My fellow Americans and my fellow Republicans. My name is JD. Vance from the Great state of Ohio.
In the week since he was announced as Donald Trump's running mate, JD. Vans has had some of his past remarks with surface and has been at the center of a number of bizarre rumors and jokes.
Quote can't say for sure, but he might be the first VP pick to have admitted in a New York Times bestseller to effing an inside out latex glove shoved between two coush cushions.
They've been picked up by some Democrats who are labeling the two men on the Republican ticket as weird. In contrast, the man that Kamala Harris has chosen to joiner on the Democratic ticket, Tim Waltz, has been described as aggressively normal.
Him Minnesota, Walsh family here Saturday night. Thought we would just share what we're reading or we're going to read, and then.
So as being ordinary enough to win over the average American voter. And how are Republicans come batting it. I'm a lot of things, but weird, I'm not, and I'm up front and he is not either.
I will tell you JD is not at all. They are.
From Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM today. Senior researcher at the Australian Institute, Doctor Emma shortis on the tactics of the two vice presidential candidates and what their nominations say about their parties. It's Thursday, August eight. So after a series of what's been called chemistry tests with potential VP candidates, Kamala Harris has officially chosen Governor
Tim Waltz from Minnesota as her running mate. So what do we know about him and what makes him a good option.
I think Waltz cuts her a really interesting figure and you can totally see why he would have passed that chemistry test with Harris. I've seen a number of profiles that have described him as the kind of Midwestern loving dad that everybody likes. So he grew up in Nebraska. He joined the National Guard at the age of I think about seventeen. He went on to be a teacher and a football coach before being elected to Congress and then becoming the governor of Minnesota.
Hey, Minnesota, Governor walds here out of the state May with my daughter.
Oh.
Every year we as a family do something old and something new.
I get the Picktures And he's super popular. And I think that's partly because it's like, it sounds so weird to say, but he embodies this kind of big dad energy.
But then we're going to go get some food born dog.
I'm medisarian turkey, then Andy me not in Minnesota Turkey special.
And I think like partly because of that, because he's kind of totally unembarrassed by his normal dad energy, he's also a really effective communicator.
We do not like what has happened where we can't even go to Thanksgiving dinner with our uncle because you end up in some weird fight that is unnecessary.
So he's actually the one who first coined Republicans, particularly JD Evans, being super weird.
Well, it's true, these guys are just weird, and you know they're running for He Man Women Haters Club or something. That's what they got. That's not what people are interested yet.
And he's kind of continued since on that frame of using dad jokes. So in his first rally appearance with Harris in Pennsylvania, and.
I gotta tell you, I can't wait to debate.
The guy Waltz talked about whether they would have a debate and made a joke about whether the Vans would get off the couch.
That is, if he's willing to get off the couch and show up.
Which, for listeners who aren't like as perennially online as we are, is a reference to this totally untrue rumor about jd Vance doing things to a couch, which I will a pretty gross and I will just let listeners kind of pursue on their own time. But you know, he made this joke, and he followed up with the.
Line, you.
So he's really leaning into this like big dad energy, and for the moment at least, it seems to be playing super well.
There seemed to be an assumption that Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvanian governor, was going to be the pick. So what does it say that Harris has gone with Wells instead.
I think it says a lot actually about the campaign and the Democratic Party more broadly, because you're right that there was this assumption that Shapiro was the obvious choice, you know, as the governor of Pennsylvania, which is a
critical swing state. You know, he was going to bring Pennsylvania along there's this sense that he appealed to the quote unquote center of American politics because he's particularly popular with Republicans in Pennsylvania, and so the logic all seemed to suggest that it was going to be this guy
like Barack Obama, had you know, unofficially endorsed him. And so the fact that Harris didn't go with Shapiro, I think suggests that, firstly, that her calculations are really quite different, that maybe she's not focused you know, she's focused on winning as many votes as possible, of course, but she's not focused on winning over the kind of mythical swing
voter at the expense of mobilizing the base. There was this kind of movement in the lead up to this decision from progressive Democrats pushing Harris not to pick Shapiro, particularly because of his positions on Israel and on student
protesters in the United States. He's been particularly aggressive, i suppose in his condemnation of those protests as and his and progressive Democrats called on Harris not to pick him because you know, he would potentially shatter the unity that had emerged after Biden had stepped aside, and the fact that Harris has picked Waltz, who has been quite supportive
of protesters and quite consistent in his position. There really suggests a kind of power shift I think within the Democratic Party and a change in strategy alongside of that.
He seems to have captured the moment, and as you said, he's got a record as being a progressive. What do we know about his time in office.
He has been a very effective governor. So he's done things like expand gun control in the aftermath of the Parkland massacre. He's expanded things like family and medical leave, and has instituted things like universal free school meals, so you know, free breakfast and lunch for kids in Minnesota schools, and a lot of that aligns with Harris has kind of stated priorities around, you know, lifting up the middle class,
and so his credentials there are really quite strong. And again that's why he's quite an interesting figure, because I think Waltz is able to kind of flip the narrative around particularly white American masculinity, in a way that almost no one else could, you know that Harris isn't able to do. And so I certainly think Waltz could broaden Harris's appeal and the Democratic Party's appeal in a really
effective way. Again, you know, remains to be seen. There's still a long time to go, but initially, at least he seems to be having that effect.
What's been the reaction from Donald Trump and the Republicans to this pic.
They're not taking any of it well, They're nor responding particularly effectively. Trump has been posting about Waltz in particular and saying that this is the most radical duo you know that the Democrats have ever put up, which is like not entirely wrong, to be perfectly frank, you know, this is quite a progressive ticket in contrast to you know, what is one of the most conservative tickets of the last several decades of American politics. So he's trying out
that attack line, which he would have done anyway. You know, they're always going to call their Democratic opponents communists, regardless of how out of touchdowns with reality. But it seems like they really don't quite know how to react to the Waltz accusation of being weird.
Well, they're the weird ones, and if you have ever seen her with the laugh and everything else, that's a weird deal going on there.
They're the weird ones, and.
Nobody's ever called me weird.
I mean a lot of things, but weird, I'm not.
Trump is used to setting the narrative and framing the conversation, and so he's been taken by surprise. I think that
he's not doing that at the moment. But also I think, you know, he and his surrogates are used to being described as dangerous and frightening, and that makes them feel powerful, and being described as weird is deeply unsettling, and I think that's partly about how much of their political identity is framed around a kind of hyper masculinity, and being described as weird, particularly now by women and women of color, is a kind of worse nightmare scenario for these kind
of men, and they just don't know how to respond. And I think completely taken aback by how effective it has been.
After the break, two men with similar origins but radically different visions, after the same voters.
I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, a small town where people spoke their minds, built with their hands, and loved their God, their family, their community, and their country with their whole hearts.
So jd. Vance is Trump's running mate and you've actually seen him speak in person and thought he was a good pick for vice president? What made you think that?
So I did see him speaking in Washington, DC a few months before he was announced as the pick, and I thought that because he was an extraordinarily slick operator. You know, he speaks with such clarity and has this extraordinary ability to say incredibly radical things and make them sound like normal and like common sense. And in the room that I was in, which was a foreign policy conference with a very conservative audience, you know, he had people eating out of his hands and kind of following
him around. He had this whole kind of brigade going with him. And so it was I think fairly obvious why Trump would pick him, because he represents the kind of next generation of the MAGA movement.
When I was in the fourth grade, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden supported NAFTA, a bad trade deal that sent countless good jobs.
To Mexico, and suggests that it is bigger than Trump in a way that's not threatening to Trump personally, and.
At each step of the way, in small towns like mine in Ohio or next door in Pennsylvania, or Michigan and states all across our country. Jobs were sent overseas, and.
So in that sense, he was an obvious pick, especially in that kind of moment of hubris after the assassination attempt, while Biden was still the nominee, and while everyone, pretty much everyone, myself included, was pretty convinced that it was now Trump's to lose. So I think in that context, Vance was the obvious pick for Trump. He hasn't handled
his elevation particularly well. I don't think there's clear indications that he may not have appeal outside of that right wing bubble, But I don't think we should write him off necessarily. He's a political chameleon and very good at seeking out power, so this may also just be a stumble and he may find his feet with Trump.
What do you have doubts bett his ability to speak beyond Trump's base? He saw him in the flesh. He had a crowd united, almost a fever pitch. Is it a case that the longer the campaign goes, the more he may isolate voters beyond that group?
So I think I have doubts about that because Vance has been so focused on mobilizing his own base and kind of stoking his own credentials with the kind of maga Republican movement, and so it's been pretty extraordinary and funny as well to see the kind of coverage events frame, you know, comments he's made throughout his career as like being uncovered or like having new videos of him saying weird stuff about women leaked.
So you look at Kamala Harris, Pete boodageg AOC. The entire few mature of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.
The most prominent one at the moment is his comment about single, childless cat ladies running the Democratic Party.
We're effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.
He said that because he was kind of thirsty for attention within the base. So they knew all of this about Dvance and presumably saw it as a positive because he would theoretically be able to mobilize the base kind of reassure them that this is a continuing generational project. Get them out to vote on the issues they care about, you know, particularly abortion, and so the calculation there I
think was logical within the right wing universe. The problem is the inability to anticipate how people will react outside of that. And you can see that with both the surprise at the reception that Vance is getting, but also at Harris's popularity. You know, within that right wing bubble, it's just not occurred to people that a vaguely left wing black woman might be actually appealing to Americans. I'm white, I'm a dude, and I'm for Harris.
Tens of thousands of self proclaimed white dudes for Harris joined a zoom call to rally support for her, even featured a cameo from the dude himself.
Come well, it is just so certainly our girl.
You know, I can see her. So I'm kind of saying yes to both of your questions. I think Daniel want to say that, you know, Vance I think can mobilize the base. He may get enough of them out in places like Pennsylvania to win those stays. But also his appeal doesn't really extend beyond that.
Both of these two men, Jdi Vancentinwelds have quite radically different visions, but ultimately, as just alluded to, both speaking to the working class. So who's message and vision do you think will resonate more with Americans.
It's kind of an impossible question to answer, isn't it until about the sixth of November? But I think you're right. You know, they are seeking to a very similar audiences. So Vance will often talk about his working class origins. He wrote a whole memoir about them. But a lot of his appeal to the working class I think is has a kind of quite thinly disguised contempt particularly white working class people who haven't been able to drag themselves out of the working class in the way that he
understands he did. Whereas you know, you contrast that, I think with Waltz, and his appeal is to kind of a sense of family and community and support and a kind of unconditional love, you know, even for your weird uncle who you just kind of wish would be less weird and a bit more understanding.
What I know is is that people like gd Events know nothing about small town America. My town had four hundred people in it, twenty four kids in my graduating class, twelve for or cousins, and he gets it all wrong.
It's a not.
About heat, it's not about collapsing in the Golden rule. There is mind your own damn business.
Again, that contrast is pretty extreme, and I think certainly the reception to Harris and now Walls at least initially indicates that there is a real appetite for that kind of message, you know, for a different kind of vision of the future, for a bit of joy and a bit of humanity in politics. But again, I think we can't underestimate some of the despair and the apathy, particularly in the Midwest, that Vance and Trump are appealing to. And we know that Trump has been particularly effective at
appealing to that sense of victimhood. So, you know, it's always so easy to get carried away by the momentum of politics. But the contrast between those two tickets is so stark. Now, you know, to go from having two old white dudes who could only distinguish themselves by kind of not being each other, to such a vastly different
politics but also vision for the future of America. You know, Democrats all of a sudden have this kind of clear air, and so they're able to kind of lean into that joy and the slight weirdness of their own campaign in a way that's been really energizing. But the fundamentals of
the electoral map haven't actually changed. The campaign has changed dramatically, but it's still true that, you know, the road to the White House for Harris lies through probably Pennsylvania and Georgia, and winning those two states is going to be pretty critical. I think it's really important that we don't kind of get carried away and assume that this is how it's going to play out, because we know things can change in an instant ema.
I think it's safe to say that American politics can never be categorized as normal. Thanks for your.
Time, anytime, Thanks for having me.
Also in the news today, Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds has told the WA Supreme Court that she felt like a punching clown in a fairground by critical social media posts
from Britney Higgins and David Chaaz. Senator Reynolds is suing miss Higgins over she claims damaged her reputation and we're part of a plan conspiracy to harm her that we're published after Miss Higgins alleged to rape in Parliament House and at the age of fourteen, skateboarder Arissa True has become Australia's youngest Gold Olympic medalist after winning the women's park skateboard event and capturing Australia's fourteenth gold medal of
the Paris Games. True described a moment as insane. That's all for today. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. It helps us out a lot. I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM. Thanks for listening.