Episode 1 - Vice President JD Vance | The Katie Miller Podcast

9:01Katie Miller:What about at the Vatican? How was that with your kids?

9:03JD Vance:That was very interesting. So, you know, we arrive at the Vatican again. The kids are kind of jet lagged and we're there on Good Friday. So which I'm an about Catholic, that was a very, very big deal. But our youngest, she fell asleep on the way from where we were staying to St. Peter's Basilica. And so I get her out of the car. She's, again, rhinoceros tranquilizer. She sleeps like a baby, as the expression goes. And so I bring her into this mass. It's a two and a half hour, three hour mass. The kids actually behave pretty well. Amazingly, the boys behave pretty well. But there's a point like an hour and a half into it where Mirabelle like wakes up and she looks around and you know the Swiss guards at the Vatican they have like you know crazy colors on and they have these giant pikes and they're all like very big guys and she looks over at the Swiss guard and we're in St.

9:57JD Vance:Peter's Basilica and her eyes get so big and she's like you can just tell in her mind she's like what the hell is going on like where am I it's Alice in Wonderland absolutely so she kind of looks around and then she just puts her head back on my shoulder and closes her eyes like this is a bad dream. But that was a very cool moment. And the Pope who actually died the day after we met, he gave the kids like these very sweet Easter gifts and these, you know, he gave them rosaries and it was just a very cool thing. And there, you know, there are a lot of cool things about this job that I didn't fully appreciate, but having the Pope give your kids an Easter present, that's, that's high on the list.

10:36JD Vance:Yeah.

10:36Katie Miller:So what's your dad ick? Something you swore you would never do but now totally do as a dad?

10:43JD Vance:I mean, like all of the diaper changing related stuff is just stuff you have to do. And it's disgusting, but you get used to it. I mean, I would say I think that I've really gotten into cooking since the kids were since the kids were born. And I always, you know, I didn't hate cooking, but I wasn't really into it. But I think just for some reason, having that thing that me and Usha do together that the kids now participate in. I'm a really big baker, so I like to make cookies and cakes and cheesecakes and all that stuff. What's the best thing you bake? I make a very good peanut butter and chocolate cheesecake.

11:23JD Vance:It's very solid. I use mascarpone instead of cream cheese. I think it's a little bit less tangy. So, you know, I just, but it's really fun. The kids really get into it. Are you baking less these days? I bake way less these days, but I still try to do it. When we get free time, I always try to do this stuff because the kids really like it. It's something for us to do together. And again, when you have a crazy job, sometimes you just kinda wanna zone out and do something that feels comfortable and familiar. And for me, a lot of times, that's baking with the kids. So that's definitely something that I do that I didn't think I would be doing 10 years ago.

11:55Katie Miller:What's your superpower as a dad?

11:58JD Vance:Oh, I don't know.

11:59Katie Miller:Is it like finding lost remotes, making the best eggs?

12:03JD Vance:Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I actually, so Usha's a super heavy sleeper, and I'm a very light sleeper, and I also sleep way less than she does. And so, like, if we go to bed at midnight, I'll wake up at, like, 5 or 6 a.m., just kind of naturally, and I feel like I'm on top of the world. And so I guess my dad's superpower is probably 90 % of, like, the nightmares or the things that kids just do that wake you up in the middle of the night, like a stuffed animal on the top bunk that falls off and you wake up and like, what the hell was that crashing? Do they sleep in bed with you?

12:34Katie Miller:Do you keep them in their beds?

12:35JD Vance:They stay in their beds. Yeah. Usha was like very hardcore drill instructor about sleep training. And so the two youngest kids, bottom bunk, top bunk. And then that was actually when we moved in the VPR, our oldest kid got his own room. That was a big deal for him. And so, but, but I, you know, they're at the age where they still once a week, at least one of them will wake up. And it's one of those things I kind of like, Even though I don't want to be woken up at three in the morning, it's kind of nice that they still need that affection and need that attention. It reminds me they're still babies.

13:04Katie Miller:So what's your house vibe? Are you guys eating on the couch? Are you no shoes inside? Are you pizza night? What are we doing here?

13:13JD Vance:Definitely we try to eat at the dining room table. It's like the one chance where I try to zone out. I try to leave my phone. I figure if somebody really needs me, one of my staff members can come and grab me. So we try to eat at the table. A no-shoes inside, that's my wife's rule, but all of us violate it. It kind of drives her crazy. And I definitely grew up in a house where you just wore your shoes everywhere. She was a no-shoes inside person.

13:37Katie Miller:Those two people always find each other and get married. That's right, exactly.

13:42JD Vance:What's your situation? Are you no-shoes inside?

13:44Katie Miller:We're no-shoes inside, but Stephen wears shoes up and down the stairs. Everywhere the kids eat off the floor is his shoes, and it drives me insane.

13:52JD Vance:Yeah, so it's exactly the same with me and my wife. and but we're pretty chill about most things. And so, you know, the kids, they go to bed somewhere around eight o 'clock, but if it's a little bit later, if they're really exhausted, that's fine. We definitely, we try to make them eat pretty healthy, but we're not super intense about their diets. Do you like the 80-20 rule? Basically, yeah, I mean, we try to sort of do things as well as we can, but there's a lot of flexibility.

14:22Katie Miller:So how do you handle a toddler tantrum in a public place?

14:28JD Vance:Ush and I handle it very differently. So it's crazy. In airports, people would always come up to her. Like we had this woman come up to her a couple years ago and say, I'm like a child therapist. And the way that you interact with your son is so amazing and like praising her. And I'm like, it is amazing. She's super patient. She'll try to reason with them. If they have a tantrum in a public place, I immediately grab them, take them to the bathroom and say, you got to cut this shit out. I'm the parent who's like no no no this is not okay she's the gentle parent she's the gentle parent and the thing is I actually even though she has her way she's kind of become sympathetic to my way because if the kids have a total meltdown with all the cameras on then it becomes a viral moment through no fault of their own I mean a three-year-old is going to have a temper tantrum from time to time so one of the things we do try to do is protect them from becoming like the subject of a viral moment and sometimes that requires me to be very quick and to sort of anticipate this stuff as it happens.

15:24Katie Miller:What's your secret to keeping your marriage solid while the entire country and the world is in your business?

15:28JD Vance:So something I actually came up with this idea and it's one of my better ideas as a husband is probably six or seven years ago we do a husband wife book club we try to do once a month and so we fall a little bit behind just because I don't have enough time to read but we even during the time I've and vice president, we've done two books together, and I'm currently working on the third. She's done with it. But actually forcing us to do something together that makes us think, that makes us talk, that gives us something that we're sort of thinking about and talking about at the exact same time, that's been very good.

16:02JD Vance:We always try to have a drink once a week, put the kids to bed. I mean, it used to be go to a local bar in Cincinnati and hang out. Now it's like make a cocktail at home and sit outside on the porch.

16:15Katie Miller:Do you miss not being able to go to the bar?

16:16JD Vance:I do, I do. I just, I miss being able to go to a place and have nobody know who I am. That's the thing that I probably most miss about not being the vice president of the United States.

16:25Katie Miller:Do you miss like when you get in the car after like a date night and you have just three guys sitting in the car with you like getting to enjoy your conversation?

16:32JD Vance:Yeah, that's sometimes unusual. Yeah, you know, you have these moments where you're talking and you kind of forget that they're there and then you realize, oh shit, somebody's actually paying attention to this like very intimate personal conversation that we're having. But no, I mean, again, you kind of just get used to it, but it is odd and it's definitely something I miss.

16:50Katie Miller:What's something men your age do that they're getting wrong about marriage and fatherhood today?

16:57JD Vance:Oh, that's such a tough question. I think that

17:05JD Vance:I'm wrong about marriage and fatherhood. I mean, I guess two very different things, But I think that in an era of social media, it's very easy to allow yourself to be influenced. And sometimes you just got to do it your way and you got to be natural. Like I know some dads who would sort of be super affectionate with their kids, but they assume that that's not something dads do. Or maybe they would be like not that affectionate, but they try to sort of calibrate it or correct it because they know that everything's going to be put on Facebook or Instagram. and they basically, even though they're not famous, they try to perform the act of being a husband or father to Instagram or to Facebook or to Twitter or X, whatever the case may be.

17:48JD Vance:And I think that the best advice I can give is just try as much as you can just to be the kind of husband and father that you want to be. And that's a decent bit of advice. I'm trying to think. I mean, my... It's funny. In our marriage, like the stereotypical thing is that women are more emotional and men are less emotional. That's probably the opposite in our marriage. Usha's definitely like super stoic and I'm the one who gets fired up about things. And so, you know, sometimes there's this attitude of, well, I'm not gonna be who I am because that doesn't fit into the right mold. And I think, again, you just gotta be who you are.

18:29JD Vance:And the last thing I'd say is, look, I've been married for 11 years, going on 12. We have a very happy marriage. I've been very lucky in the person that God put me with. But we just try to talk about everything. Like we are super brutally honest about things. Like I see friends of mine and they've been like in a slow burning cold war with their spouse because they're pissed off about something they haven't talked about it in four days. If Usha and I are mad about something, we talk about it like three minutes later. And that communication has been very good for us.

19:02Katie Miller:Who's the better debater?

19:04JD Vance:Her, big time. She was a very good and very accomplished corporate lawyer. And so the way that I put it, I've actually put this to the president because he's asked for her help with certain things. And he once asked me, what is it that makes her so smart? Usha has this ability to take like she can read 5 ,000 words faster than anybody can read it. But then she somehow synthesizes it and can summarize it so quickly and so clearly. And she has perfect attention to detail for these things. So it makes her a very good debater. I actually hate getting in arguments with her because she always remembers details or remembers facts way better than I do.

19:43Katie Miller:So who's harder to negotiate with, your kids at bedtime or the Senate Democratic Conference?

19:48JD Vance:The Senate Democratic Conference, absolutely. I love my kids and they can be very, very rebellious. But it's something, again, the way that Usha trained them for bedtime, they are very, like when it's time to go to bed, they don't really put up much of a fight.

20:05Katie Miller:So who takes after you and who takes after your wife?

20:08JD Vance:So it's interesting. It's the opposite of, I think, what they look like. So our five-year-old, everybody says looks like Usha, but everybody says his personality is like a carbon copy of what I was when I was five. really high energy, really gregarious, hard to focus on certain things, like sometimes just goes deaf randomly because you're talking to him and it's like he doesn't hear you. But then that says and then the other two they look more like me but they take after Usha.

20:38Katie Miller:What's easier on your kids? The White House schedule or the Senate schedule? Which did you see your kids more with?

20:44JD Vance:That's a good question. Honestly we've been able to make it work in both ways. So with the Senate schedule, it's less, what should I say, it's more predictable, but it's also you have less control. In the White House, unless the President needs me to do something, I have complete control over my schedule. But it's also, there's a lot more going on, and you're more reactive to world events. The thing that I try to do, and maybe this is like a good advice for, you know, husbands and fathers is, I try to take a couple of hours every day and make them as sacred as possible. And yes, if like a war breaks out, then sometimes you have to cancel even the sacred time.

21:21JD Vance:But we've been pretty good about making sure that I have at least a couple of hours with my family every single day. And sometimes that means, you know, I'm on the phone until 3 a.m. or sometimes that means I'm back in the White House after I put the kids to bed. But just have that sacred time that you protect, that you turn out the phone, you tune out work, and you just focus on your wife and your kids. And that's worked very well for us. And even this job, it's possible.

21:44Katie Miller:So what's your daily routine? are you working out what time are you getting home are you putting the kids to bed yeah bedtime yeah

21:51JD Vance:so i normally wake up before ushing the kids and if i wake up early enough i'll work out then if not then i'll take the dog out start getting stuff ready for the kids and then usually we'll come to work around eight or nine and then we'll typically you know again i try to have six to eight be that time where we have dinner together and just hang out with the kids. But then usually there's something going on from eight to midnight. And if it's an easy night, you're done by 10. And if it's a tough night, you're done at two.

22:25Katie Miller:And so what's the gym routine?

22:27JD Vance:The gym routine is, yeah. So I'll work out after the kids go to bed. Most nights that I work out, it's after the kids go to bed. And I try to do, I've been pretty good about this. Even as VP, I try to do two to three days of weightlifting and a day or two of cardio. So a good week is I'll work out five days, a bad week, I'll work out three, but it's that same basic mix.

22:47Katie Miller:And what are you eating?

22:48JD Vance:You know, I got really into after the Senate campaign. So a few years ago, I got really into intermittent fasting. And so I try to eat two meals a day. I'll usually eat lunch and dinner and I try to be as healthy as I can, right? A lot of green vegetables, a lot of lean protein, but I also have a terrible sweet tooth. So like when, when I, if I, so are you putting like the sugar in your coffee?

23:13Katie Miller:Like what's the Starbucks order?

23:14JD Vance:Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah. So if I eat terribly, it's usually like I'll have, you know, a few scoops of ice cream at some point in the day or multiple points of the day. Like that's, that's my poison is ice cream. And I actually, I used to do sugar cream and coffee. I mostly just drink it black now because I try to, again, I'm trying to be good and it's hard to be good with those liquid calories. So I do what I can.

23:37Katie Miller:So which fictional vice president do you most relate to? If you'd like, I can present you some options.

23:43JD Vance:Yeah, the only fictional vice...

23:44Katie Miller:You have Selena Meyer in Veep, Frank Underwood from House of Cards, Alan Trimble from Olympus Has Fallen, Catherine Bennett from Air Force One.

23:53JD Vance:Oh, wow. Okay, that's good. Thank you, Catherine Bennett from Air Force One. She was a real badass. She was awesome.

23:59Katie Miller:Give me some options.

23:59JD Vance:Yeah, the one from Veep is, man, we watched Veep. I'd never seen Veep until I was elected vice president. We watched some during the transition. And I just thought to myself, I hope to God that that's not me and that that's not my job. And so far, I think we've avoided both.

24:15Katie Miller:There's definitely some moments, though. Come on, I'm sure you can pull out one where you're like, man, this could be an episode of Veep.

24:20JD Vance:No, there are definitely some moments where it could be an episode of Veep. In fact, we had a call today. I won't say with who, but it was one of those moments where every single person on the call was very important. You can probably guess. But like every two or three minutes, a new person would join the call. And be like, hey, what's going on? And then you would have to summarize it. It felt like an episode of The Office because by the sixth or seventh person who joined the call, one of us had summarized the previous events for the sixth or seventh time. And I was like, what the hell is going on?

24:49JD Vance:Get me out of this. And Marco was actually on the call and just started like laughing hysterically because it really was like an episode of Eve.

24:56Katie Miller:So it's a good transition to say now we're going to do some cabinet confidential here.

25:00JD Vance:OK, great.

25:02Katie Miller:Your answers can only be that of cabinet members. OK. OK. Who would you draft first on your basketball team?

25:13JD Vance:Ooh, Marco. OK. Yeah, he's fast. He's well coordinated. He's not the tallest guy in the world, but yeah.

25:20Katie Miller:Okay, I would have gone with Scott Turner maybe.

25:23JD Vance:Okay, yeah, that's a good one. Okay. That's a good one.

25:25Katie Miller:Who would you pick in a chess tournament?

25:27JD Vance:Doug Burgum. Okay, true. Very logical. Smart. Very chill.

25:31Katie Miller:Who is sitting next to you on a long-haul international flight as your seatmate?

25:39JD Vance:Maybe your husband, actually, though I guess he's not technically in the cabinet. Probably Chris Wright. Okay. Very good guy.

25:46Katie Miller:Who would you trust most to babysit your kids?

25:49JD Vance:Kelly Loeffler.

25:51Katie Miller:which cabinet secretary would totally get rolled by your kids?

25:58JD Vance:Maybe also Cully Loeffler. She's got a good heart. She would take very good care of them.

26:06Katie Miller:I feel like Linda would be giving out all the candy.

26:09JD Vance:Yeah, Linda McMahon would be giving out all the candy. Maybe actually, maybe the person who would get rolled by the kids is Sean Duffy because he's a great dad, but he's kind of in granddad mode now. Oh, yeah, for sure. Any kid, anything they do is just the cutest thing in the world.

26:27Katie Miller:When you have that many, I feel like you're just like letting the small things just go.

26:30JD Vance:Exactly, exactly.

26:32Katie Miller:President Trump said that you would likely be the heir apparent to MAGA.

26:36JD Vance:I saw that, yeah.

26:37Katie Miller:Yeah, okay. And he said Marco would be involved some way, somehow. So we'll go down to some Marco questions. What's the most surprising thing you've learned about Marco?

26:49JD Vance:He also has a sweet tooth, which he's in great shape, he works out, but he can house ice cream. To the point where half the time that I see Marco in the hallway, it's because he's just been down to the Navy mess in the White House and he's gotten a bunch of ice cream.

27:04Katie Miller:What's your favorite topping in the mess? Did you know they had toppings?

27:09JD Vance:I didn't even know they had toppings. I guess sometimes they'll bring me M &Ms to put on them, but I've actually never gone down there and got ice cream myself. That's the life of the VP.

27:17Katie Miller:So, Mark Rubio is known as a funny jokester. What's the funniest joke he's told you? Or the funniest moment you've had with him?

27:26JD Vance:Okay, so you guys will have to determine whether we can actually put this in the final cut. We can cut it if not. We can cut it if not. So, we were talking about something very serious related to the Middle East. And he starts this joke totally deadpan. And he's like, you know, I learned something interesting about the Middle East because I had a constituent call a few years ago when I was in the Senate. And a woman was visiting Israel and her husband died while they were in Israel. And I was like, oh, man, that's terrible. And she was trying to get help from us for how to get the body back to the United States.

28:00JD Vance:And she said to me, you know, man, I don't know. Maybe I don't want it back. the last time somebody died over here, they rose from the dead three days later. And I didn't know until the very end that it was a totally bullshit joke. I was like, on the edge of my seat, like, what happened with this poor woman and her husband? He's got jokes. He's got a lot of Florida man jokes. Yeah, he does. Because, you know, you'll take some crazy story from the Jacksonville Times and then it ends up, you think it's a joke, but it's actually something that actually happened in the Florida Panhandle.

28:40Katie Miller:Next, we'll go to a game of Would You Rather.

28:42JD Vance:Okay.

28:42Katie Miller:Okay. Would you rather have your daughter paint your nails pink before a televised Oval Office meeting or Ohio State never win another national championship?

28:50JD Vance:Pink. Yeah, I'm going with the pink fingernails. Absolutely.

28:53Katie Miller:Would you rather be stuck in a Secret Service driven vehicle for 12 hours with your kids where you are not the driver or be stuck in an elevator with Stephen Colbert?

29:01JD Vance:Oh, that's really tough. I would try very hard to avoid both of those situations, but I'll take my kids for 12 hours over Stephen Colbert. Well, Stephen Colbert of like the past couple of years or Stephen Colbert of 15 years ago?

29:15Katie Miller:The past couple of years.

29:16JD Vance:Okay, no, I'll take my kids.

29:18Katie Miller:Would you rather try to explain the latest TikTok trend to President Trump or explain the Electoral College to your kids every night before bed?

29:24JD Vance:Explain the latest TikTok trend to President Trump. He loves TikTok. He's very interested in it. So that would be an easy conversation.

29:31Katie Miller:Would you rather read excerpts of Hillbilly Elegy to a Gen Z influencer or to a group of coastal elites from Brooklyn?

29:38JD Vance:Oh, that's a tough one, too. I would say Gen Z influencers.

29:43Katie Miller:Which passage would they find most interesting?

29:45JD Vance:Probably all the stuff about my grandma and grandpa when they were young, because they were just they were great people, but they also they were kind of wild.

29:53Katie Miller:Would you rather your kids publicly rate your parenting on C-SPAN or never be able to tell a dad joke again?

29:59JD Vance:Never be able to tell a dad joke again. No, my kids, they are very judgmental of our parenting in public. And I think they know that, you know, there are always cameras around. So they use that as an opportunity to say, oh, you know, dad should, he should have child protective services called because he didn't get me two scoops of ice cream last night. And it's like, no, son, that's not how this works out. But they know they have an audience.

30:21Katie Miller:What's your best dad joke?

30:25JD Vance:I have a few. I have a few. So this is from Pulp Fiction, and my kids love this because they kind of get it.

30:34JD Vance:Mom and Tomato, Pop a Tomato, and Baby Tomato were taking a walk one day, and Baby Tomato started lagging behind. So Pop a Tomato got kind of angry, went back, and squished him and said, catch up. Not bad, right?

30:50Katie Miller:That was good. There's a lot of memes of J.D. Vance on the internet. there are what's your favorite meme or like funny joke about yourself like after the pope or you

31:01JD Vance:know there's a lot there's a lot of options to pick from these days so my favorite meme was and this is very inappropriate but maybe it's it's we're it's it's not too soon but you know there was the whole thing about how i was into couches yep and right after the the pope died there was Did you see this one? There was just a meme of the Pope, Usha, and a couch. And it like took me a second to get it. And then when I got it, I was like, man, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. In fact, I like to think the left isn't very good at memeing. So my hope is that a right winger came up with that because that was a very funny meme.

31:40Katie Miller:What's one thing you do that would be 100 % like a political scandal if people knew?

31:46JD Vance:I'm I used to be really into and I still have the cards and I'm trying to get my eight-year-old to play with me I really I used to be really into Magic the Gathering so like really nerdy really nerdy in fact the last podcast I did the podcaster had me sign a Magic the Gathering card and I knew the card that he had and I felt really embarrassed about it like more embarrassed than anything in

32:07Katie Miller:like the past six months what age would you let your kids watch Lord of the Rings

32:12JD Vance:Oh, the Peter Jackson ones? Like seven or eight. Our oldest has seen at least The Hobbit and The First Lord of the Rings. We're not super, like I said, we're pretty flexible about stuff. We're not super strict about like violence in their media. Maybe we should be. But you know, so long as it doesn't have like a really deranged message, we're pretty open with what the kids consume. You know what's funny? We tried to show our eight-year-old Harry Potter 4 recently, and it was like way too scary for him.

32:45Katie Miller:So not trying that for a while. On Disney +, do you let them watch whatever they want? Or do you still meet her with their watching on Disney?

32:50JD Vance:Yeah, we still meet her. I mean, we only do TV through like family movie time. And so, you know, we might like put a show on if I have a phone call that I have to do and I'm the only one home. But otherwise, I'm only watching TV with them.

33:05Katie Miller:And so why were you running after your kids at Disneyland? you're on Tom Sawyer Island like what's the story there?

33:11JD Vance:I saw that and somebody was like oh he runs funny um no the actual dad run the dad run no the the actual answer is so we had the island ourselves which was very cool I'd never been to Disneyland. They were shutting down the Disney World one. Yeah that's that's uh sorry to all the people who are Disneyland for the longer lines but we had a very good time but I was actually my kids really like this game called Ogre where I like chase after them but I don't run full speed and so I was playing ogre and that was that was what caused the great scandal of how I ran it what's the best ride okay so I don't look do you like roller coasters okay so I used to love roller coasters now that I'm 41 I get like a little nauseous after them space mountain did you get nauseous terribly I did too I went like in December it got so sick awful so sick and I used to love roller coasters so not space mountain I guess the one that is called, well, it's not called Splash Mountain anymore, but used to be called Splash Mountain.

34:09JD Vance:That one was really awesome. I like that one.

34:12Katie Miller:What's your least favorite ride?

34:14JD Vance:Space Mountain. Yeah, because it made me sick.

34:17Katie Miller:All right, so you're a known watcher of Emily in Paris.

34:21JD Vance:Am I? Did I put that on social media? Yeah, you did. What shows are you watching

34:24Katie Miller:right now?

34:27JD Vance:So, we're watching Gilded Age.

34:30Katie Miller:Okay.

34:30JD Vance:So, that's on HBO.

34:32Katie Miller:You don't think it's gone woke too?

34:34JD Vance:Has it gone woke? It's really bad. Really?

34:35Katie Miller:Steven and I are watching it right now.

34:37JD Vance:Oh, interesting. Okay. I guess I haven't noticed. Cynthia Nixon is on there. Well, yeah, but she's like the opposite of Cynthia Nixon in real life. I actually made this observation that she's like a sort of a normal human being on Gilded Age. So we're watching Gilded Age. I'm actually, we're watching The Crown right now.

34:57Katie Miller:Okay.

34:57JD Vance:But we already watched most of it. We're sort of watching towards the tail end. and we're watching, there's something else that we just started that I really like. Oh, Tires. The Shane Gillis show. Oh, it's so good. So it's more, it's interesting. Normally, Ush and I really agree on shows. I think that it's like the funniest thing I've seen since The Office. She just kind of likes it, but I love it.

35:19Katie Miller:Who's picking your book club up then? Between the two of you?

35:21JD Vance:We alternate. We alternate. So the current book that we're reading is actually, it's a Ross Douthat, the New York Times columnist. He has like a fantasy novel that he's releasing in serial form. she already read the first one I'm in the process it's pretty good what else have you read um the one before that was all the pretty horses and the one before that was non-fiction I don't remember what it was it may have been the Abigail Schreier book about therapy or it may have been a book about I don't remember but it's a non-fiction book that was that was six months ago at this

35:55Katie Miller:point do you have a guilty pleasure show that's embarrassing to admit other than Emily in Paris Love Island, redoing The Hunting Wives, The Samurai Turn Pretty.

36:05JD Vance:I mean, I really like the show Outer Banks. Okay. But I don't know if that's really embarrassing. No. But, you know, it's not. No, I don't think so. I think Emily in Paris is pretty embarrassing. Okay, here's my riff on Emily in Paris. I actually think that it's like a super smart meta commentary on European culture. and it's basically, it's a criticism of millennials. I think it's basically the entire show is like kind of fun and it's bubbly and you get to see like beautiful things and beautiful people, but it's fundamentally, it's a criticism of millennial culture. And as a proud geriatric millennial, I think it's pretty fascinating.

36:48Katie Miller:What songs are on your playlist right now?

36:52JD Vance:So I'm a big classic rock guy and a pretty big 90s rock guy. So a lot of my songs are, you know, like sort of the Pearl Jam era or the Led Zeppelin era. But even, you know, some of the 90s songs, like talk about embarrassing shows, there are some embarrassing 90s songs that I'm really into, like Stay by Lisa Loeb. I'm a Barbie girl. A couple days ago. No, that's not, that's not. Don't like that one. Or Fade Into You by Mazzy Star is probably like my favorite song of the entire 90s rock era. But yeah, that's pretty much it. There's some weird kid songs. You know, We Are a Dinosaur is a song. Okay, so our kids' Secret Service names are, they had to start with a B.

37:39Katie Miller:Okay. And Mirabelle is B.

37:44JD Vance:They all chose them.

37:45Katie Miller:Okay.

37:46JD Vance:Vivek is B. Because he's very high energy. And Ewan is B. Which is a kind of dinosaur, which I didn't even realize. and so each of them have a theme song. So there's like this one artist that has a song about bees. She has a song called We Are the Dinosaurs, Marching, Marching. You know the song? I've heard, oh yeah. Okay, and then she also has a song called like Blast Off, Another Rocket Ship Run. So it's their Secret Service code names actually have their own theme song, which they're really excited about.

38:11Katie Miller:Have you seen The Land Before Time recently? Because that's like on theme and on brand for you.

38:14JD Vance:I did see it a few years ago. I mean recently, but I watched it with our oldest a few years ago and it's really like, it's a really good movie. It's a good one.

38:22Katie Miller:Is a hot dog a sandwich?

38:24JD Vance:No. Is that a question?

38:26Katie Miller:It is a question.

38:28JD Vance:Definitely not.

38:29Katie Miller:Does pineapple belong on pizza?

38:31JD Vance:Of course not. No.

38:34Katie Miller:If you could only eat one condiment for the rest of your life, what would it be?

38:37JD Vance:One condiment? Yeah. Does barbecue sauce count? Yeah. Okay, barbecue sauce.

38:41Katie Miller:Not mayonnaise?

38:42JD Vance:No. Now mayonnaise is like in low doses is good, but it's kind of like I had a buddy who used to eat french fries with mayonnaise. I thought that was disgusting.

38:50Katie Miller:That's the only thing my husband eats?

38:51JD Vance:with french fries or like period period okay wow i didn't realize he's only a mayonnaise guy okay

38:56Katie Miller:i learned something about steve and i didn't know yeah it's whatever are carger shorts a

39:02JD Vance:rite of passage for dads or a cry for help uh both both i mean i look i i wear carger shorts especially when the kids were younger because you're always carrying stuff but they look hideous and i recognize that so i don't wear carger shorts anymore um i don't really wear shorts anymore because I'm constantly being photographed. And I just, you know, I always try to look like reasonably well put together. And a buddy of mine once sent me a line from The Sopranos, Adan never wears shorts. So I try. Are you a swim shirt now in the pool kind of guy at the beach? Yeah. So that's been true for a while though because, so Usha's, I mean, she's born in America, but her parents are from South India.

39:40JD Vance:So she doesn't really get sunburnt. I do. So she always makes me wear sunscreen, but I think sunscreen is disgusting and it stings my eyes. And so the compromise that we came to was I could just wear a sun shirt.

39:52Katie Miller:Do you usually read the instructions or do you just wing it?

39:55JD Vance:Wing it, totally. Sometimes with a YouTube video.

39:57Katie Miller:What's the last thing you searched with on AI?

40:02JD Vance:I'm actually not a big AI guy. The last thing that I did on AI is we wrote a book, my kids and I did, about various, do you guys have the Who Would Win books? No. Okay. So my kids are really into like, Who Would Win, Lion vs. Tiger, Cheetah vs. Jaguar. So we actually made a Big Cats version where we wrote it ourselves, but I used Grok to make the actual images. And some of them are completely deranged. It's like a jaguar with its fang through the skull of a tiger. And it's like, this is really gruesome shit. But here we are. The kids loved it.

40:38Katie Miller:What's a hill you would literally die on that nobody else cares?

40:46JD Vance:that Fade Into You by Mazzy Starr is the best song of 1990s rock. That's probably one where I would die on that nobody else cares.

40:58JD Vance:That I have a lot of weird things like this that I really care about that probably not that many care about. I mean, I think that like most ice creams, okay, if you're not you can't say you have a favorite ice cream unless you're judging consistency of flavor so if you have the vanilla at Jenny's and then you have the coffee ice cream at Grater's and then you come and tell me you like Jenny's more than Grater's that's bullshit because you didn't actually care like to like and there's a lot of that in the ice cream world so you gotta compare apples to apples if you're gonna actually make a judgment about who has the best ice cream the answer is Grater's by the way okay

41:37Katie Miller:Yeah, I've never had that ice cream.

41:38JD Vance:Okay, do you like ice cream?

41:40Katie Miller:Yeah.

41:40JD Vance:Okay, we'll get you some Grater's. Guys, remember that. Grater's ice cream is incredible. It's actually the best ice cream. The crazy thing about it is if you hold a pint of Grater's ice cream.

41:48Katie Miller:Have you done like the blind taste test though to just make sure, like you've seen those things, presumably on the internet where like there's behind the box of like all the different Cokes.

41:54JD Vance:Not only did we do that, but we actually administered a blind taste test to me and our three kids.

42:00Katie Miller:Oh, wow.

42:00JD Vance:Three different Ohio ice creams. Yeah, and Grater's was clearly the best and also clearly my favorite. it. But the crazy thing about graders is if you hold a pint of graders in your hand and then you hold a pint of like Breyers at a grocery store, the graders is literally like twice as heavy because it's so calorie dense. So that's one of the reasons why it tastes better.

42:21Katie Miller:Is there a vacation spot that you and your kids are dying to go to that you have not been?

42:26JD Vance:I really, yeah, I really want to go to Hawaii. So Usha's been to 49 states. I've been to 48. the 50th for both of us will be Alaska the one that she's been to I haven't it's Hawaii and we we all really want to go to Hawaii at some point the next couple years hopefully we can find some excuses vice president United States to go to Hawaii Kamala Harris went to Hawaii so we should be able to find some excuse to go to Hawaii but it just seems so beautiful I love mountains and just like you know like West Virginia is my perfect vacation spot because the streams, the beautiful greenery, the mountains.

42:59JD Vance:I'm not much of a beach guy, but like Hawaii, you get the beautiful mountains. You also get the beach. So, you know, each of us gets something we like between my kids, some of whom like the beach, and then one of our kids and me who likes the mountains.

43:11Katie Miller:So are you a sauna or a cold plunge kind of guy?

43:13JD Vance:I'm a sauna guy, but I've done cold plunge. It is very painful and I don't like it. And so, yeah, that's not going to be for me.

43:25Katie Miller:What does your perfect day look like to you from sunrise to sunset?

43:29JD Vance:So I just had my birthday and it's basically my birthday. So are you a big birthday guy? Not really, but, but you know, Usha makes a big deal out of it. And I had a really good day. We woke up, we took the kids canoeing down the little Miami river in Southwestern Ohio. And then I played golf and then I had a really delicious meal and ice cream for dessert. That's my perfect day.

43:52Katie Miller:And if you could have dinner with three people, living, dead, alive, what do you got? Who are the three people you're inviting to dinner?

44:00JD Vance:Okay. Three people I'd invite to dinner, let's say Isaac Newton, Donald Trump, and Abraham Lincoln.

44:11Katie Miller:Who's monopolizing the conversation?

44:13JD Vance:I'm not going to answer that.

44:19Katie Miller:And with that, we will say thank you for joining the Katie Miller podcast. Thank you so much, Mr. Vice President, for doing this with me. I hope you had a fun time. I certainly did.

44:28JD Vance:Thank you. Good to see you.

44:29Katie Miller:Thank you.