Speaker 1: My fellow Americans and my fellow Republicans. My name is JD.
Speaker 1: Vance from the Great state of Ohio.
Speaker 2: In the week since he was announced as Donald Trump's
Speaker 2: running mate, JD. Vans has had some of his past
Speaker 2: remarks with surface and has been at the center of
Speaker 2: a number of bizarre rumors and jokes.
Speaker 3: Quote can't say for sure, but he might be the
Speaker 3: first VP pick to have admitted in a New York
Speaker 3: Times bestseller to effing an inside out latex glove shoved
Speaker 3: between two coush cushions.
Speaker 2: They've been picked up by some Democrats who are labeling
Speaker 2: the two men on the Republican ticket as weird. In contrast,
Speaker 2: the man that Kamala Harris has chosen to joiner on
Speaker 2: the Democratic ticket, Tim Waltz, has been described as aggressively normal.
Speaker 4: Him Minnesota, Walsh family here Saturday night. Thought we would
Speaker 4: just share what we're reading or we're going to read,
Speaker 4: and then.
Speaker 2: So as being ordinary enough to win over the average
Speaker 2: American voter. And how are Republicans come batting it. I'm
Speaker 2: a lot of things, but weird, I'm not, and I'm
Speaker 2: up front and he is not either.
Speaker 1: I will tell you JD is not at all. They are.
Speaker 2: From Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM today.
Speaker 2: Senior researcher at the Australian Institute, Doctor Emma shortis on
Speaker 2: the tactics of the two vice presidential candidates and what
Speaker 2: their nominations say about their parties. It's Thursday, August eight.
Speaker 2: So after a series of what's been called chemistry tests
Speaker 2: with potential VP candidates, Kamala Harris has officially chosen Governor
Speaker 2: Tim Waltz from Minnesota as her running mate. So what
Speaker 2: do we know about him and what makes him a
Speaker 2: good option.
Speaker 5: I think Waltz cuts her a really interesting figure and
Speaker 5: you can totally see why he would have passed that
Speaker 5: chemistry test with Harris. I've seen a number of profiles
Speaker 5: that have described him as the kind of Midwestern loving
Speaker 5: dad that everybody likes. So he grew up in Nebraska.
Speaker 5: He joined the National Guard at the age of I
Speaker 5: think about seventeen. He went on to be a teacher
Speaker 5: and a football coach before being elected to Congress and
Speaker 5: then becoming the governor of Minnesota.
Speaker 4: Hey, Minnesota, Governor walds here out of the state May
Speaker 4: with my daughter.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 4: Every year we as a family do something old and
Speaker 4: something new.
Speaker 5: I get the Picktures And he's super popular. And I
Speaker 5: think that's partly because it's like, it sounds so weird
Speaker 5: to say, but he embodies this kind of big dad energy.
Speaker 1: But then we're going to go get some food born dog.
Speaker 4: I'm medisarian turkey, then Andy me not in Minnesota Turkey special.
Speaker 5: And I think like partly because of that, because he's
Speaker 5: kind of totally unembarrassed by his normal dad energy, he's
Speaker 5: also a really effective communicator.
Speaker 4: We do not like what has happened where we can't
Speaker 4: even go to Thanksgiving dinner with our uncle because you
Speaker 4: end up in some weird fight that is unnecessary.
Speaker 5: So he's actually the one who first coined Republicans, particularly
Speaker 5: JD Evans, being super weird.
Speaker 4: Well, it's true, these guys are just weird, and you
Speaker 4: know they're running for He Man Women Haters Club or something.
Speaker 4: That's what they got. That's not what people are interested yet.
Speaker 5: And he's kind of continued since on that frame of
Speaker 5: using dad jokes. So in his first rally appearance with
Speaker 5: Harris in Pennsylvania, and.
Speaker 4: I gotta tell you, I can't wait to debate.
Speaker 5: The guy Waltz talked about whether they would have a
Speaker 5: debate and made a joke about whether the Vans would
Speaker 5: get off the couch.
Speaker 4: That is, if he's willing to get off the couch
Speaker 4: and show up.
Speaker 5: Which, for listeners who aren't like as perennially online as
Speaker 5: we are, is a reference to this totally untrue rumor
Speaker 5: about jd Vance doing things to a couch, which I
Speaker 5: will a pretty gross and I will just let listeners
Speaker 5: kind of pursue on their own time. But you know,
Speaker 5: he made this joke, and he followed up with the.
Speaker 4: Line, you.
Speaker 5: So he's really leaning into this like big dad energy,
Speaker 5: and for the moment at least, it seems to be
Speaker 5: playing super well.
Speaker 2: There seemed to be an assumption that Josh Shapiro, the
Speaker 2: Pennsylvanian governor, was going to be the pick. So what
Speaker 2: does it say that Harris has gone with Wells instead.
Speaker 5: I think it says a lot actually about the campaign
Speaker 5: and the Democratic Party more broadly, because you're right that
Speaker 5: there was this assumption that Shapiro was the obvious choice,
Speaker 5: you know, as the governor of Pennsylvania, which is a
Speaker 5: critical swing state. You know, he was going to bring
Speaker 5: Pennsylvania along there's this sense that he appealed to the
Speaker 5: quote unquote center of American politics because he's particularly popular
Speaker 5: with Republicans in Pennsylvania, and so the logic all seemed
Speaker 5: to suggest that it was going to be this guy
Speaker 5: like Barack Obama, had you know, unofficially endorsed him. And
Speaker 5: so the fact that Harris didn't go with Shapiro, I
Speaker 5: think suggests that, firstly, that her calculations are really quite different,
Speaker 5: that maybe she's not focused you know, she's focused on
Speaker 5: winning as many votes as possible, of course, but she's
Speaker 5: not focused on winning over the kind of mythical swing
Speaker 5: voter at the expense of mobilizing the base. There was
Speaker 5: this kind of movement in the lead up to this
Speaker 5: decision from progressive Democrats pushing Harris not to pick Shapiro,
Speaker 5: particularly because of his positions on Israel and on student
Speaker 5: protesters in the United States. He's been particularly aggressive, i
Speaker 5: suppose in his condemnation of those protests as and his
Speaker 5: and progressive Democrats called on Harris not to pick him
Speaker 5: because you know, he would potentially shatter the unity that
Speaker 5: had emerged after Biden had stepped aside, and the fact
Speaker 5: that Harris has picked Waltz, who has been quite supportive
Speaker 5: of protesters and quite consistent in his position. There really
Speaker 5: suggests a kind of power shift I think within the
Speaker 5: Democratic Party and a change in strategy alongside of that.
Speaker 2: He seems to have captured the moment, and as you said,
Speaker 2: he's got a record as being a progressive. What do
Speaker 2: we know about his time in office.
Speaker 5: He has been a very effective governor. So he's done
Speaker 5: things like expand gun control in the aftermath of the
Speaker 5: Parkland massacre. He's expanded things like family and medical leave,
Speaker 5: and has instituted things like universal free school meals, so
Speaker 5: you know, free breakfast and lunch for kids in Minnesota schools,
Speaker 5: and a lot of that aligns with Harris has kind
Speaker 5: of stated priorities around, you know, lifting up the middle class,
Speaker 5: and so his credentials there are really quite strong. And
Speaker 5: again that's why he's quite an interesting figure, because I
Speaker 5: think Waltz is able to kind of flip the narrative
Speaker 5: around particularly white American masculinity, in a way that almost
Speaker 5: no one else could, you know that Harris isn't able
Speaker 5: to do. And so I certainly think Waltz could broaden
Speaker 5: Harris's appeal and the Democratic Party's appeal in a really
Speaker 5: effective way. Again, you know, remains to be seen. There's
Speaker 5: still a long time to go, but initially, at least
Speaker 5: he seems to be having that effect.
Speaker 2: What's been the reaction from Donald Trump and the Republicans
Speaker 2: to this pic.
Speaker 5: They're not taking any of it well, They're nor responding
Speaker 5: particularly effectively. Trump has been posting about Waltz in particular
Speaker 5: and saying that this is the most radical duo you
Speaker 5: know that the Democrats have ever put up, which is
Speaker 5: like not entirely wrong, to be perfectly frank, you know,
Speaker 5: this is quite a progressive ticket in contrast to you know,
Speaker 5: what is one of the most conservative tickets of the
Speaker 5: last several decades of American politics. So he's trying out
Speaker 5: that attack line, which he would have done anyway. You know,
Speaker 5: they're always going to call their Democratic opponents communists, regardless
Speaker 5: of how out of touchdowns with reality. But it seems
Speaker 5: like they really don't quite know how to react to
Speaker 5: the Waltz accusation of being weird.
Speaker 1: Well, they're the weird ones, and if you have ever
Speaker 1: seen her with the laugh and everything else, that's a
Speaker 1: weird deal going on there.
Speaker 3: They're the weird ones, and.
Speaker 5: Nobody's ever called me weird.
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of things, but weird, I'm not.
Speaker 5: Trump is used to setting the narrative and framing the conversation,
Speaker 5: and so he's been taken by surprise. I think that
Speaker 5: he's not doing that at the moment. But also I think,
Speaker 5: you know, he and his surrogates are used to being
Speaker 5: described as dangerous and frightening, and that makes them feel powerful,
Speaker 5: and being described as weird is deeply unsettling, and I
Speaker 5: think that's partly about how much of their political identity
Speaker 5: is framed around a kind of hyper masculinity, and being
Speaker 5: described as weird, particularly now by women and women of color,
Speaker 5: is a kind of worse nightmare scenario for these kind
Speaker 5: of men, and they just don't know how to respond.
Speaker 5: And I think completely taken aback by how effective it
Speaker 5: has been.
Speaker 2: After the break, two men with similar origins but radically
Speaker 2: different visions, after the same voters.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, a small town where
Speaker 1: people spoke their minds, built with their hands, and loved
Speaker 1: their God, their family, their community, and their country with
Speaker 1: their whole hearts.
Speaker 2: So jd. Vance is Trump's running mate and you've actually
Speaker 2: seen him speak in person and thought he was a
Speaker 2: good pick for vice president? What made you think that?
Speaker 5: So I did see him speaking in Washington, DC a
Speaker 5: few months before he was announced as the pick, and
Speaker 5: I thought that because he was an extraordinarily slick operator.
Speaker 5: You know, he speaks with such clarity and has this
Speaker 5: extraordinary ability to say incredibly radical things and make them
Speaker 5: sound like normal and like common sense. And in the
Speaker 5: room that I was in, which was a foreign policy
Speaker 5: conference with a very conservative audience, you know, he had
Speaker 5: people eating out of his hands and kind of following
Speaker 5: him around. He had this whole kind of brigade going
Speaker 5: with him. And so it was I think fairly obvious
Speaker 5: why Trump would pick him, because he represents the kind
Speaker 5: of next generation of the MAGA movement.
Speaker 1: When I was in the fourth grade, a career politician
Speaker 1: by the name of Joe Biden supported NAFTA, a bad
Speaker 1: trade deal that sent countless good jobs.
Speaker 5: To Mexico, and suggests that it is bigger than Trump
Speaker 5: in a way that's not threatening to Trump personally, and.
Speaker 1: At each step of the way, in small towns like
Speaker 1: mine in Ohio or next door in Pennsylvania, or Michigan
Speaker 1: and states all across our country. Jobs were sent overseas, and.
Speaker 5: So in that sense, he was an obvious pick, especially
Speaker 5: in that kind of moment of hubris after the assassination attempt,
Speaker 5: while Biden was still the nominee, and while everyone, pretty
Speaker 5: much everyone, myself included, was pretty convinced that it was
Speaker 5: now Trump's to lose. So I think in that context,
Speaker 5: Vance was the obvious pick for Trump. He hasn't handled
Speaker 5: his elevation particularly well. I don't think there's clear indications
Speaker 5: that he may not have appeal outside of that right
Speaker 5: wing bubble, But I don't think we should write him
Speaker 5: off necessarily. He's a political chameleon and very good at
Speaker 5: seeking out power, so this may also just be a
Speaker 5: stumble and he may find his feet with Trump.
Speaker 2: What do you have doubts bett his ability to speak
Speaker 2: beyond Trump's base? He saw him in the flesh. He
Speaker 2: had a crowd united, almost a fever pitch. Is it
Speaker 2: a case that the longer the campaign goes, the more
Speaker 2: he may isolate voters beyond that group?
Speaker 5: So I think I have doubts about that because Vance
Speaker 5: has been so focused on mobilizing his own base and
Speaker 5: kind of stoking his own credentials with the kind of
Speaker 5: maga Republican movement, and so it's been pretty extraordinary and
Speaker 5: funny as well to see the kind of coverage events frame,
Speaker 5: you know, comments he's made throughout his career as like
Speaker 5: being uncovered or like having new videos of him saying
Speaker 5: weird stuff about women leaked.
Speaker 1: So you look at Kamala Harris, Pete boodageg AOC. The
Speaker 1: entire few mature of the Democrats is controlled by people
Speaker 1: without children.
Speaker 5: The most prominent one at the moment is his comment
Speaker 5: about single, childless cat ladies running the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: We're effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via
Speaker 1: our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies
Speaker 1: who are miserable at their own lives and the choices
Speaker 1: that they've made, and so they want to make the
Speaker 1: rest of the country miserable too.
Speaker 5: He said that because he was kind of thirsty for
Speaker 5: attention within the base. So they knew all of this
Speaker 5: about Dvance and presumably saw it as a positive because
Speaker 5: he would theoretically be able to mobilize the base kind
Speaker 5: of reassure them that this is a continuing generational project.
Speaker 5: Get them out to vote on the issues they care about,
Speaker 5: you know, particularly abortion, and so the calculation there I
Speaker 5: think was logical within the right wing universe. The problem
Speaker 5: is the inability to anticipate how people will react outside
Speaker 5: of that. And you can see that with both the
Speaker 5: surprise at the reception that Vance is getting, but also
Speaker 5: at Harris's popularity. You know, within that right wing bubble,
Speaker 5: it's just not occurred to people that a vaguely left
Speaker 5: wing black woman might be actually appealing to Americans. I'm white,
Speaker 5: I'm a dude, and I'm for Harris.
Speaker 4: Tens of thousands of self proclaimed white dudes for Harris
Speaker 4: joined a zoom call to rally support for her, even
Speaker 4: featured a cameo from the dude himself.
Speaker 3: Come well, it is just so certainly our girl.
Speaker 5: You know, I can see her. So I'm kind of
Speaker 5: saying yes to both of your questions. I think Daniel
Speaker 5: want to say that, you know, Vance I think can
Speaker 5: mobilize the base. He may get enough of them out
Speaker 5: in places like Pennsylvania to win those stays. But also
Speaker 5: his appeal doesn't really extend beyond that.
Speaker 2: Both of these two men, Jdi Vancentinwelds have quite radically
Speaker 2: different visions, but ultimately, as just alluded to, both speaking
Speaker 2: to the working class. So who's message and vision do
Speaker 2: you think will resonate more with Americans.
Speaker 5: It's kind of an impossible question to answer, isn't it
Speaker 5: until about the sixth of November? But I think you're right.
Speaker 5: You know, they are seeking to a very similar audiences.
Speaker 5: So Vance will often talk about his working class origins.
Speaker 5: He wrote a whole memoir about them. But a lot
Speaker 5: of his appeal to the working class I think is
Speaker 5: has a kind of quite thinly disguised contempt particularly white
Speaker 5: working class people who haven't been able to drag themselves
Speaker 5: out of the working class in the way that he
Speaker 5: understands he did. Whereas you know, you contrast that, I
Speaker 5: think with Waltz, and his appeal is to kind of
Speaker 5: a sense of family and community and support and a
Speaker 5: kind of unconditional love, you know, even for your weird
Speaker 5: uncle who you just kind of wish would be less
Speaker 5: weird and a bit more understanding.
Speaker 4: What I know is is that people like gd Events
Speaker 4: know nothing about small town America. My town had four
Speaker 4: hundred people in it, twenty four kids in my graduating class,
Speaker 4: twelve for or cousins, and he gets it all wrong.
Speaker 2: It's a not.
Speaker 4: About heat, it's not about collapsing in the Golden rule.
Speaker 4: There is mind your own damn business.
Speaker 5: Again, that contrast is pretty extreme, and I think certainly
Speaker 5: the reception to Harris and now Walls at least initially
Speaker 5: indicates that there is a real appetite for that kind
Speaker 5: of message, you know, for a different kind of vision
Speaker 5: of the future, for a bit of joy and a
Speaker 5: bit of humanity in politics. But again, I think we
Speaker 5: can't underestimate some of the despair and the apathy, particularly
Speaker 5: in the Midwest, that Vance and Trump are appealing to.
Speaker 5: And we know that Trump has been particularly effective at
Speaker 5: appealing to that sense of victimhood. So, you know, it's
Speaker 5: always so easy to get carried away by the momentum
Speaker 5: of politics. But the contrast between those two tickets is
Speaker 5: so stark. Now, you know, to go from having two
Speaker 5: old white dudes who could only distinguish themselves by kind
Speaker 5: of not being each other, to such a vastly different
Speaker 5: politics but also vision for the future of America. You know,
Speaker 5: Democrats all of a sudden have this kind of clear air,
Speaker 5: and so they're able to kind of lean into that
Speaker 5: joy and the slight weirdness of their own campaign in
Speaker 5: a way that's been really energizing. But the fundamentals of
Speaker 5: the electoral map haven't actually changed. The campaign has changed dramatically,
Speaker 5: but it's still true that, you know, the road to
Speaker 5: the White House for Harris lies through probably Pennsylvania and Georgia,
Speaker 5: and winning those two states is going to be pretty critical.
Speaker 5: I think it's really important that we don't kind of
Speaker 5: get carried away and assume that this is how it's
Speaker 5: going to play out, because we know things can change
Speaker 5: in an instant ema.
Speaker 2: I think it's safe to say that American politics can
Speaker 2: never be categorized as normal. Thanks for your.
Speaker 5: Time, anytime, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Also in the news today, Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds has
Speaker 2: told the WA Supreme Court that she felt like a
Speaker 2: punching clown in a fairground by critical social media posts
Speaker 2: from Britney Higgins and David Chaaz. Senator Reynolds is suing
Speaker 2: miss Higgins over she claims damaged her reputation and we're
Speaker 2: part of a plan conspiracy to harm her that we're
Speaker 2: published after Miss Higgins alleged to rape in Parliament House
Speaker 2: and at the age of fourteen, skateboarder Arissa True has
Speaker 2: become Australia's youngest Gold Olympic medalist after winning the women's
Speaker 2: park skateboard event and capturing Australia's fourteenth gold medal of
Speaker 2: the Paris Games. True described a moment as insane. That's
Speaker 2: all for today. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share
Speaker 2: it with a friend. It helps us out a lot.
Speaker 2: I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM. Thanks for listening.