Joe Rogan Experience #2526 - JD Vance

1. 0:00 – 0:02

   Intro

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      [upbeat music]

2. 0:02 – 5:04

   UFC on the White House lawn: surreal logistics, heat, and crowd energy

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:02

      Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night. All day. [upbeat music] Uh, so last time we talked, uh, last time I saw you, we were at a cage fight at the-

   2. JVJD Vance0:17

      Yeah

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      ... White House.

   4. JVJD Vance0:18

      That's right. That's-

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      [laughs]

   6. JVJD Vance0:21

      That's one of the craziest experiences of my life. It must have been one of the craziest experiences of your life.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:26

      Oh, yeah, it took me like two weeks afterwards to recover.

   8. JVJD Vance0:28

      [laughs]

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:28

      Just to, like, go, "Did that actually happen?" That seems, it seems so insane.

   10. JVJD Vance0:34

       Okay, the most insane part of it, which I guess was, was before you got there, to, to me at least, is, you know, like, you come into work every day in the White House, right? You, you know, I have an office in the West Wing. There's the Oval Office in the West Wing, and you look out the window, and as this, like, eight-story complex was growing up, it, it was the c- it was just the most unbelievable thing. It's like the South Lawn of the White House, but you've got the eighth wonder [laughs] of the world being built up around it.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:01

       [laughs]

   12. JVJD Vance1:02

       And every day I'd look at it and be like, it would take me a couple seconds, I'd be like, "What the hell is going on?" And I'd be like, "Oh, yeah, it's UFC. It's UF- UFC coming in a couple weeks."

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:09

       The whole thing was surreal.

   14. JVJD Vance1:11

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:11

       First of all, it was crazy that the weather just went around us.

   16. JVJD Vance1:16

       That's right.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:16

       Like, there was a real moment where the fights would've been postponed until 10:30 PM to start.

   18. JVJD Vance1:23

       Correct.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:23

       And, uh, last minute, the storm just diverted.

   20. JVJD Vance1:28

       That's right. Well, and, uh, you know, this, this, uh, this book that I have that I'm, I guess we'll talk about a little bit, but the book tour started the next day. So I was flying to New York the next day to talk about it, and all I could think about is every time we got the update from White House Weather, "Oh, it might not start until 10:30," I was thinking to myself, "Holy shit, that means I'm gonna go to bed at, like, 4:00 AM. I'm gonna look like a total crazy person [laughs] when I try to go talk about, go talk about this book." But yeah, it, it, it, amazingly it did work out. Honestly, it actually helped a little bit because as you know, it was hot as hell out there.

   21. JRJoe Rogan2:01

       Yeah.

   22. JVJD Vance2:01

       And it's super humid, you know, mid-June in, in, in DC, and I think the weather actually helped cool it down a little bit because by about 10:00 or so, I was not thinking, "It's hot as hell out here," anymore.

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:15

       Yeah, it wasn't too bad, but I talked to Justin Gaethje about it, and he said it was a problem when he was fighting. He said the air-

   24. JVJD Vance2:22

       Oh, interesting

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:22

       ... was very thick.

   26. JVJD Vance2:23

       Okay.

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:23

       Like, it, like, right after the first round, he was like-

   28. JVJD Vance2:26

       Yeah

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:26

       ... "Boy, like, this is rough."

   30. JVJD Vance2:27

       Oh.
3. 5:04 – 8:00

   Fight breakdowns: Conor’s injury, Gaethje’s vision issue, and concussion reality

   1. JVJD Vance5:04

      So the last fight, when did you realize that was over?

   2. JRJoe Rogan5:07

      With Conor?

   3. JVJD Vance5:07

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan5:09

      Um, when he fell down the second time, I was like, "Oh, this is not good." I f- f- the first time I thought he just slipped. It's hard to tell. It's wild. It's in the moment. I thought he slipped, and then when he got up and he threw a kick again, I'm like, "Ooh, I don't like how his leg just gave out. That didn't seem like..." And I'm still hoping he's just slipping.

   5. JVJD Vance5:28

      Yeah, yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan5:29

      I'm hoping he's just freaking out 'cause he hasn't been-

   7. JVJD Vance5:30

      Yeah

   8. JRJoe Rogan5:30

      ... in the octagon in five years. And then he started moving around and he, he, like, grabbed his knee and buckled.

   9. JVJD Vance5:37

      Okay.

   10. JRJoe Rogan5:37

       And there was some conversation-

   11. JVJD Vance5:38

       I even noticed that.

   12. JRJoe Rogan5:39

       Yeah, there was some conversation going on between him and Max Holloway, and I was like, you know, Max is saying he can't fight, like something's wrong. And he's saying, "Fight me." He's like, "Get up." And so he lets him up, and then his, his knee buckles, and then the referee stops the fight.

   13. JVJD Vance5:53

       Okay. Yeah. Yeah. There, it, it's always, so, so the v- the very, I think it was the very last fight where the, the ref tried to call it at the end of the third round And then, because he was, he was saying that there was a concussion issue. I mean, I couldn't tell what was going on

   14. JRJoe Rogan6:08

       This the Ilia Topuria fight?

   15. JVJD Vance6:09

       D-

   16. JRJoe Rogan6:09

       The Justin Gaethje fight at the White House?

   17. JVJD Vance6:11

       Yeah, the, the, the Topuria-

   18. JRJoe Rogan6:12

       Yeah

   19. JVJD Vance6:12

       ... Justin Gaethje fight.

   20. JRJoe Rogan6:12

       No, he couldn't see.

   21. JVJD Vance6:13

       Okay.

   22. JRJoe Rogan6:14

       He was saying he couldn't see well, 'cause something was wrong-

   23. JVJD Vance6:17

       Okay

   24. JRJoe Rogan6:17

       ... with his right eye. So-

   25. JVJD Vance6:17

       Well, I mean, it looks like his whole face was puffed up, so he couldn't-

   26. JRJoe Rogan6:20

       Yeah

   27. JVJD Vance6:20

       ... see anything. But okay, so I thought it was a concussion thing, but it was-

   28. JRJoe Rogan6:23

       No

   29. JVJD Vance6:23

       ... it was because of his vision.

   30. JRJoe Rogan6:24

       No, they never do that.
4. 8:00 – 9:35

   UFC vs. boxing: why MMA became the bigger live event

   1. JVJD Vance8:00

      Sure. Well, what's, what's cr-

   2. JRJoe Rogan8:01

      And I, I don't know if Justin can do that

   3. JVJD Vance8:02

      ... what's crazy about it to me is just how much the sport has replaced boxing, and like, there's still, obviously boxing is still a big deal.

   4. JRJoe Rogan8:11

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JVJD Vance8:11

      And fighters still get paid a lot of money, but, like, I remember when I was, I don't know, in high school, I feel like people would get really excited about the big heavyweight-

   6. JRJoe Rogan8:21

      Sure

   7. JVJD Vance8:21

      ... heavyweight title bout.

   8. JRJoe Rogan8:23

      Yeah.

   9. JVJD Vance8:23

      Now it's the UFC thing.

   10. JRJoe Rogan8:24

       Yeah.

   11. JVJD Vance8:24

       So culturally, it's like UFC has taken over boxing, and I don't, I mean, I don't know how or why that happened. Like, I don't know if it's just good marketing or if it's just the fights are so much more real and intense. Like, I, but it's, it, it is a crazy shift that's happened in 20 years.

   12. JRJoe Rogan8:39

       Well, I've had some, I had some friends this past weekend that manage fighters. My friend Josh Dubin and a few other friends that actually manage boxers-

   13. JVJD Vance8:46

       Yeah

   14. JRJoe Rogan8:46

       ... come to the UFC, and they were all like, "Oh my God, this is so much better than a boxing promotion."

   15. JVJD Vance8:51

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan8:52

       Because you c- all the fights are exciting. With boxing, most people are just there for the main event.

   17. JVJD Vance8:57

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JRJoe Rogan8:57

       And a lot of people don't even stroll in until, like, 15 minutes before the main event.

   19. JVJD Vance9:01

       Sure.

   20. JRJoe Rogan9:02

       Like, all the famous people that sit in the front row.

   21. JVJD Vance9:04

       Yeah, yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan9:05

       Uh, in the UFC, that place is packed-

   23. JVJD Vance9:08

       From the get-go

   24. JRJoe Rogan9:08

       ... you know, five, six, seven fights in.

   25. JVJD Vance9:10

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan9:10

       You know, and there's 14 fights in the night, and all of them are amazing.

   27. JVJD Vance9:14

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JRJoe Rogan9:14

       It's like y- the, in the beginning, it's usually, like, half full, depending on where you are.

   29. JVJD Vance9:20

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan9:20

       If you're in a place like Salt Lake City, it's pretty packed, like, right away, because they only get, like, one event every year or so.
5. 9:35 – 14:46

   Armbar mechanics and the ‘heel’ persona: shock moments and manufactured outrage

   1. JVJD Vance9:35

      Yeah. So I'd never seen a fight live before. Like, I've watched them on TV, but I'd never been there live, so kinda crazy that it's literally in the South Lawn of the White House. But the thing that I found completely shocking about it was, like, I would think those, those, like, armbar takedowns are just done. Like, that's it. You're over. But there were a couple of times where somebody had an- another person's arm, and-

   2. JRJoe Rogan9:58

      Yeah, that was Josh Hokett-

   3. JVJD Vance10:00

      [coughs] Sorry

   4. JRJoe Rogan10:00

      ... and Derrick Lewis. Bless you.

   5. JVJD Vance10:02

      Sorry. Um, and it's like, holy shit.

   6. JRJoe Rogan10:05

      Yeah, he just has-

   7. JVJD Vance10:05

      You're gonna have your arm broken off.

   8. JRJoe Rogan10:07

      He wasn't-

   9. JVJD Vance10:07

      And yet he didn't. He-

   10. JRJoe Rogan10:08

       He wasn't doing it right.

   11. JVJD Vance10:09

       Okay. Oh. [laughs]

   12. JRJoe Rogan10:11

       Josh, Josh Hokett is a great wrestler.

   13. JVJD Vance10:12

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan10:13

       And he's an excellent fighter, but he's not really a submission specialist. I mean, he did get the armbar, but he didn't do it right.

   15. JVJD Vance10:19

       Okay.

   16. JRJoe Rogan10:19

       He was basically, like, pulling on... You have to elevate your hips, and you have to create space so that the arm is bending back this way.

   17. JVJD Vance10:27

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan10:27

       'Cause the arm is essentially flat to his chest, which is not what you want. What you want is a back arch like this, where you... See, like, how it is right there?

   19. JVJD Vance10:36

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan10:36

       So what he wants to do here, what he should do, instead of having his hips down, his knees up, what you're supposed to do is heavy leg curls with the leg and elevate the hips up and pull it way back. So he'd almost be bridging.

   21. JVJD Vance10:48

       So you'd, like, bend it. Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan10:49

       He would be on the top of his shoulders and bridging, and then he would've broken his arm. The other option is you pull it off to the side like this.

   23. JVJD Vance10:57

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan10:58

       And you put it to the side of your hip, and you can break it that way.

   25. JVJD Vance11:01

       Okay, okay.

   26. JRJoe Rogan11:02

       But it's just bad technique.

   27. JVJD Vance11:03

       Yeah, okay. So watching it-

   28. JRJoe Rogan11:05

       No offense. No offense, Josh.

   29. JVJD Vance11:06

       Yeah, yeah. Watching it, I didn't realize that. I just could not believe that dude held out for, like, 30 seconds with his arm in that position.

   30. JRJoe Rogan11:11

       Was that more shocking, or when he said Michelle Obama is a man?
6. 14:46 – 19:33

   Comedy, politics, and ‘not funny’ outrage: Tony Hinchcliffe and culture war incentives

   1. JVJD Vance14:46

      ... exactly right. So, s- but okay, so my response to that is so many things is like, oh, he was being funny. He was being outrageous, and I just move on with my life. What I find very interesting is the people who say, you know, "Oh, that was a joke." Like, when, when Kil Tony, remember he told, like, the joke around the world in Madison Square Garden-

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:03

      Oh, yeah

   3. JVJD Vance15:03

      ... during the 2024 election. I remember getting into an argument with somebody about this, and I, I, it may have even been on, like, in an interview, but I don't remember. It could've been private, too. Anyway, I, I'm like, "He told a joke," and the, the person's response is, "Well, it's not a very funny joke." And my response to that is, "You know what ha- happens when somebody tells me a joke that's not funny? I don't laugh, and then I move on with my life." This whole industry around outrage-

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:31

      No

   5. JVJD Vance15:31

      ... especially getting outraged around humor, I think is actually really hurting the country.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:36

      Well, in that case, first of all, I told Tony a long time ago that joke was gonna get him stabbed.

   7. JVJD Vance15:41

      [laughs]

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:42

      I really did. He even jokes around about it on stage.

   9. JVJD Vance15:45

      Uh.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:45

       He, he talks about me telling him, "That's the one, dude. That's the one that's gonna get you stabbed."

   11. JVJD Vance15:50

       [laughs] Any good joke-

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:52

       Yeah

   13. JVJD Vance15:52

       ... at least is gonna run you some risk of getting you stabbed.

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:53

       Well, certainly a, a racial joke, and that joke being about Puerto Rico. Uh, b- by the way, no one takes a joke better than Puerto Ricans.

   15. JVJD Vance16:02

       [laughs]

   16. JRJoe Rogan16:02

       Puerto Ricans are some of the best people at telling jokes. Like, they're, it, it is a culture of joking and, and m-

   17. JVJD Vance16:09

       Of course

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:09

       ... fucking around with each other-

   19. JVJD Vance16:10

       Yes

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:10

       ... and talking shit.

   21. JVJD Vance16:11

       Absolutely.

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:12

       Like, they're great at it.

   23. JVJD Vance16:12

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:12

       So, like, they love him still.

   25. JVJD Vance16:13

       Yeah, I served with some Puerto Rican guys in the Marine Corps, man. That's absolutely true.

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:16

       They love him still.

   27. JVJD Vance16:17

       Yes.

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:17

       You know? Like, even after that joke.

   29. JVJD Vance16:18

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:19

       What it was-
7. 19:33 – 23:19

   California and LA decline: Skid Row, ‘third-world’ contrasts, and why cities stay blue

   1. JVJD Vance19:33

      Well, how do, how do you feel like Austin is going? 'Cause the criticism of Austin, call it five or six years ago, is that all the... Like, it's a cool town, it's got its own unique culture. It's Texas, but it's also its own thing, but that all of the blue staters moving in were gonna, like, totally change the politics and the culture of Austin. I actually don't think that's happened.

   2. JRJoe Rogan19:56

      I think the blue staters that moved here moved here because they recognized that wherever they were living was not tenable.

   3. JVJD Vance20:02

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan20:03

      It was falling apart.

   5. JVJD Vance20:04

      Right.

   6. JRJoe Rogan20:04

      And all of these places like New York and really California, like especially Los Angeles and San Francisco, they're falling apart. And I have a bunch of friends that are stuck there that can't move. Like, maybe they have family there or maybe they have a business there.

   7. JVJD Vance20:22

      Yep.

   8. JRJoe Rogan20:23

      And they fucking hate it.

   9. JVJD Vance20:24

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan20:24

       And then I have a bunch of people that are trying to move, but they can't sell their house. Like, it's nuts there, man.

   11. JVJD Vance20:29

       Yeah, it is.

   12. JRJoe Rogan20:29

       I don't think people... First of all, you, you get gaslit by Gavin Newsom. I mean, he's just gaslighting-

   13. JVJD Vance20:35

       [laughs]

   14. JRJoe Rogan20:35

       ... everybody about how well, you know, all the GDP of, z- z- like the fifth-largest country in the world. That's what California is.

   15. JVJD Vance20:43

       Yeah. It's like, dude, how-

   16. JRJoe Rogan20:44

       Hey, bro, it was like that before you were the governor.

   17. JVJD Vance20:46

       Yeah, exactly. Also, how much does a U-Haul cost if you're leaving California?

   18. JRJoe Rogan20:50

       Right.

   19. JVJD Vance20:50

       And how much does it cost if you're going to California? 'Cause that's the real measure of whether a state's doing well.

   20. JRJoe Rogan20:54

       Yeah. The state has more people moving out than moving in, and that has never happened before.

   21. JVJD Vance21:00

       Correct.

   22. JRJoe Rogan21:01

       California's, when I moved there in 1994 until I left, it was always every year traffic got worse.

   23. JVJD Vance21:07

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JRJoe Rogan21:07

       Every year more people moved there. Every year. And I loved it. I loved it. I loved it from the time I moved there. I was like, "This place is great." It's warm all the time.

   25. JVJD Vance21:17

       Yeah, yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan21:17

       The, the weather's fantastic.

   27. JVJD Vance21:19

       Mm.

   28. JRJoe Rogan21:19

       There's so much cool stuff to do. The people are great.

   29. JVJD Vance21:22

       Yeah. My-

   30. JRJoe Rogan21:22

       And then politics ruined it.
8. 23:19 – 32:55

   Mail-in ballots, LA election suspicion, and voter ID as the trust-reset

   1. JRJoe Rogan23:19

      Let me ask you this.

   2. JVJD Vance23:20

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan23:21

      Why is it that large population centers, like places like Los Angeles and New York, are almost always run by the Democrats?

   4. JVJD Vance23:30

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan23:31

      Like, what is it about... First of all, what happened with the last election in Los Angeles, the, the, just the primary, I, I think was-

   6. JVJD Vance23:40

      It is crazy

   7. JRJoe Rogan23:41

      ... so super sus.

   8. JVJD Vance23:43

      Yes, it is.

   9. JRJoe Rogan23:43

      And here's why it's super sus. Not just super sus that Spencer Platt- Spencer Pratt, who was in second place, got overtaken by Nithya Raman in the mail-in ballots, but that the mail-in ballots also passed a tax hike. The people voted to pay more taxes-

   10. JVJD Vance24:03

       Yep

   11. JRJoe Rogan24:03

       ... in a state where you have the highest taxes.

   12. JVJD Vance24:05

       The highest taxes. That's right.

   13. JRJoe Rogan24:07

       They're like, "We don't pay enough."

   14. JVJD Vance24:09

       [laughs]

   15. JRJoe Rogan24:10

       That is insane.

   16. JVJD Vance24:12

       Uh, that is-

   17. JRJoe Rogan24:12

       And then when you have direct evidence-

   18. JVJD Vance24:15

       Yeah

   19. JRJoe Rogan24:15

       ... that they were recruiting homeless people-

   20. JVJD Vance24:17

       That's right

   21. JRJoe Rogan24:17

       ... and they were getting homeless people and giving them cigarettes and cash. There's evidence of this-

   22. JVJD Vance24:22

       Yes

   23. JRJoe Rogan24:23

       ... to use their, their address in mail-in ballots.

   24. JVJD Vance24:25

       Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be the Californian, Joe, who wakes up in the morning and says, "You know what? I'm gonna go and vote for higher taxes."

   25. JRJoe Rogan24:31

       I don't pay enough.

   26. JVJD Vance24:31

       "'Cause I don't, I don't pay enough taxes."

   27. JRJoe Rogan24:33

       I, I feel like we can fix this if I just pay-

   28. JVJD Vance24:35

       That's right

   29. JRJoe Rogan24:35

       ... five more percent

   30. JVJD Vance24:36

       ... if I just pay [laughs] 5% more taxes. The crazy thing about it too is it's that, okay, so after the initial ballots all came in, it was Karen Bass was number one, Spencer Pratt was right, right behind her, and then number three, whatever this woman's name is.
9. 32:55 – 36:53

   Senate procedure and the filibuster: why ‘easy’ reforms stall

   1. JRJoe Rogan32:55

      Why is that not a federal thing?

   2. JVJD Vance32:57

      We are trying to make it a federal thing. So we are part, right now trying to pass the Save America Act. One of its main provisions is a requirement that you do voter ID. And we actually have, I think, a majority of the Senate that would support it. But this is just weird Senate procedural bullshit. There is a sub-segment of people who want voter ID, but won't blow up the filibuster in order to achieve it. And so they're so married to these old world Senate procedures that they're gonna make it impossible for us to pass Save America. Now, we're, we are, for what it's worth, trying to fix that, and trying to address these, like, weird procedural archaic things. It's insane, though. Like, have you ever... Okay, I'm sure you hear people talk about the filibuster all the time.

   3. JRJoe Rogan33:41

      Yeah.

   4. JVJD Vance33:41

      I don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole. Here's what the filibuster is. It is a pure Senate rule. It is a creation of the Senate procedures, which basically says that anything that has to do with the budget is a 50-vote threshold, and anything that, everything else non-budgetary is a 60-vote threshold. Now, as you can imagine, there's some gray area on things that maybe are, count as budget issues and should be 50, or are not budget issues and count as 60. So what we have tried to persuade the Senate to do is to treat the voter ID as something that can fall within the 50-vote threshold. And there is no law, there's no provision in the Constitution. It is legitimately that there are senators who are so attached to the idea that budget is 50, non-budget is 60, that they're quite literally willing to prevent voter ID in America.

   5. JRJoe Rogan34:36

      God.

   6. JVJD Vance34:38

      It's nuts, dude.

   7. JRJoe Rogan34:39

      It's, it's so crazy.

   8. JVJD Vance34:41

      It's nuts.

   9. JRJoe Rogan34:41

      And it's a- also, like, the idea that somehow or ano- like Kathy Hochul had the craziest take on it. Did you-

   10. JVJD Vance34:50

       She often does. [laughs]

   11. JRJoe Rogan34:51

       Did you see her take on it?

   12. JVJD Vance34:52

       I have not.

   13. JRJoe Rogan34:52

       She was talking about Black people in inner cities not even knowing what a computer is.

   14. JVJD Vance34:57

       [laughs]

   15. JRJoe Rogan34:57

       Did you ever see that?

   16. JVJD Vance34:58

       No, I didn't see that.

   17. JRJoe Rogan35:00

       Oh my God, it was so crazy. And then this one comedian, uh, this Black comedian did this hilarious video where he was, like, circling around a computer staring at it, like touching it like he didn't know what it was.

   18. JVJD Vance35:12

       [laughs]

   19. JRJoe Rogan35:13

       It's just like, what are you talking about?

   20. JVJD Vance35:16

       S-

   21. JRJoe Rogan35:16

       Everyone has a phone.

   22. JVJD Vance35:17

       So-

   23. JRJoe Rogan35:17

       That's a computer

   24. JVJD Vance35:18

       ... so many of these Democratic talking points presume that their own voters are actual idiots.

   25. JRJoe Rogan35:24

       Yeah.

   26. JVJD Vance35:25

       Like, that's actually, there, there's a big difference between, you know, Republicans, we sort of presume that our voters are adults, and you don't see that with a l- I'm not saying every Democrat, of course. I don't want to cast too broad of a brush here. But it's, it's like, you know, Gavin Newsom did this speech a few months ago. The president and I think it's the funniest thing ever because he's, like, speaking to a group of Black leaders and Black businessmen, but it, it's like a, an audience that is 95% Black. And they're asking him about his dyslexia and his struggle with education, and he basically says, "Yeah, you know, um, I'm not very smart like a lot of you." And it's like, well-

   27. JRJoe Rogan35:58

       Yeah, I'm like you. I can't even read

   28. JVJD Vance35:59

       ... I'm like you. You can't even read. [laughs] It's-

   29. JRJoe Rogan36:00

       Meanwhile-

   30. JVJD Vance36:01

       What?
10. 36:53 – 47:16

    Media gaslighting and Biden’s decline: debate shock, Newsom’s spin, and medical history

    1. JVJD Vance36:53

       D- I will say, I, I-

    2. JRJoe Rogan36:54

       He's a bizarre guy

    3. JVJD Vance36:54

       ... so I've only met Gavin, I think I've only met him one time in my life, and it was... It was such a crazy experience. So the debate between Biden and Trump during the 2024 cycle, and I'm there. I'm actually doing an interview for a documentary when the debate starts, and there's this clip of me. The debate starts, I'm in the middle of this interview, there's a big screen behind me as I'm talking to the camera, which is here, and I kind of freeze and I look back at the, the, the TV, and I'm like, "Oh my God," like, "This is actually happening. Biden is imploding." Because if you remember, it was obvious from the get-go. So I go to the spin room afterwards, and that's where, you know, all these reporters and all the surrogates of the candidates. This is before I was the VP nominee, and I'm just, like, you know, talking about how great the president did, how bad President Biden did, okay? I see Gavin Newsom there, and he literally looks like he's seen a ghost. Like, I've, I've never seen a person [laughs] who, as good of a bullshitter as he is, who realized there was no selling that performance. Like, but can you imagine? Like, try to put yourself in the perspective of a human being, I always try to, you know, be empathetic, where Joe Biden has just had that debate and you have to go on CNN to talk about how great of a job Joe Biden did.

    4. JRJoe Rogan38:09

       [lips smack] Well, my favorite is Joe Scarborough, 'cause Joe Scarborough before it was like, "You know, I'm gonna say something and F you if you can't take it. This is the sharpest Biden we've ever seen."

    5. JVJD Vance38:21

       [laughs]

    6. JRJoe Rogan38:21

       Have you ever seen that?

    7. JVJD Vance38:22

       No, I haven't.

    8. JRJoe Rogan38:23

       Oh, it's amazing. And then after the debate, he's like, "We gotta get rid of him."

    9. JVJD Vance38:26

       [laughs]

    10. JRJoe Rogan38:26

        "He, he's gotta go. He's gotta go." Hey, hey, hey, what, what did, what did you say? You just said a couple of months ago this is the best Biden ever.

    11. JVJD Vance38:32

        That's wild.

    12. JRJoe Rogan38:33

        Well, it's like, I wonder what was going on with that. 'Cause, like, the debates were earlier than they've ever been before, and it seemed to me, it's like there was a concerted effort to hide what was wrong with him.

    13. JVJD Vance38:46

        100%.

    14. JRJoe Rogan38:47

        100%.

    15. JVJD Vance38:47

        Yes.

    16. JRJoe Rogan38:47

        Everybody was bullshitting.

    17. JVJD Vance38:48

        Yes.

    18. JRJoe Rogan38:48

        Everybody was gaslighting us.

    19. JVJD Vance38:49

        Correct.

    20. JRJoe Rogan38:50

        We all saw it. I, I remember a friend of mine who's super progressive, super liberal, you know, and when I, I, I talked about it on our podcast. I'm like, "This is crazy. Even if he wins, he's not going to be the guy that's the president. You're going to have his cabinet that are running everything."

    21. JVJD Vance39:05

        Yeah.

    22. JRJoe Rogan39:05

        Turned out I was right. And they were saying, "Oh, don't you understand that he has a stutter?" And I said, "Where the fuck was that stutter in the 1990s?"

    23. JVJD Vance39:14

        [laughs] That's right.

    24. JRJoe Rogan39:14

        Like, that's crazy.

    25. JVJD Vance39:15

        That's right. [laughs]

    26. JRJoe Rogan39:16

        Like, a, a stutter that only shows up when you're 80?

    27. JVJD Vance39:18

        Yeah.

    28. JRJoe Rogan39:18

        That doesn't make any sense.

    29. JVJD Vance39:19

        Yeah, yeah.

    30. JRJoe Rogan39:20

        Like, this is a lie. You're lying. He's had two brain surgeries, like, where they have to take the top of your head off.
11. 47:16 – 1:00:11

    Religion in public schools: Ten Commandments mandates, pluralism, and Christian public life

    1. JRJoe Rogan47:16

       Well, the, the people that, you know, one of the thing, I had James Talarico on the podcast, and one of the things that I think he has a really good point about, even though I know you're Catholic and you're very religious, putting the Ten Commandments in schools, um, I don't think is the right way to do it. And this is a guy, Talarico, who was in seminary and is very Christian.

    2. JVJD Vance47:40

       Mm-hmm.

    3. JRJoe Rogan47:40

       And he just thinks that even though he believes in the Ten Commandments, if you're just only representing the Christian faith in these schools, you're forcing your religion into other people's lives, and that this is gonna push people away from Christianity rather than encourage them to, uh, pursue it.

    4. JVJD Vance48:02

       Yeah, I mean, I, I think you never want to force things on people, and I, I do ... Like I think one of the core Christian contributions to Western civilization is the idea of freedom of religion. It's actually very much a Christian idea because you recognize the dignity of each individual, and part of recognizing that dignity is that each person has to find their own pathway to God. You can't force this on anybody. But I don't think putting the Ten Commandments up in school is, like, forcing things on anybody

    5. JRJoe Rogan48:28

       But it's public schools. So I mean, if you're gonna do that, why not put Buddhist scripture? Why not put, you know, you, you, Muslim stuff? You could, you could f- you could make an argument why you should have a bunch of different religious tenets in schools.

    6. JVJD Vance48:43

       Well, I, I think in the Supreme Court, there actually are a lot of different sort of historical, cultural, legal documents that are up there.

    7. JRJoe Rogan48:50

       Mm-hmm.

    8. JVJD Vance48:50

       And I, I wanna say that Moses coming down with a tablet is one of them, but I, I think there actually are other cultural, maybe even other religious elements of this, like, where you recognize that a big part of sort of the law-giving tradition in Western civilization is the, um, i- is some of these religious texts, not exclusively Christian religious texts, obviously some Jewish. There's, like, a, an important contribution from the Muslim world in this. So I, I don't... I, I guess I don't think of it as exclusionary, while also recognizing that, you know, America is a society. Our founders were people who were very much influenced, even if they weren't Christians, a lot of them, of course, were, but were very influenced by Christian culture in articulating American law. So my argument would be, even if you're not a Christian, like, s- does seeing the Ten Commandments... Let, let me put it a slightly different way. Does seeing the Ten Commandments force religion on a non-Christian child? I mean, my argument would be no, and I'd illustrate this by saying, well, there are all of these ways in which you actually could try to force religion on a child, right?

    9. JRJoe Rogan49:57

       Well, it's not the worst way to force religion on a child, but to have it and not represent any other relig- This is Texas, by the way.

    10. JVJD Vance50:04

        Sure.

    11. JRJoe Rogan50:04

        So what he's talking about was that there's these Christian nationalists, these, these guys that are very wealthy, that are trying to fund Christian schools and trying to defund public schools or any other kind of religious school, and what they wanna do, and, and they passed this, to get the Ten Commandments in all public school classes. And he's fundamentally opposed to that as a Christian, because he thinks it's gonna force people to have this in their class, and it's gonna push people away from Christianity.

    12. JVJD Vance50:35

        I mean, I understand the argument. I just don't see it that way. I mean, I, I, I guess if, if I'm a-

    13. JRJoe Rogan50:39

        I kind of agree with you

    14. JVJD Vance50:40

        ... if I... I, I hear you, but if I'm a non-religious student, and I'm sitting in there and I see the Ten Commandments, at the very least, I think I can appreciate it. I mean, I, you know-

    15. JRJoe Rogan50:49

        Okay, but what if you're a-

    16. JVJD Vance50:49

        I talk, I talk about this in my book. I went through sort of a-

    17. JRJoe Rogan50:51

        What if you're a Hindu? What if you're a Hindu? What if you're a Muslim and, you know, and you are seeing that represented, but not your faith?

    18. JVJD Vance50:59

        Well-

    19. JRJoe Rogan50:59

        It's a public school

    20. JVJD Vance51:00

        ... fir- first of all, I think that you, you... I, I mean, I, I'm pretty sure Muslims, I'm not h- hardly an expert on Islam, but I, I think all of the Abrahamic faiths recognize the Ten Commandments as, like, a significant thing. But I think if I was a Hindu looking at the Ten Commandments, I, I mean, again, I... It's hard for me to say this, right, from my, my perspective, but I certainly went through an atheist phase in my, in my youth, and what I would see that as, as a non-religious person or a different religion, is I would say, "This is, like, an important cultural element of the Western civilization, which is the foundation of the classroom that I'm sitting in." And this idea that the law comes and is sort of above any man, even if you don't believe in God yourself, I think that's, like, an important concept. I mean, if you look at the Ten Commandments, probably eight of them are something that I would hope that everybody would agree with, even if they're-

    21. JRJoe Rogan51:52

        Mm-hmm

    22. JVJD Vance51:52

        ... not themselves religious. So I, I guess, here's my, my view on it. Like, I would not be offended if I sat in a classroom as a Christian or if my kid sat in a classroom as a Christian and saw, you know, a religious text that wasn't Christian on, on the wall. I would encourage them-

    23. JRJoe Rogan52:10

        You wouldn't?

    24. JVJD Vance52:10

        ... to see that. No, I'd encourage them to see that as a learning experience, to try to understand things.

    25. JRJoe Rogan52:13

        Well, well, what if it was from the Quran? What if it was a bunch of statements from the Quran?

    26. JVJD Vance52:16

        Well, I guess it depends on what it was, right?

    27. JRJoe Rogan52:18

        Right, but-

    28. JVJD Vance52:18

        If it's, if it's, like, something crazy. But, but no, I mean, if, if, if it's, if it's something that is, like, culturally interesting, I, I guess I don't, I don't have a problem with my kid reading something-

    29. JRJoe Rogan52:29

        Because it's... The problem is it's mandated. Like, if you have a classroom, and the teacher is Christian, and the teacher wants to have it in their classroom, maybe that's one thing. But if you're mandating that you're gonna have the Ten Commandments in classrooms, that's a different thing, because now you're, you're pushing Christianity on kids, and this is Tallarico's position. He, and as a Christian, he's saying, "I think this is gonna push children away from Christianity."

    30. JVJD Vance52:56

        So I, again, I, I, I understand what he's saying. I just, I think that part of living in a society where you have different people with different perspectives, but you do have... I mean, Christianity is the majority religion of the United States. It is the religion that was extraordinary influential to our founding, to the constitutional principles. Again, freedom of religion is itself not really a liberal concept. It was or- originally derived, um, from, from, from a Christian idea about free will and the dignity of the person. I think part of that is that you accept that you're gonna have exposure to different things, and if a, if a state legislator in a majority Christian state wants to... It, it's not like they're putting the Ten Commandments in front of these kids and saying, "You have to read this and, you know, write it 500 times a day." They're exposing kids to something, and I'm comfortable with kids being exposed to a lot of different things. I think that's part of living in a society where there's a free exchange of ideas. And what I, what I worry about with Tallarico's sort of perspective here is, is again, I'm not saying that I, I don't want kids to be exposed to anything that is outside of the Christian canon. Like, I, I actually want my kids exposed to things. I, I write about this in the book, that I think it's important to have a grounded enough faith that you can engage with a lot of different ideas and still ultimately, you know, sort of hold onto your, to your Christian faith. But I- isn't part of just living in a, like, pluralistic democracy that people are gonna be exposed to different things? And, you know, I, I would kind of put it on Tallarico in a slightly different way, that for a long time in this country There were actually Supreme Court rulings that said that you cannot pray in a school, even a, a student organization led by the students, or that you cannot put the Ten Commandments up, even a teacher who chose to do it in their own classroom. And so I, I think you're always kind of trying to strike this balance, you know, given that we have the First Amendment in this country, between allowing the practice of religious faith in public spaces and po- possibly forcing religion on other people. I think you have to strike that balance the right way. I guess I'd just say is that if the Ten Commandments being in a classroom is the thing that you think is forcing religion on somebody, was he equally offended when the Ten Commandments were, like, quite literally prohibited from being listed in a public building?
12. 1:00:11 – 1:06:28

    Apocalyptic ‘holy war’ rhetoric vs. humility: Iran, Revelation claims, and moral restraint

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:11

       But then there's people like... Did you read that report, uh, that came from, at the start of the Iran war, where, uh, there was a guy who was an officer, a non-commissioned officer, who was, uh, at, uh, um, a briefing, and this guy came in and was explaining to them that they didn't need to be afraid because this war was important because Trump had been anointed by Jesus Christ-

    2. JVJD Vance1:00:41

       [laughs]

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:42

       ... to bring about his return, and the way they were gonna... Jesus was gonna return was by bombing Iran.

    4. JVJD Vance1:00:50

       I did not see that report

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:51

       Okay, this is-

    6. JVJD Vance1:00:51

       That sounds pretty far out there to me

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:52

       But this is the kind of right-wing-

    8. JVJD Vance1:00:55

       I see

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:56

       ... thinking. Here, so here it is. "Military commander tells troops bombing Iran is part of God's divine plan." So we started getting calls in the wee hours of Saturday morning from people saying their commanders were just jubilant about this, trying to tell people, "Don't worry, it's all part of God's plan." Um, "They promised a 200-mile-long river that is four and a half feet deep, filled with nothing but the blood that their weaponized version of Jesus will spill at the Battle of Armageddon," Weinstein said. Um, but what, what was the one, uh, there was a, there was an article where the guy was explaining the actual quotes that the, the one, uh, officer was telling him.

    10. SPSpeaker1:01:35

        I thought that was-

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:01:35

        The one commander. Uh, yeah, but it's not that.

    12. SPSpeaker1:01:39

        No.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:39

        There was... It was very specific. He was, it was very specific what he said. Um-

    14. JVJD Vance1:01:46

        I mean, for what it's worth, my, my attitude on this stuff is, I, I mean first of all, as, as a Christian, you sort of believe that everything is, is part of God's plan, even things that are ultimately very terrible. I mean, you kind of have to make a accommodation-

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:01:58

        Hold up. Let me, let me-

    16. JVJD Vance1:01:58

        Yeah

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:01:58

        ... read the quote. "He urged us to tell our troops that this was all part of God's divine plan, and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelations referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He said that President Trump had been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark His return to Earth."

    18. JVJD Vance1:02:19

        Okay.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:02:20

        If I'm in that meeting, I'm like, "Hit the brakes."

    20. JVJD Vance1:02:24

        [laughs]

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:02:25

        Hit the brakes. What, what-

    22. JVJD Vance1:02:26

        Well, that's, that's where you need some of the psychedelics we talked about at the last, uh, Joe Rogan/JD Vance conversation. [laughs]

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:02:32

        That would definitely help. That would definitely help.

    24. JVJD Vance1:02:33

        I mean, okay, my, my response to that, first of all, like obviously do I endorse that? No. Do I think that it's important that people rein it in a little bit? 'Cause I'm sure you're right, there were a lot of troops there, probably a lot of Christian troops there who were like, "Uh, I'm not sure this is exactly right."

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:02:47

        Right.

    26. JVJD Vance1:02:48

        But the, the important point is, I think it's important as a Christian leader, as Christians period, one of the things we have to do is just have humility in the face of, of God's plan. There's a lot that we don't understand. There's a lot that we don't get. And I think especially on matters of war and peace, the approach that I try to take is you try to make the best decisions that you can. You hope that you're on God's side. You don't assume that God has taken your side. That's a, that's a very famous Abraham Lincoln quote, and that's the attitude that I take. So for that, what I [laughs] you know, what I would encourage that NCO to say is, "You know what? God is in control. We don't know what's gonna happen, but let's pray and try to do as good of a job as we can, trusting in God." If I was speaking to a group of Christian troops, that's what I would say.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:03:35

        But you're speaking to a group of troops.

    28. JVJD Vance1:03:37

        Sure.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:03:37

        You don't know if they're Christian.

    30. JVJD Vance1:03:38

        Yeah, yeah.
13. 1:06:28 – 1:18:18

    Iran strategy in depth: hardliners vs pragmatists, Strait of Hormuz leverage, and diplomacy

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:06:28

       Do you think that this, the way that you just described it, aligns with our campaign in Iran?

    2. JVJD Vance1:06:34

       Well, I think that the goal is certainly good, which is to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I, I think that there are obviously a lot of questions about how best to achieve that. There's both a short-term and a long-term piece of it. I think the short-term piece of it is effectively what's already been done, which is you destroy the nuclear sites, and you destroy and eliminate the ability to rebuild the nuclear sites. I think there's a longer term thing, which is where, like, a lot of the debate is focused on right now, which is that building a nuclear program is hard, but it's not impossible. And it's expensive, but it's actually not even that expensive if you look at... I mean, you could go on YouTube right now and find out how to build an atomic bomb. So part of our Iran policy, and this is where I get frustrated with the people who say you should never negotiate with Iran, part of our Iran policy is, like, solving the long-term problem, that if we could create the sort of circumstance where Iran would commit not just to not have a nuclear weapon right now, but over the long term to not try to rebuild that capacity, like, yeah, I think that that is a good and, and valuable thing.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:07:43

       If it was your call, would you have done exactly the same thing?

    4. JVJD Vance1:07:45

       [laughs] Well, what did the, the president said, um, publicly that JD was less enthusiastic about it-

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:07:52

       Yeah

    6. JVJD Vance1:07:52

       ... I think was the exact phrase that he used. I, I mean, my attitude towards this, man, as, as you know, as the vice president, I'm not a public commentator. Like, my job is to give the best advice I can to the president of the United States. I think he's said a little bit about what that advice was. Um, but once the president makes a decision, so long as I think that it's, you know, legal and ethical and all that stuff, and I certainly think whether you agree or disagree with it, what we've done has been, has been legal, my attitude towards it is I try to make it as successful as possible. And I've got friends, of course, I think, you know, you've expressed some skepticism of this. I've got a lot of friends, both in p- private and public, who've expressed skepticism of this who say, "Well, this is terrible. We disagree with the decision," et cetera, et cetera. I'm not a public commentator. My approach to this is not to Monday morning quarterback a decision that was made three months ago. My approach to it is to try to make it as successful as possible, which is why I poured my heart and soul into these negotiations, which is why I've tried to make that goal, Iran not having a nuclear weapon, something that's not true, both not just now, but is true in the long term, and that's the way that I try to approach it.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:08:59

       So what is going on with Iran where it seems like the president keeps saying that a deal's been reached, negotiations have been successful, and then it all falls apart-

    8. JVJD Vance1:09:11

       Yeah

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:09:11

       ... and we start bombing them again?

    10. JVJD Vance1:09:13

        Yeah, so, [sighs] uh, how long do we have here? 'Cause this is a long conversation.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:09:16

        We have as much time as you need.

    12. JVJD Vance1:09:17

        So, so, so, uh, I have to explain a couple of things in the background so you sort of fully a- appreciate, um, people fully appreciate what's going on here. So, so number one, it's a bit of a simplification, but you have two elements within the Iranian system. You have, and, and you sometimes hear hawkish Americans say this, that they're all crazy people. They wanna bring about, you know, the, the 12th Imam, and the apocalypse, and all that stuff.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:09:40

        Right.

    14. JVJD Vance1:09:40

        There are people in Iran who believe that. There are also pragmatists. So you've got the crazy people, and you've got the pragmatists, okay? So when we struck this MOU, and really what the MOU says, and I've... It, it was misrepresented more than almost anything that I've ever worked on in public life. What it says is Iran is gonna open the Strait of Hormuz, the violence is gonna stop, and then we're gonna negotiate to see if we can come to a broader deal on the long-term nuclear issue. That's what we wanted. And what the Iranians wanted, of course, was long-term economic and sanctions relief. Now, here's, here's the problem with where we are right now, and, and I guess my summary view, Joe, is that I, of course, can't predict the future. I don't know exactly where this is going to go, but I think fundamentally we are on the right trajectory. It's just gonna be really messy, and there's gonna be a lot of stops and starts. So what happens? The first week after we'd signed the MOU, we get 20 million barrels a day of oil out of the Strait of Hormuz. That's what it was before the war. The price of oil comes way down, and there are elements, the hardliners in the Iranian system, kind of freak out a little bit. They're like, "Oh, shit. Did we just give away our major leverage point? Screw nuclear weapons. We just gave away this SO in this MOU." And so there was this kind of freak out in their system. So they shot at a couple ships. We responded. And I think that's entirely appropriate, of course. If they're gonna shoot at ships, we are gonna shoot at the people who are shooting at the ships, or we're gonna destroy the facilities that they're using to shoot at ships. So that happens. Okay, and then the Iranians are like, "Oh, no, fine. That, that... You're, you're, you're right. We shouldn't have been shooting at ships." So then they come back to the table, and there's a few more days of negotiation, and then the phase that they're in right now is the hardliners have really, really reacted strongly to all the oil that's coming out of the Strait of Hormuz, and they've basically said, "We're gonna try to shut this thing down. We're scared about losing our leverage." Now, the pragmatists in their system are saying, "This was a mistake. Let's keep on talking." And again, do I know how this is ultimately gonna shake out? Of course I don't. But what we're doing is a delicate diplomatic dance where we're using economic leverage points, we're using carrots and sticks, we're trying to talk to the pragmatists, and then of course, when they commit acts of violence, we're responding to it, and all those things are happening simultaneously to get us on a better trajectory. Now, that said, yes, right now there's... They're shooting right now. Last night they shot at some ships. The... But with all that said, is their nuclear program still destroyed? Yes. Are the straits not necessarily fully pre-war traffic, but are we getting enough oil and gas out of the Strait of Hormuz to prevent a worldwide energy crisis? Yes. And all of these things are happening in the context of the broader negot- negotiation over the nuclear program. You never know where this is ultimately gonna end up, but that's where we are. And then the, the... Can I just say one other thing about this? 'Cause there are people, you know, you see Mike Pence, who's sort of a super hawk, my predecessor, who say this. There are people, you know, um, who are super hawkish in the American system who have attacked the deal and, and frankly in some ways have tried to derail the deal. And what I always say to those people is, "What is your proposal? What is your actual argument?" So, so just take the Strait of Hormuz, like the narrowest, but in some ways the most important part of this back and forth right now. Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway. To the extent you shut it down, you shut down 25% of the world's energy supply, okay? Joe, you could take $100,000 and go buy a bunch of drones on the black market and post yourself on an island in the Strait of Hormuz or near it, and you could fire drones at those ships, okay? Now, what does that mean? Some oil and gas is still gonna get out, 'cause some ships and some ship captains are just gonna say, "Screw you." Now, the United States can help that, right? We can shoot down some of those drones, we can shoot down some of those missiles, and so we can facilitate the flow of traffic. But the people who are like, "You cannot negotiate with the Iranians," the reason why that's fundamentally idiotic is because so long as you have some person who's willing to fire off a few cheap drones, you're gonna have some ship captains who say, "No, no, no, we're not willing to do this." So we gotta kinda use all tools at our disposal. The military is one tool, but diplomacy is another tool, and I, I'm very frustrated by the Americans, and frankly, by people in other countries who are like, "You cannot negotiate with the Iranians." Well, then what is your proposal to get people to stop shooting at ships in the Strait of Hormuz? You can bomb them. You can take away their radar. You can take away some of their drones and some of their missiles, but it's just too easy to fire at ships in the straits, so you've gotta actually be willing to talk and to try to figure out the problem.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:14:24

        What is their proposal, the people who think you shouldn't negotiate with Iran?

    16. JVJD Vance1:14:28

        I think that their proposal is to bomb and bomb and bomb, and the honest view, Joe, is that they, they do not actually have a solution. If you actually ask them, "What do you want us to do? What is the goal that you're trying to achieve?" You know, they'll, they'll say things like, "We'll just bomb them to oblivion." Okay, we can do that. We can drop a lot of bombs, but what does that accomplish if there's still a crazy person who's still willing to shoot a few drones at the Strait of Hormuz? What the president has done, I think very, very capably, is said, "We're gonna use military force in the, in this situation when it's connected to something we're trying to achieve. So if you shoot at ships, we're gonna shoot at the facilities at which you used to shoot at the ships. But we're not just gonna do something open-ended indefinitely. We're not just gonna bomb and bomb and bomb. We're gonna try to use our military force as one of the many tools that we have to solve the problem." And obviously, like, I'm biased, but I think that's exactly the right approach. W- I, I actually... I think you have to read between the lines a little bit, 'cause if, if you look at what Mike Pence or some of the conservative hawks, like people who voted for us but have been very critical of me, very critical of the administration, if you actually look at what they're proposing, they just want the military campaign to go on forever, and they can't actually identify what it is that they're trying to accomplish. None of them can identify what it is they're trying to accomplish, and I, and I read two things between the lines. I think some of them want us to accomplish a complete change in the government of Iran, to topple the clerics and to replace that, those clerics with somebody who's, you know, much friendlier. But, like, look, what is our experience with doing that?

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:16:06

        Not good.

    18. JVJD Vance1:16:07

        It's awful.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:16:07

        Yeah.

    20. JVJD Vance1:16:07

        It's not good, right? And so, like, if the Iranian people wanna rise up and change their government, that's up to them, but we're not gonna send 150,000 ground troops in, uh, in order to accomplish a change in a regime unless the people on the ground themselves want to accomplish that outcome. Now, we're not gonna send the troops in regardless, but, like, to propose sending in the troops, you're basically saying that the US military should do the job for the Iranian people. We're not in that business anymore. We're, we're just not. And then I think a second outcome that people are, are, whether they're aware of it or not, is what I call the Libya outcome. So if you look at the end result of our Libya policy after Gaddafi was killed, by the Obama administration, by the way, again, a, a very stupid decision, what happened? Libya basically turned into a failed state. You had a refugee crisis. You had people pouring into Europe, pouring into other parts of Asia, other parts of Africa. You had a lot of violence, a lot of terrorism come from that. I do think that there are people who would like that to be the outcome in Iran. But then I say, again, what is in our interest? How is it in the United States' interest to have 94 million desperate people flooding into Europe, flooding into the United States, to have, you know, sort of the, the, the terrorist infrastructure that can get established when you fan terrorists all over the world? We've run this experiment before, and so our policy right now, what we're trying to accomplish, is get the straits open, ensure the free flow of oil and gas. Obviously, we want to keep the Iranians from having a nuclear weapons program, and using the tools of diplomacy and military power to accomplish that.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:17:50

        And Libya failing and l- the, the collapse of Libya is a lot of what's fueled the migrant crisis in Europe as well, correct?

    22. JVJD Vance1:18:00

        Exactly. That and Syria, another failed state that was created by bad Middle Eastern policy. So there is precedent for the United States doing this. Every time that it has happened, it's caused a refugee crisis, it's caused a spike in terrorism, and it's also, not incidentally to the moral considerations, it's led to a lot of innocent civilian deaths.

14. 1:18:18 – 1:35:03

    Foreign influence fights and ‘$300B’ claims: Gulf investment, hawks, and attempted deal sabotage

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:18:18

       Now, what was the, the talk about, uh, I think the number was, like, $300 billion in concessions to Iran-

    2. JVJD Vance1:18:26

       Yeah

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:18:26

       ... to rebuild and...

    4. JVJD Vance1:18:28

       Yeah, so th- this is another just bullshit argument that the critics made against the deal, and, and a- and again, like, I... Just to back up a little bit, this is my own little hobby horse, but look, we, the coalition that Donald Trump piloted to the 2024 election campaign, it was a landslide. We won seven states. It was historic. Nobody, certainly no Republican, had actually led a coalition like that at least since the days of Ronald Reagan, so, like, literally before I was alive, okay? So Donald Trump wins this great coalition, and look, it's got, man, it's got hawks, and it's got people who hate foreign wars, okay? It's got people like you and people like Tucker. It's also got people like Mark Levin and others, okay? M- I just accept that as a reality. That's part of the coalition. I don't say that anybody is welcome or unwelcome. I say that if you're willing to sort of help us, you're gonna get a lot what you want. You don't get everything that you want. What has really annoyed me about the, the hawkish side of this thing is they attack any effort to negotiate, they attack the president, they attack me personally. "Donald Trump is betraying me." Well, wait a second. I- if you, if you, if you wanna have, like, a hawkish policy towards Iran, the idea that Donald Trump has betrayed you because he's also trying to negotiate to get a good outcome for the American people is crazy. And so you've seen a lot of these people completely flip on him, and that brings me to the 300 milli- or the $300 billion point. What we, what we did with, with the MOU is, is we actually worked not just with the Iranians, but with the Gulf Arab states.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:20:06

       What is the term MOU? What does it stand for?

    6. JVJD Vance1:20:08

       Sorry, memorandum of understanding. It's the basic, it's the basic structure that we set up for the negotiation. So what, what happened here is, okay, so, so people sort of think of, of the Middle East as, like, Iran versus Israel. I think a lot of people do. There's also a massive number of-

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:20:25

       Gulf States

    8. JVJD Vance1:20:25

       ... Gulf States that are really important, good allies to the United States. You know, they and Israel don't always see eye to eye, but we're obviously very close to both Israel and to the Gulf States. And the Gulf States actually came to us and said, "You know what? If the Iranians are willing, really willing to change their behavior, we'd like to invest in rebuilding their country." Now, whether they change their behavior is something that's gonna be determined over the long term, right? We wanna see real changes. We wanna see them to s- stop funding terrorist organizations. And also, of course, none of that money comes from the United States. But if Iran's biggest enemies in the region are saying, "We'd like to invest if they've changed their behavior, would the United States let us?" Would we release the sanctions that would make it possible for the UAE and Saudi Arabia and other countries to invest in Iran? Our attitude was, well, isn't that a victory for us? If Iran's biggest enemies see that they have changed themselves so much that they're willing to invest in the Iranian economy, isn't that, like, the definition of a win-win? And then you had all these people saying, "No, no, no, no, you can't give them $300 billion." It's like, we're not talking about giving them $300 billion. We're talking about letting other countries invest in Iran if Iran has changed the way that it treats the Gulf Arab countries. It's fundamentally between them, meaning the Iranians and the Gulf Arab countries. So there's this line in the MOU that basically says that if Iran meets all of its obligations, then we will permit other countries to invest in Iran. That's it. A- and that, like again, the hawks attacked us and misrepresented this and lied about it and said the Trump administration is gonna give the Iranians $300 billion. And it's totally fake, it's completely made up, and it was done purely in order to politically tank the negotiation. So th- there, there's been this interesting dynamic here where as we've been trying to negotiate, there have been these extraordinarily well-funded efforts to tank the negotiation, to prevent us from reaching a deal, to change American public opinion, which by the way, if you look at the public opinion, people love the idea of actually getting to a final resolution on this thing. Americans do not, th- they're not game for long-term, you know, open-ended regime change wars in the Middle East. They're okay with us using the military to accomplish discrete objectives. They're not okay with open-ended obligations.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:22:54

       What do you think the motivation of the hawks is? Do, do you think this is, uh, are they influenced by defense contractors? Are they influen- what is, what's the reason why they're so keen on continuing to bomb?

    10. JVJD Vance1:23:08

        I think w- uh, with any big group of people, you have, you know, you have a diversity of opinions. So, so sure. I, I'm, I'm sure that, you know, you have people who are influenced by defense contractors. You know, there's a lot of talk about how, how much is the Israeli government influencing American politics and, uh, there are certainly certain people within the Israeli government who hate the deal, and we, we, we see exact evidence. There was a Time story that came out yesterday, um, that basically there are certain influencers in America who are being paid in order to attack the deal. I think some of it, it's just pure political ideology, right? It's foreign policy perspectives that is, that are much different from mine. They think that America should just, that we can basically, you can wave a magic wand with the military and accomplish whatever you want, and, you know, it's, it's not that simple. You actually have to have a very clear objective. Military power can accomplish a clear objective, but you've gotta have that clear objective. You can't just say, "We're gonna bomb until something good happens." That never works. The United States has tried that before. So I think it's a combination of things, but I, I definitely think you have seen this very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation and try to derail the deal. And, you know, th- there was, again, there's this Time article that came out yesterday. A friend sent it to me. It's, like, worth reading because it lists a bunch of people who have quite literally been paid by a former Trump campaign person who was himself paid by certain elements within the Israeli government, and those people are attacking me viciously for quite literally trying to accomplish the negotiation objective that the president set for the country. So-

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:24:55

        What is their position? Like, are they attacking you how?

    12. JVJD Vance1:24:58

        Oh, it's, it's social media posts. It's, you know, they're leaking to reporters. They're attacking me obsessively, saying that we should not be negotiating with Iran. We should just keep the military campaign going indefinitely, and that is, that is their explicit position. And coming after me saying that, you know, p- people have come after me and say that I'm influenced by Qatar, that I'm influenced by foreign governments, that, you know, I take my marching orders from Tucker Carlson, and there, there's just so much bullshit out there when what I'm actually trying to do is accomplish what the president of the United States told me to accomplish, which is a settlement of this that accomplishes our objectives Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon. We have the free flow of oil and gas. And, and, and like I should be clear, um, you know, like I don't actually mind, I don't mind that the, you know, let, let's say certain elements of the Israeli government wanna criticize the deal or have disagreements about the deal. I don't even mind an effort to try to influence, you know, foreign governments try to influence the United States all the time. You know, Israel does it, other countries do it. It's just sort of the nature of the beast. What bothers me is actually when Americans allow, meaning American leadership allows that influence to affect their judgment and to affect what they are advocating for. That's what really bothers me. People are always gonna try to influence the United States of America, whether they're allies of ours or whether they're enemies of ours. But again, when I open up the pages of Time magazine and I see that there's a literal foreign influence campaign being funded to tank the very deal that I was pursuing, and oh, by the way, many of the people who were receiving that money were actually attacking me in completely dishonest ways, you know, my response to that is, "Well, go to hell. I'm gonna do what I have to do for the American people. I represent Americans first, and that's the way that I've, I've tried to, to do this job." And I, you know, Joe, the crazy thing is I'm like, people don't realize this. I'm actually in this, you know, there's this massive pro-Israel, anti-Israel debate in the United States of America. I'm like the reasonable moderate, and I think that's what so many people don't realize is, you know, I've been accused of being an anti-Semite. I've been accused, be- been accused of-

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:27:25

        But for what reason?

    14. JVJD Vance1:27:26

        [lips smack] Uh, quite literally for, um, I, I've been accused of trying to, I guess some people say that I've insulted the Jewish religion, which is insane. Like, I, like I have a ton of respect for the Jewish religion. I mean, if you talk about-

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:27:39

        But what specifically did you say? Like-

    16. JVJD Vance1:27:40

        I don't know. I've never heard the, a good compelling argument for why I'm an anti-Semite, even though I've been accused of being an anti-Semite by many people, but it's, it, it, what always... What I say to these guys is, "Look at public opinion. Look at the way young Republicans versus Republicans over the age of 65 approach this issue." Like right now, Israel is losing the public opinion battle in the United States of America. It is a simple and obvious fact. Donald Trump has said that publicly. It's a simple and obvious fact.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:28:15

        Why do you think that is?

    18. JVJD Vance1:28:17

        Well, let me finish this point-

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:28:18

        Okay, go ahead

    20. JVJD Vance1:28:19

        ... 'cause, 'cause, okay, my attitude is, towards this is, Israel is an ally. Like France or like the United Kingdom, we're gonna have disagreements with them, we're gonna have agreements with them. There are areas where we're gonna have similar interests and areas where our interests are gonna diverge. So my approach to this is to say, "You know what? When we're partnered, great. Let's work together. And we're not, let's just be honest about it." And I, for that, people attack me for being an anti-Semite or anti-Israel, and they don't see the writing on the wall that I'm actually just the guy advocating for a normal relationship with a normal country that's based around shared interest as opposed to based around, you know, something else. So why are, why is Israel losing, um, why is Israel losing American public opinion?

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:29:09

        Well, the narrative is that Israel has a, a very disproportionate effect on American politics.

    22. JVJD Vance1:29:15

        Yeah, I see that. I see that narrative. I mean, I actually think that they... Look, do they try to influence American politics? Yes. But like I said earlier, a lot of other countries do. I think some are-

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:29:28

        To the extent that Israel does, though?

    24. JVJD Vance1:29:29

        I think some are better at it than others. I think the Israelis are definitely more effective at it than most, but I wouldn't say that they're the only effective country by any means that tries to influence American politics. I just think you have to be self-aware about it. I mean, why wouldn't you? It's a country of 9 million people. We have 330 million people, and so of course they're gonna try to persuade Americans. They're gonna try to move Americans in one direction or another. I think that's just the nature of the beast.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:29:53

        Yeah, but it's more than that. The concern is that they're spying on American politicians, that they're, there's, there's, there's concerns about funding, there's concerns about influence, there's concerns about whether or not politicians are, whether they're aligned with Israel or whether they're aligned with the United States first.

    26. JVJD Vance1:30:14

        Well, there's certainly, [sighs] like I definitely get those concerns, but my sense is the, the way that all foreign influence works in the United States is people try to manipulate American public opinion, and then from manipulating public opinion, they try to get the outcomes that they want. I mean, this thing is a very good example of this. So, you know, like we know, I'm telling you beyond a reasonable doubt, we know that the negotiation strategy that the president has asked us to pursue, and again, with limitations, like when the Iranians hit ships, the president has been willing to knock the hell out of the Iranians in response. This is not just a negotiation. It's negotiation, it's military, it's all these things. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there have been people within the Israeli government who are trying to, like, actually shift us away from that policy because they want to continue the military campaign. And by the way, like there are people within their government that I love, I have good relationships with. I hope, and I don't think that they're part of this. I mean, you know, the, the ambassador of, of, uh, Israel to the United States I think is actually a really good guy. Obviously, he cares about Israel first. I care about America first. But there are some people within their system we know beyond a shadow of a doubt who are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely. Again, not towards any objective, but just indefinitely. So, like, does it happen? Yes. But I guess what I would say To the Americans who sort of see this and are frustrated by it, my attitude would be you should be frustrated at American leaders who are, you know, persuaded by this, affected by this. Countries are gonna do what countries do. I really don't, it doesn't bother me that Qatar tries to influence the United States of America, and they do. I like a lot of the Qataris, just like I like a lot of the Israelis. It doesn't bother me that Israel tries to do this. It frankly doesn't even bother me that Russia or some of these other countries do it. It's just the nature of being a political leader in 2026. What does bother me is when those operations, those influence campaigns actually affect American political judgment, because they shouldn't. Because we should be thinking what is in the best interest of the United States of America.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:32:32

        Do you think that Israel is affecting American political judgment?

    28. JVJD Vance1:32:38

        Um, I mean, I certainly think that there are a lot of talking points and there are a lot of arguments that make their way into American political discourse. I think there are a lot of social media campaigns that definitely influence Americans and affect Americans. Do I think that it's been dispositive on any particular issue? Like, like, I think that's a much more difficult question, man.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:33:08

        Do you think that we would have started this war in Iran without the influence of Israel?

    30. JVJD Vance1:33:14

        I think the president, completely separate from any influence from Israel, believes very strongly, and again I agree with this, that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.
15. 1:35:03 – 1:51:09

    Epstein files and ‘missing evidence’: comms failures, 2007 investigation limits, and lingering conspiracies

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:35:03

       Can you understand, though, why people would come to that conclusion, especially because the E- of the Epstein files?

    2. JVJD Vance1:35:12

       What do you mean?

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:35:12

       Well, the Epstein files were supposed to be released, were... And there was a, a tremendous amount of resistance to those files being released.

    4. JVJD Vance1:35:20

       Sure.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:35:20

       And that concerned a lot of people, 'cause if, if you're talking about very wealthy, powerful people that were engaged in crimes.

    6. JVJD Vance1:35:27

       I see. I... So you're, you're basically saying, like, there's a, the, the fear is that whatever's in the Epstein files was used to blackmail, like, the administration into doing the Iran thing.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:35:38

       Or at the very least, the people that were involved in the Epstein files that didn't want them coming out had undue influence.

    8. JVJD Vance1:35:48

       Well, [sighs] again, like, I say this with all candor. Like, we absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files. Like, we just did. But do I think the reason we screwed up the comms is because we were trying to hide something? No. I think the reason we screwed up the comms of the Epstein files is, is one, you know, Pam said, Pam Bondi said the, the client list is on my desk, right?

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:36:12

       Well, see, they had binders-

    10. JVJD Vance1:36:14

        That's-

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:36:14

        ... that were, they were-

    12. JVJD Vance1:36:15

        100%

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:36:15

        ... standing in front.

    14. JVJD Vance1:36:16

        Right. But those binders were largely documents that had already been released, right? So, so here's, let me try to-

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:36:21

        So what was the purpose-

    16. JVJD Vance1:36:23

        Let me try to defend-

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:36:23

        ... of that performative display of the Epstein files? And-

    18. JVJD Vance1:36:27

        I, I-

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:36:27

        And she was saying there's tens of thousands of hours of film.

    20. JVJD Vance1:36:32

        I don't know what the purpose of it was, but I know that the effect [laughs] of it was to make people mistrust the entire effort. And I th- what I think was happening, look, I, I know Pam. I like Pam. I don't think there was anything malicious going on. I think Pam was trying to respond to the political moment. I think she overstated what we had and what we didn't have, and I think that she, you know, got, got roasted for it publicly by a lot of people, including me. Like, you know, you, you and I have, have talked about this a lot. I'm, like, the, one of the OG Epstein conspiracy theorists. I've probably gone down every single rabbit hole. We could go down, uh, most of them today. Look, the original sin of the Epstein investigation, and obviously I'm biased here, but it was not what Donald Trump and the administration did in 2025. It was, you have to go back to 2007, 2008. The original Alex Acosta investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, where he basically dropped the federal charges. I think Epstein ended up getting prosecuted on some sort of local thing, but the original warrant, if you go to the original warrant back in 2008, what was he looking for? What was he allowed to look for? What were they collecting? It was not looking at a broader conspiracy. So that happens, okay. Epstein gets pinched. I think he goes to prison, or maybe this is when he was on house arrest.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:37:52

        Mm-hmm.

    22. JVJD Vance1:37:52

        But, like, anything that existed From the '80s and '90s up to 2006, 2007, anything that existed that we didn't get back then, uh, was disappeared, right? So like when people say, has, has what you've seen on the inside make you think that the, you know, that Epstein never blackmailed people, or that Epstein never engaged in broader sex trafficking? No, absolutely not. What I have seen, and I've looked at most of the files, is that there just wasn't dispositive evidence, and if that pos- dispositive evidence ever existed, it was probably destroyed after 2006, 2007. Now, look, again, in, in our defense, yes, was there some, you know, bitching and moaning, and was there some back and forth? Yes, but there, the... We eventually collected six million documents as part of the effort. The president... People say the president was forced into releasing the documents. Like, again, the idea that Donald Trump could not have killed that legislation, especially with the United States Senate, is a joke. He absolutely could have kid- killed it. What did he do? He actually said, "Nope, we're gonna release these files." He thought, you know, he s- he was annoyed by the story. He was annoyed by the Democrats accusing him of doing things bad. By the way, like do I think there is any... I've never seen a single piece of creble- credible evidence that the President of the United States engaged in wrongdoing with minors, ever. So the, like when the president says, "The hoax," that's what he's talking about, is this Democratic idea that he somehow was a, was a pedophile. It's absurd. There's no evidence for it. Now, the Epstein docu- the Epstein, you know, law gets signed. We find six million documents. We find out three million of them are actually responsive, has something to do with the Epstein estate. We release all of them, with the exception of a few things that are like, you know, the courts have said that we have to redact certain things or we can't release certain files. But like we did release all these files. Did it take longer than it should have taken? Yes. But we did release these files, and again, the, the problem here is not like anything that's in the files or not in the files. The problem is if you go back to the original investigation, it was designed in a way that was way too narrow. If there was a broader conspiracy, and you know my view is that there probably was, the evidence that existed in 2007, that was the opportunity to get it.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:40:22

        So when you say there probably was a broader conspiracy, what exactly are you saying?

    24. JVJD Vance1:40:26

        I think there are a few different options. I mean, look, man, I, I, like you could l- you and I could literally do two episodes about this. I've gone on down every rabbit hole. There's this funny New York Times story that's somewhat true, somewhat false, but where Susie Wiles, the White House Chief of Staff, says, "Well, we know JD's a conspiracy theorist on this." Like I am actually. I've [laughs] I've gone down every, every rabbit hole here. Look, so there's the theory that whether it was American intel or foreign intel that Epstein was sort of using, um, Epstein was using sort of the, the sex ring to blackmail rich and powerful people. There's that piece of it. You know, I'm, I'm, I, I think there's a separate conspiracy that hasn't gotten covered as much, which is that Epstein actually... Okay, if you go back to, to the original Epstein guy was Les Wexner, okay? Who Columbus, Ohio was the wealthiest person in Ohio, maybe still is the wealthiest person in the state of Ohio. The thing that everybody in Columbus, I lived there for a time, knew about the Wexner-Epstein relationship is that Epstein was his tax guy, that Epstein was like the genius at identifying weird tax strategies that would allow you to not have to pay taxes. But if you were being a little skeptical, would also say that it would allow Epstein to either blackmail people or to have a separate nexus of influence and control on rich and powerful people. And so I think there's an underreported, underexplored story of is Eps- was Epstein like doing a lot of tax stuff that was not on the up and up, and is that one way in which he gained blackmail? It's, it's not opposite of the sexual blackmail story, but in some ways it's, it's, uh, you know, you could imagine both things being true. Um, I also just think there's an element of he was a scumbag. He was a very sick person. He built relationships with a lot of other rich and powerful people who just didn't have any real moral judgment about the fact the guy was obviously a scumbag. And again, to go back to defending Donald Trump, I know people don't want to hear this these days, but like who was the guy... People say Donald Trump was blackmailed by Jeffrey Epstein. Who was the guy who narced on Epstein to the Palm Beach Police? That's in the Epstein files.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:42:45

        Right.

    26. JVJD Vance1:42:46

        It was Donald Trump. So-

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:42:47

        He also kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago in 2005.

    28. JVJD Vance1:42:49

        He kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago. I- it's just, again-

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:42:51

        Well, it's obvious that Epstein was a sick man.

    30. JVJD Vance1:42:53

        Like, yes.
16. 1:51:09 – 2:17:44

    Vice-presidential access vs. time, then a hard pivot to UFOs: ‘demons,’ disclosure, and evidence skepticism

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:51:09

       What is it like being the vice president? Like, how much access do you have-

    2. JVJD Vance1:51:13

       [laughs]

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:51:13

       ... to information? Because-

    4. JVJD Vance1:51:15

       So I'll give you another conspiracy. So I have, like, effectively unlimited access to information.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:51:20

       Unlimited.

    6. JVJD Vance1:51:21

       But I think that the, one of the things that I have learned about the job is it's, you're doing so much on the day to day. Like, you're calling senators and trying to get them to pass a piece of legislation. You're meeting with staff about what should go in the housing bill. You're negotiating with the Iranians or the Qataris or the Israelis about something that's going on in the Middle East. And a lot of it, like the UFO thing, like I, I've said that I'm gonna like, I'm gonna look into the UFO thing, and I've been saying that for a year and a half, and I haven't done it yet because I haven't had the time. And so some of this is like, you just have to have the time to actually punch through the walls and to like go to the gatekeepers and say, "You have to open up that gate because I'm the vice president." And some of it is just hard to actually get to because I don't have the time to sort of focus on that one issue for any particular period of time. So the answer is, you have unlimited access to information. The constraint is not people tell me no. The constraint is you're just so busy doing other shit.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:52:25

       The UFO thing I think would be something that I would want to pursue.

    8. JVJD Vance1:52:29

       Yes.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:52:30

       I, I mean, just for my own personal information, I would wanna know what is going on.

    10. JVJD Vance1:52:34

        Correct.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:52:35

        So the question is, are these, um, special access programs that are above top secret and that this is our own stuff? Or is this something that's far more bizarre and something that is interdimensional from another planet? Whatever-

    12. JVJD Vance1:52:54

        Right

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:52:54

        ... fill in the blank.

    14. JVJD Vance1:52:55

        Yeah, is it foreign?

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:52:56

        Yeah.

    16. JVJD Vance1:52:56

        And if it's foreign, is it-

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:52:58

        Right

    18. JVJD Vance1:52:58

        ... 6,000 miles away or like 6,000 light years away?

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:53:00

        Right.

    20. JVJD Vance1:53:01

        Yes.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:53:01

        Right.

    22. JVJD Vance1:53:02

        And that is, that is... I will answer that question eventually.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:53:07

        Really?

    24. JVJD Vance1:53:07

        Yes. I'll get to the bottom of it.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:53:10

        How, how are you gonna have the time to do that? Like, and what, what would be-

    26. JVJD Vance1:53:13

        Well, eventually-

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:53:14

        What would that entail?

    28. JVJD Vance1:53:14

        Eventually, eventually I'll have like a few weeks where I can just sit down and worry about that problem.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:53:17

        You said something that I thought was very bizarre.

    30. JVJD Vance1:53:19

        Okay. Here, here's, here's the interesting thing, though. I will say that is one of those conspiracy theories that... There are a lot of people in our government who are interested in this, meaning our current political leadership who are interested in this question, and it hasn't, like nothing has really happened yet, which makes me a little bit less interested in it. 'Cause there are a lot of people with access to those files and access to that information, and nothing has changed since Biden left office, which, which makes me think other people have looked into it and they just haven't necessarily found something. But anyway, I, I eventually, I promise you, I am gonna like sit down and spend a couple of weeks trying to figure out what's in these files. I just haven't done it yet.
17. 2:17:44 – 2:29:00

    From space-time travel to socialism and the ‘third way’: faith, ownership, unions, AI inequality, and immigration

    1. JVJD Vance2:17:44

       So I... So th- that's exactly right. And h- one of the things, I've talked with Elon about this, and Elon is obviously a super smart dude, but I, I've never heard, like, a super satisfying answer to this. One of the things that worries me, like I, I want humans to be a multi-planetary species. I want us to go to Mars and set up a colony and, you know, like that, that's sort of, I love humanity, I want it to continue. And the problem with, with space travel that I've, again, not heard a satisfy- factory solution to is, you know, when we're outside of the Earth's gravity, our genes, like our, our ac- our actual DNA seems to not function as well when it's not on Earth-style gravity, which makes sense, right? We developed-

    2. JRJoe Rogan2:18:31

       Uh-huh

    3. JVJD Vance2:18:31

       ... in these conditions with this gravity. So whenever you have somebody who goes to the International Space Station for like three months or six months-

    4. JRJoe Rogan2:18:38

       Right

    5. JVJD Vance2:18:38

       ... and they come back and they are totally jacked up because, like, literally the cells in their body are starting to, like, discombobulate in response to the, to a low gravity environment.

    6. JRJoe Rogan2:18:48

       Right.

    7. JVJD Vance2:18:48

       I don't... Like we have to figure out a solution to that problem. That, that to me is sort of the most interesting part of space travel, of going to Mars, of setting up a colony on another planet is if you set up a colony on Mars, but, and, and what it takes you, like two years to get there and two years to get back or something like that-

    8. JRJoe Rogan2:19:06

       Right

    9. JVJD Vance2:19:07

       ... but in that time you've gone from a functioning adult, healthy, to, like, dead-

    10. JRJoe Rogan2:19:12

        Right

    11. JVJD Vance2:19:12

        ... if, if you're in space for four years. Th- that, that part of space travel is very fascinating to me, and I, I don't know that I've heard any satisfactory solution to it yet.

    12. JRJoe Rogan2:19:21

        I don't think conventionally there is a satisfactory solution.

    13. JVJD Vance2:19:24

        Yeah.

    14. JRJoe Rogan2:19:24

        But if you're talking about manipulating space time and not traditional propulsion-

    15. JVJD Vance2:19:29

        He probably could figure that out

    16. JRJoe Rogan2:19:30

        ... you could manipulate, you could essentially contain this environment in exactly the same way it is-

    17. JVJD Vance2:19:36

        Yeah

    18. JRJoe Rogan2:19:36

        ... and travel to somewhere else with that environment. So this is the idea of them living under the surface of the, the ocean.

    19. JVJD Vance2:19:43

        Oh, I see. I see. Yeah, of course.

    20. JRJoe Rogan2:19:44

        Like why, how can they live in the depths of the ocean? Well, because they have a completely contained environment.

    21. JVJD Vance2:19:49

        Sure. Sure.

    22. JRJoe Rogan2:19:50

        I mean w- who knows?

    23. JVJD Vance2:19:51

        Yeah.

    24. JRJoe Rogan2:19:52

        It's all just-

    25. JVJD Vance2:19:53

        Maybe-

    26. JRJoe Rogan2:19:53

        ... nonsense. It's all just-

    27. JVJD Vance2:19:54

        Maybe they figured out how I can eat, like, steak and Graeter's ice cream and have the blood profile of eating, you know, chicken and salad.

    28. JRJoe Rogan2:20:02

        You could... Well, I don't think chicken and salad's the way to go.

    29. JVJD Vance2:20:03

        [laughs] I know you don't.

    30. JRJoe Rogan2:20:04

        I'm a, I'm a steak guy. I think, uh-

Episode duration: 2:53:34