. When an economy is growing, the share of the pie the government gets is bigger. I appreciated that argument. Hell yeah, let’s work to grow the economy. How do you do that? You streamline regulation. I like that.

Some have said he’s kind of pro-FTC and some of the trust busting they’ve been doing. A lot of folks like Elon Musk hate the FTC’s chairwoman. He’s not that opposed to her, so some people are unsure if JD is good for markets or not. Ultimately, it’s a VP pick. This is like us having a debate over how much of an impact Kamala Harris has on the markets. I’m not trying to discredit JD; I’m just saying it’s ultimately going to be Trump’s policies that matter here.

He wants to make it hard for China to take Taiwan and wants to see more weapons going to Taiwan rather than Ukraine. He thinks peace in Ukraine is achievable. When asked about the 2020 election and whether he thinks it was rigged or stolen, he thinks that censorship, tech company manipulation, and the media affected the 2020 election in a way they hadn’t in 2016. He also argues that Pence should not have suppressed the people’s concerns about the certification of the election in 2021 regarding the 2020 election. He gives an interesting argument that I hadn’t thought of before. He was sort of pro more minimum wage increases because he argued that some people at McDonald’s, for example, are going to be replaced with kiosks. Those kiosks will provide value for making it easy for people to order, but the people left at McDonald’s have more responsibilities and get paid more. The people no longer working at McDonald’s can hopefully go on to get a better skill set or job somewhere else. It’s an argument I hadn’t heard before. I don’t horribly disagree with it. I’m generally anti-price controls from the government. I could see JD is a little more trusting in the power of the government’s hand with the FTC and this minimum wage argument. Again, it’s the VP, not the president. He talks about limiting illegal immigration so companies are forced to hire from the existing pool of hardworking Americans. Fair. I’m totally for eliminating illegal immigration. Big fan of making it easier to have more legal immigration.

Something else we saw is that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was announced to have Secret Service protection. Call me jaded on this one, but I think this is rigged. I’ll show you why I think this was rigged. The timing of this weekend’s events: “The president has directed me to work with the Secret Service to provide protection to Robert Kennedy Jr.” There it is. RFK gets protection from the Secret Service, but literally right after that, I tweeted the following: “Donald Trump met Monday morning with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to discuss the possibility of his endorsement per Politico.” I’m like, haha, it all makes sense now. Biden hears Trump’s trying to get RFK’s endorsement. Biden gives RFK Secret Service protection the same day. Biden hopes RFK stays in the race, taking votes from Trump. What a game politics is. I stand by that thesis. It’s all a game. It’s a little too late, realistically. RFK should have had that protection a long time ago, even as an independent candidate. There’s a low chance he’ll win, but still, you don’t want to see another candidate get attacked.

Don Jr. had a back-and-forth with a reporter that’s been going viral. He talks about how the media has created a divisive narrative in the country, that the media doesn’t talk well enough about Donald Trump and the good things he’s trying to do. Then an argument about kids in cages ensues. This goes back to 2014 in the Obama era. The reason kids were deemed to be in cages, also known as dog kennel rooms, was they used chain link fencing between the rooms to separate individuals as they were being processed so that airflow would move between the rooms in some of these temporary facilities. It looks horrible, and the Obama administration freaked out about this. The Trump administration really picked up on this and called them dog cages and kids in cages. That’s where this all came from. A lot of people freak out about the idea of separating family members and children, as they should, and the dog cage argument, as they should, because it is quite inhumane how people are treated at the border. Then again, people should not be coming here and allowed in as illegals; they should be legally processed. But that’s a totally different topic and debate.

Overall, my thesis on JD is that he’s a 39-year-old guy, newer in the political scene. This is a pretty riskless bet for Donald Trump. There’s really nothing here you can pick apart. Elon Musk congratulated him. He suggests that Biden calling Donald Trump a fascist must be stopped at all costs, that the rhetoric from Joe Biden has actually contributed to the shooting of Donald Trump. It is true that he was once a “never Trumper,” but he changed his opinion after meeting Trump and hearing some stories from Trump. Fine. Here’s a guy who, from whatever his background was—let’s just say it was broke—went from broke to this. I’m not saying his memoir was a lie. I didn’t read the whole memoir either. I just ordered it, so I’ll let you know what I think. Here’s a guy who came up from pretty much nowhere in Ohio, went to a prestigious law school, met other powerful people who are now in positions of strength, whether that’s Thiel, venture capitalists, or whoever, and was able to work his way up working in venture capital, getting fundraising for his political campaigns. Now here he is, a VP nominee.

I want to go watch “Mitt Romney Style” now and hear “I’m your VP nominee.” I’m not a good singer, but I thought that was funny. “Mitt Romney Style” was one of those great videos, just good throwbacks. Anyway, there’s your breakdown on who the heck JD Vance is. By the way, he shares a name with Donnie. His name is James Donald Vance. JD Vance. Donald. Donald. It’s Don and Dawn. Don and Dawn are on the ticket. Vote Don and Dawn. That’s what they should be going with.

Thanks so much. We’ll see you in the next one. Bye.


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