Latest / The Briefing Room / The Heir Apparent, Part One: Is JD Vance Preparing for Life After Trump?

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The Heir Apparent, Part One: Is JD Vance Preparing for Life After Trump? · The Briefing Room

0:08
Speaker 1: What's going on, good people, And welcome back to the
0:11
Speaker 1: U Briefing Room, where we take the biggest stories in
0:13
Speaker 1: politics powers public life, and we brace that thing down
0:17
Speaker 1: with fax context and the next question. But before I
0:20
Speaker 1: go any further, you are listening in the background to
0:23
Speaker 1: the sweet sounds of one George Morgan the Third aka
0:26
Speaker 1: Buddy Love kicking that theme song to the unbriefing room.
0:30
Speaker 1: Sounds so good, don't you agree? Today we are not
0:33
Speaker 1: simply reacting to another awkward moment inside the Trump administration.
0:37
Speaker 1: We're not gonna do twenty eight minutes on Jeffrey Epstein.
0:40
Speaker 1: Although we are going to talk about Jeffrey Epstein. We're
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Speaker 1: not treating a new memoir like on Harmless Summer book release.
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Speaker 1: We're not pretending that every small difference between Donald Trump
0:50
Speaker 1: and JD. Vance is the beginning of some dramatic breakup.
0:54
Speaker 1: This episode is about succession. It's about what happens when
0:57
Speaker 1: a political movement built around one dominant personality begins quietly
1:02
Speaker 1: and somewhat uncomfortably to imagine a future without him. Yes,
1:08
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, it is going to be that time soon,
1:11
Speaker 1: and I know we're all hyped about it. But we're
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Speaker 1: not the only ones. The Republicans are planning and jd
1:16
Speaker 1: Vance and his wife, I am guaranteeing you are doing
1:19
Speaker 1: the happy dance in the backdrop because they are ready
1:22
Speaker 1: to get rid of the Orange crush. This is why
1:24
Speaker 1: we're doing this episode. Donald J. Trump has controlled Republican
1:29
Speaker 1: politics for roughly a decade now. During that period, governors, senators,
1:33
Speaker 1: cabinet officials, attorneys, generals, campaign managers, chiefs of staff, and
1:37
Speaker 1: even a former vice president have entered into his orbit,
1:41
Speaker 1: benefited from his power, collided with his demands, and in
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Speaker 1: many cases been discarded. I told you, I think Ivanka
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Speaker 1: is the only one that is completely safe from this
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Speaker 1: crazy man's wrath. Jd Vance appears to be attempting to
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Speaker 1: do something different. He's trying to remain close to inherit
2:01
Speaker 1: Trump's coalition without becoming so inseparable from Trump that he
2:05
Speaker 1: can't present himself as a new chapter. That is an
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Speaker 1: extraordinarily difficult assignon. Good luck, jd Vance, and listen. If
2:13
Speaker 1: it wasn't intriguing, we wouldn't be doing this episode because
2:16
Speaker 1: I watched Al Gore try to do this exact same
2:18
Speaker 1: dance with Bill Clinton and it did not work. He
2:21
Speaker 1: needed some distance and at the same time he needed
2:23
Speaker 1: some shine from Bill Clinton. This is a tricky dance.
2:26
Speaker 1: Think about it. A vice president has to look loyal
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Speaker 1: without looking invisible. He's got to defend the administration while
2:32
Speaker 1: creating a public identity all his own. He's got to
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Speaker 1: be ambitious enough to prepare for the presidency, but discreet
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Speaker 1: enough not to make the sitting president feel replaced before
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Speaker 1: the job is vacant. And this particular President Donald J. Trump,
2:45
Speaker 1: this is a man who treats loyalty like a personal debt,
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Speaker 1: comparison as competition and independent attention like something that could
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Speaker 1: become very suspicious quickly. So the central question today is
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Speaker 1: not whether JD. Vance is abandoning Trump. He's definly not
3:00
Speaker 1: doing that. That would be suicide. The more revealing question, though,
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Speaker 1: is whether Vance has begun translating trump Ism into a
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Speaker 1: political language designed to survive Trump. And I just read
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Speaker 1: three recent stories lately that made me think about it.
3:14
Speaker 1: I said, ooh, weave these three together. That's an episode.
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Speaker 1: First of all, Vance told Joe Rogan that the Trump
3:20
Speaker 1: administration and this is a quote, absolutely screwed up its
3:24
Speaker 1: communications surrounding the Epstein files. He denied that the administration
3:28
Speaker 1: was hiding evidence, but he placed rear responsibility on the
3:32
Speaker 1: government's handling of public expectations and specifically said former Attorney
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Speaker 1: General Pam Bondi had overstated what officials possessed. Well, she's
3:42
Speaker 1: already been thrown under the bus, so she's fair game. Secondly,
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Speaker 1: Vance released a new book called Communion. Monacle describes it
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Speaker 1: as an attempt to present him as a morally serious,
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Speaker 1: religiously grounded, and surprisingly ordinary family man. Now he wants
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Speaker 1: to go back to his pre Trump roots, a very
4:02
Speaker 1: different personal brand from Trump's wealth, celebrity and constant combat. Third,
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Speaker 1: and maybe the most fascinating, journalist Ken Klippenstein argues that
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Speaker 1: Vance's recent media tour contains a series of carefully chosen
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Speaker 1: points of separation, apologizing for the childless cat Ladi's remark
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Speaker 1: you remember that, emphasizing that he and Trump have different styles,
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Speaker 1: presenting himself as less cynical toward political opponents, and making
4:28
Speaker 1: clear that, unlike an appointed cabinet official, the vice president
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Speaker 1: cannot be fired ooh. He leaned into that none of
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Speaker 1: those facts alone proves a succession strategy. Together, though they
4:39
Speaker 1: start to look like one. Now before we get into it,
4:42
Speaker 1: today's episode of The Briefing Room is brought to you
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5:11
Speaker 1: Now let's get into it. The story begins with a contradiction.
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Speaker 2: Act one, the man who wasn't supposed to become Trump's heir.
5:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we can all agree that Oscar and
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Speaker 1: Felix and got no needs to This is truly the
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Speaker 1: odd couple. I'man's think about it. Long before JD. Vance
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Speaker 1: became Donald Trump's Vice president, he was one of the
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Speaker 1: more famous conservative intellectuals criticizing this dude. Vance entered the
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Speaker 1: national conversation through Hillbilly Elogy, his twenty sixteen memoir about
5:40
Speaker 1: family instability, addiction, and economic decline in the community's surrounding Appalachia.
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Speaker 1: The book became a publishing phenomenon because much of the
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Speaker 1: political and media establishment treated the book like a field
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Speaker 1: guide to the voters driving Trump's rise. Vance was welcome
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Speaker 1: into elite institution as somewhat of an interpreter of working classrosi.
6:00
Speaker 1: He had graduated from Yale Law School, worked in venture
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Speaker 1: capital and can move comfortably between television studios and communities
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Speaker 1: that felt abandoned by the people sitting in those studios now.
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Speaker 1: At the time, he did not describe Trump as the answer.
6:14
Speaker 1: Ruders has documented the severity of his earlier criticism. Though publicly,
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Speaker 1: Vans called Trump and these are quotes an idiot and reprehensible,
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Speaker 1: but privately he wondered whether Trump might become America's hitler.
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Speaker 1: You remember this, coming back on them on multiple occasions.
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Speaker 1: That history has never disappeared. It sits beneath every discussion
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Speaker 1: of Vance's loyalty. Because the trans transformation wasn't subtle. He
6:39
Speaker 1: moved from warning about Trump to defending Trump, from analyzing
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Speaker 1: the movement to joining it, from being the person explaining
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Speaker 1: Trump voters to becoming one of the most effective national
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Speaker 1: representatives of trump Ism. Vance says the change was rooted
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Speaker 1: in policy. Bs Monicle notes that Communion presents his conversion
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Speaker 1: as a decision to prioritize Trump's governing agenda over his
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Speaker 1: dislike of Trump's personality and combative behavior. That explanation might
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Speaker 1: be sincere, but it also may be incomplete. Politics rewards
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Speaker 1: people who can convert conviction and ambition into the same story.
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Speaker 1: Vance found areas where his own evolving worldview overlapped with
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Speaker 1: the Trump movement. Hostility towards elite institutions, skepticism of free trade,
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Speaker 1: anger at cultural liberalism, support for restrictive immigration policy, suspicion
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Speaker 1: of foreign intervention, and a desire to place family, religion,
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Speaker 1: and national identity at the epicenter of public policy. Trump
7:42
Speaker 1: then provided the power Vance needed to turn those ideas
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Speaker 1: into a career. Trump endorsed Vance in twenty twenty two
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Speaker 1: in the Ohio state primary when the endorsement was decisive.
7:52
Speaker 1: Two years later, he placed Vance on the presidential ticket.
7:56
Speaker 1: The former critic became vice president at forty years old
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Speaker 1: and d and immediately entered the front rank of possible
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Speaker 1: future Republican nominees. That's the foundation of the relationship. Vance
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Speaker 1: owns Trump more than a normal vice president owns a president.
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Speaker 1: Trump didn't simply select him after years of national office.
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Speaker 1: He accelerated this man. He turned a one term senator
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Speaker 1: into the most obvious generational bridge between MAGA and whatever
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Speaker 1: comes next. But politically, Debt has an expiration problem. And
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Speaker 1: do you know why, Because a politician preparing to inherit
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Speaker 1: a movement can't spend the rest of his career appearing
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Speaker 1: to merely be the creation of the man before him.
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Speaker 1: At some point, he's got to show that he possesses
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Speaker 1: a reason to exist on his own. This is why
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Speaker 1: we're pointing out the book Communion, because the book is
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Speaker 1: ostensibly about Vance's religious conversion to Catholicism and the moral
8:48
Speaker 1: framework the group from it. Yet, presidential candidates rarely published
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Speaker 1: books that are only about the subject printed on the cover.
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Speaker 1: I want you to think about this. Political memoirs are
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Speaker 1: identity projects. They chum the waters. They tell voters what
9:01
Speaker 1: parts of a politician's biography should be remembered, which contradictions
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Speaker 1: we should forgive, and what future role the author imagines
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Speaker 1: for himself. Now, Monical reports that Trump is mentioned roughly
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Speaker 1: forty two times in the book, and it is always favorable.
9:16
Speaker 1: Vance is not using communion to stage a rebellion. He's
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Speaker 1: doing something a little more sophisticated, which we've given him
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Speaker 1: credit for on this show on multiple occasions. He is sophisticated,
9:27
Speaker 1: and he is cagy a whole lot more than Trump is.
9:29
Speaker 1: He's building the second identity alongside his loyalty. Trump appears
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Speaker 1: as the leader whose policies Van supports. You see what
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Speaker 1: he's doing here. Vance appears as the man who can
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Speaker 1: explain what the movement means morally, spiritually, and intellectually after
9:46
Speaker 1: Trump is no longer standing at the podium. That contrast
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Speaker 1: is very deliberate, folks. Trump's political personality is rooted in dominance, wealth, instinct, celebrity,
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Speaker 1: and grievance, while Vance is Van new presentation emphasizes faith, family,
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Speaker 1: philosophical coherence, and ordinary domestic life. Monacle describes scenes in
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Speaker 1: which Vance discusses finding time to brush his daughter's hair
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Speaker 1: before church. Now that's just a little much for me.
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Speaker 1: The man is trying to present himself as a regular
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Speaker 1: father with recognizable work life concerns. I don't know what
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Speaker 1: this new fangled manhood thing is that we have to Well,
10:26
Speaker 1: don't let me go there. I digress. For real, for real,
10:29
Speaker 1: because that's going to turn into an email. That's not imitation,
10:33
Speaker 1: it is compliment. He's not asking Republican voters to choose
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Speaker 1: between himself and Trump today anyways. He's offering them a
10:40
Speaker 1: future in which they can keep the movements, enemies, policies,
10:44
Speaker 1: and populous energy while trading some of Trump's volatility for
10:49
Speaker 1: a younger and more disciplined messenger. And that is the
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Speaker 1: first clue the future of trump Ism may not come
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Speaker 1: from the person who looks most like Trump. It may
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Speaker 1: come from the person who can conceive and convince voters
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Speaker 1: that he understands Trump's coalition well enough to preserve it
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Speaker 1: and understands Trump's liabilities well enough to send them down.
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Speaker 1: That is the candidate that has the best shot at
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Speaker 1: winning this thing, and I think that's what's on his mind.
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Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
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Speaker 2: You're listening to the Briefing Room on Black Cess Media
11:20
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays at twelve thirty, where politics gets more
11:24
Speaker 2: than a headline, and every headline gets a follow up
11:27
Speaker 2: question act to the Epstein admission.
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Speaker 1: Then came the Joe Rogan interview. Vice presidents don't normally
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Speaker 1: make news by announcing that their administration made a major mistake.
11:40
Speaker 1: Their institutional role is reinforcement. When a president is under pressure,
11:44
Speaker 1: the vice president is expected to clarify, defend, redirect, and
11:48
Speaker 1: blame the opposition. The office does not come with much
11:51
Speaker 1: independent constitutional power, but it carries an enormous political obligation.
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Speaker 1: Don't become a second center of gravity while serving a
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Speaker 1: president who's still occupies the first. That made Vance's language
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Speaker 1: very striking, and a lot of people picked up what
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Speaker 1: he was putting down. Discussing the administration's handling of the
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Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein files, Vance said, and I quote, we absolutely
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Speaker 1: screwed up the comms. Screwed up the coms. The wording
12:20
Speaker 1: was direct. It wasn't an attack on the media. It
12:23
Speaker 1: wasn't a declaration that the controversy had been invented by Democrats.
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Speaker 1: It was not Trump's preferred approach of labeling the entire
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Speaker 1: matter as a hoax and treating questions as betrayal. Vance
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Speaker 1: admitted failure. Admitted failure, anathema to the Orange one. Admitted failure.
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Speaker 1: He then explained the failure in a way that created
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Speaker 1: space between himself and the administration without alleging criminal concealment.
12:50
Speaker 1: He said he knew and liked Pambondi, but he also
12:54
Speaker 1: believed she tried to respond to political pressure and overstated
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Speaker 1: what the government had Bondi had. Faild famously said that
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Speaker 1: an alleged Epstein client list was sitting on her desk.
13:03
Speaker 1: The Justice Department also distributed binders labeled as a first
13:08
Speaker 1: phase of Epstein disclosures to conservative influencers, only for much
13:12
Speaker 1: of the material to prove already public. The political problem
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Speaker 1: wasn't simply that the release disappointed folks. The administration had
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Speaker 1: trained its own supporters to expect a revelation for years.
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Speaker 1: You remember this, Epstein had become a symbol inside parts
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Speaker 1: of the populace right, a case through which powerful institutions,
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Speaker 1: wealthy elites, and protected networks could supposedly be exposed. Trump allies,
13:38
Speaker 1: even they promised transparency, influencers suggested that hidden information would
13:44
Speaker 1: prove enormous corruption. The issue became a test of whether
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Speaker 1: the new administration would finally reveal what previous governments had
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Speaker 1: concealed for many, many years, and Trump was beating that
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Speaker 1: drum right along with them. You remember that when the
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Speaker 1: result of here thinner than the promise the backlash came
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Speaker 1: from inside the coalition. Vance's response was carefully constructed. He
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Speaker 1: conceded the mistake his audience could plainly see, while rejecting
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Speaker 1: the darker conclusion that the administration had deliberately covered something
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Speaker 1: up that is politically useful in two different directions. And
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Speaker 1: dare I say, is rather genius there, JD. It reassures
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Speaker 1: Maga voters that he heard their frustration, It protects the
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Speaker 1: administration from the accusation that it is hiding evidence, and
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Speaker 1: it quietly gives Vance a position above the original mistake.
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Speaker 1: Go ahead, JD. We see what you're trying to do. Now.
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Speaker 1: You gotta be careful, though, because the orange crush has
14:42
Speaker 1: heightened spidy senses. When it comes to disloyalty, he can
14:46
Speaker 1: smell it a mile away. His ego is sharp. I
14:49
Speaker 1: gotta tell you that much. Anytime he thinks somebody is
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Speaker 1: remotely disloyal, his senses start tingling. Don't be surprised, JD.
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Speaker 1: If you walk into the room and he's standing there
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Speaker 1: with that waterboard kitting his hand. What did you mean
15:01
Speaker 1: when you told Joe Regan then we screwed up? I no, no, no, no,
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Speaker 1: no no, I'm just asking JD, I'd be very honest
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Speaker 1: with me. I am just asking, don't be fooled by
15:10
Speaker 1: this waterboard, kid, I was just delivering this to the CIA.
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Speaker 1: I have it in my hand for no malicious purpose.
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Speaker 1: I am just asking, what did you mean when you
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Speaker 1: said we screwed up? JD? What did you mean? Yeah,
15:23
Speaker 1: don't get too smooth for your own good. Now, let
15:25
Speaker 1: me tell you. Let me tell you just how smooth
15:27
Speaker 1: this was. He becomes with that, he becomes the official
15:30
Speaker 1: who can explain what went wrong after others created the problem,
15:34
Speaker 1: and that smooth. That's why the comment is larger than
15:36
Speaker 1: one podcast sentence. Vice Presidents preparing for national campaigns often
15:41
Speaker 1: search for ways to demonstrate judgment without openly condemning the
15:46
Speaker 1: president that they served. This is where Kamala Harris struggled.
15:49
Speaker 1: The safest territory is process, communication, tone, staffing, execution. They
15:55
Speaker 1: don't say the president's goal was wrong. They say the government.
15:58
Speaker 1: The government handled it poorly. Vance used that exact lane.
16:03
Speaker 1: He didn't accuse Trump of corruption. He said the administration's
16:06
Speaker 1: communication failed. He didn't claim BONDI acted maliciously. He said
16:12
Speaker 1: that she overstated the evidence. He didn't validate every conspiracy
16:15
Speaker 1: theories surround in Epstein, he acknowledged that the government's own
16:19
Speaker 1: behavior created mistrust. That is distinction without rupture, and again
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Speaker 1: very smooth. Now this gives Vance something valuable for the future,
16:29
Speaker 1: a recorded moment in which he can say he recognized
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Speaker 1: a political failure while still serving loyally inside the administration.
16:38
Speaker 1: Presidential campaigns are built from these moments. They become proof
16:41
Speaker 1: that a candidate was not merely present. He was perceptive,
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Speaker 1: He understood what went wrong, he learned from it. He
16:47
Speaker 1: can be trusted to run the next administration Differently. Whether
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Speaker 1: Vance intended all of that in the moment is impossible
16:53
Speaker 1: to know. The political effect does not require a secret plan.
16:57
Speaker 1: Ambitious politicians learned to create options every public answer. Hear
17:03
Speaker 1: this clearly, especially in the age of social media. Every
17:08
Speaker 1: public answer can satisfy today's audience while preserving tomorrow's argument.
17:13
Speaker 1: And you see the rhythm on hypermedia. For those that
17:17
Speaker 1: support you, they will find these clips and air them,
17:22
Speaker 1: ad nause them. They'll do the work for you. And
17:24
Speaker 1: these politicians have picked up on that. Vance's Epstein answer
17:29
Speaker 1: accomplished a whole lot of things at one time. And
17:33
Speaker 1: dare I say it was good gamesmanship, albeit risky.
17:39
Speaker 2: Act three distance measured in inches.
17:43
Speaker 1: Now, this is when King Clippenstein's analysis becomes useful. But
17:46
Speaker 1: it should be treated as analysis rather than establish evidence
17:49
Speaker 1: of Vance's private Intentant we be clear about that. Clippenstein
17:52
Speaker 1: points to a collection of moments from Vance's recent media
17:55
Speaker 1: tour that appears small individually, but form a coherent public
18:00
Speaker 1: profile when you place them all together. Vance apologized for
18:03
Speaker 1: his twenty twenty one remark about childless cat ladies, calling
18:06
Speaker 1: it his most bone headed moment. And that's the quote
18:09
Speaker 1: he said that he and Trump have way different styles
18:12
Speaker 1: and other quote. When asked about Trump's inflammatory language on immigration,
18:16
Speaker 1: he didn't renounce the administration's policy, he separated his own
18:20
Speaker 1: rhetorical temperament from Trump's. Vance also presented himself as less
18:25
Speaker 1: consumed by partisan hatred. He said that he would rather
18:28
Speaker 1: be too charitable than too cynical about human beings and
18:31
Speaker 1: rejected the idea that he fundamentally hates people on the
18:35
Speaker 1: other side, that language doesn't sound revolutionary in ordinary life,
18:39
Speaker 1: but we're not talking about ordinary life, I mean inside
18:42
Speaker 1: Trump's political movement. This is notable. Trump's power comes partly
18:46
Speaker 1: from emotional certainty. He identifies enemies clearly, assigns blame aggressively,
18:51
Speaker 1: and demands that supporters' interpret criticism as proof of persecution.
18:56
Speaker 1: His politics are not simply conservative policy plus colorful life.
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Speaker 1: The conflict is central to the identity. Vance appears to
19:04
Speaker 1: be experimenting with a softer, emotional rapper around many of
19:08
Speaker 1: the same priorities. Check this out now. Immigration restriction remains
19:12
Speaker 1: economic nationalism, it remains Christian. Influence in public life remains
19:17
Speaker 1: hostility towards progressive institution that remains the language, however, becomes
19:23
Speaker 1: more reflective, more controlled, and occasionally just occasionally apologetic. This
19:29
Speaker 1: is what a succession strategy often looks like before anyone
19:32
Speaker 1: formally announces one. The potential heir doesn't reject the coalition.
19:37
Speaker 1: He revises the tone. George HW. Bush didn't inherit Ronald
19:41
Speaker 1: Reagan's movement by becoming Reagan. Bush had once criticized supply
19:45
Speaker 1: side economics as voodoo economics, quote unquote, but as vice president,
19:49
Speaker 1: he became loyal enough to reassure the base while presenting
19:53
Speaker 1: himself as a more experienced and restrained administrator. Let's go
19:57
Speaker 1: to al Gore. This man spent eight years defending Bill
20:00
Speaker 1: Clinton's presidency while building a separate identity around technology, the environment,
20:04
Speaker 1: and government reform. Joe Biden served as Barack Obama's partner,
20:08
Speaker 1: but maintained his own working class political persona and foreign
20:12
Speaker 1: policy resume. By the time he ran in twenty twenty,
20:16
Speaker 1: he was selling continuity with Obama and a personal style
20:19
Speaker 1: that voters understood as patently different. So go to Mike Pence.
20:24
Speaker 1: He offers the opposite example. For four years, he gave
20:27
Speaker 1: Trump nearly total public loyalty. When January sixth forced the
20:32
Speaker 1: constitutional separation, the break was so traumatic that Pence lost
20:36
Speaker 1: both Trump and much of the movement without establishing a large,
20:39
Speaker 1: independent constituency of his own. Vance. Study that example well,
20:45
Speaker 1: and all the other examples that we just named, might
20:48
Speaker 1: I add I mean a man seems to understand that
20:50
Speaker 1: total subordination can make a vice president useful today, but
20:53
Speaker 1: I render him obsolete tomorrow. And he also knows that
20:56
Speaker 1: visible rebellion can trigger Trump's wrath and close the path
21:00
Speaker 1: to the voters that he needs. And he's still reflecting
21:03
Speaker 1: on that waterboarding kit in Trump's hand when he asked him,
21:05
Speaker 1: what did you mean? What did you mean? It'd be
21:08
Speaker 1: screwed up. We fed, what did you mean? So he
21:11
Speaker 1: is measuring distance in inches, and I mean just like
21:15
Speaker 1: on any given Sunday, the six inches in front of
21:18
Speaker 1: your face. He's dealing with an apology. Here, a stylistic distinction, there,
21:23
Speaker 1: a more compassionate sentence in one interview, a Frank acknowledgment
21:28
Speaker 1: of administrative failure. On another platform, a memoir that praises
21:32
Speaker 1: Trump while explaining why JD. Vance is not Donald Trump.
21:37
Speaker 1: The public's not being asked to notice a break is
21:40
Speaker 1: being introduced to a difference.
21:42
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22:45
Speaker 2: Act four. The only man in the cabinet who cannot
22:49
Speaker 2: be fired.
22:50
Speaker 1: Now, this is a coveted position to be in. There's
22:53
Speaker 1: another structural reason Vance can attempt this balance and act.
22:56
Speaker 1: As Clippenstein notes, the vice president is elected, not appointed.
23:01
Speaker 1: Trump can humiliate a Secretary of State, he can dismiss
23:04
Speaker 1: an attorney general or remove a national security advisor. He
23:08
Speaker 1: cannot fire the vice president. He can't use his famous
23:12
Speaker 1: line from The Apprentice, You're fired. He cannot use that
23:15
Speaker 1: line on JD. Vance. And although he is not flexing it,
23:19
Speaker 1: he knows that Vance reportedly joked about that advantage during
23:22
Speaker 1: his media tour. He is the only member of the
23:24
Speaker 1: cabinet who cannot be fired. The joke contains real political power.
23:30
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio Advance's clearest potential rival for the twenty twenty
23:33
Speaker 1: eight Republican nomination. Rubio has gained stature through his foreign
23:37
Speaker 1: policy role, particularly during the Iran conflict. Reut has reported
23:42
Speaker 1: that Trump privately asked advisors JD or Americo, which do
23:46
Speaker 1: you think. As the administration's war strategy became entangled with
23:50
Speaker 1: succession politics. Rubio, however, remains an appointed official. Big difference.
23:56
Speaker 1: His public freedom is narrower. A Secretary of State who
24:00
Speaker 1: creates obvious distance from the president risks losing off the
24:04
Speaker 1: office that gives him national prominence. He's got to be
24:07
Speaker 1: way more careful than JD. Vance. Vance's position is constitutionally protected.
24:14
Speaker 1: Think about that. But now, that does not make him
24:17
Speaker 1: politically safe. I mean Trump can still attack him, He
24:20
Speaker 1: can still deny him an endorsement, He can encourage a
24:22
Speaker 1: challenger or turn the MAGA media ecosystem against him. Reutter
24:26
Speaker 1: has quoted a Republican strategist warning that Trump has a
24:30
Speaker 1: long memory and could punish Vance for insufficient allegiance. And
24:34
Speaker 1: I want you to think about this as well, not
24:36
Speaker 1: just this episode of The Briefing Room, but the articles
24:39
Speaker 1: in which I base this episode on. People are writing
24:42
Speaker 1: about the fact that he's trying to distance himself in
24:44
Speaker 1: a very smooth and strategic fashion. You don't think Trump's
24:48
Speaker 1: sick of fans are running him. The articles like sir, sir,
24:51
Speaker 1: look at what they wrote. I read it, I saw,
24:53
Speaker 1: I saw hm. I wonder what JD's up to. Don't
24:57
Speaker 1: think this is happening in some secret corner. But now
25:00
Speaker 1: Vance can survive inside the administration after displacing the president
25:04
Speaker 1: in a way most potential rivals cannot. Because he cannot
25:07
Speaker 1: hear those dreaded words you're fired. That changes the calculation.
25:12
Speaker 1: It allows him to show small amounts of independence without
25:15
Speaker 1: immediately losing the platform from which he is building his future,
25:18
Speaker 1: and the future is no longer theoretical. Routers reported that
25:23
Speaker 1: Advance won fifty three percent of the vote in the
25:25
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll.
25:29
Speaker 1: Rubio finished second at thirty five percent, a significant rise
25:33
Speaker 1: from the year before. No other potential candidate received more
25:37
Speaker 1: than two percent. So obviously, as Trump as his staff,
25:41
Speaker 1: it really does come down to do you like Markio,
25:43
Speaker 1: my Rubio, you like Lynda Marico? Or do you like JD.
25:47
Speaker 1: It really does come down to those two. A sea
25:49
Speaker 1: pack straw pole doesn't determine a presidential nominee, let's get
25:52
Speaker 1: that straight, but it does reveal where energy is gathering
25:55
Speaker 1: amongst core activists. Vance also carries strong approval within the
26:00
Speaker 1: Republican Party. Ruders IPSOS polling in March found that seventy
26:04
Speaker 1: to nine percent of Republicans view Advance favorably. Just damn,
26:10
Speaker 1: that's a lot of people. The same percentage reported for Trump.
26:14
Speaker 1: While Rubio also held a strong though slightly lower positive ratings,
26:19
Speaker 1: still comes down to those two sixty seven sixt' seven.
26:22
Speaker 1: Trump himself has fueled the speculation. In June, he said
26:25
Speaker 1: advanced Rubio ticket would be very difficult to beat. Earlier,
26:29
Speaker 1: he suggest Advance was most likely heir apparent. At other
26:32
Speaker 1: moments he declined to choose between the two. Now, I
26:35
Speaker 1: guess the question would be which is care for? How
26:39
Speaker 1: word this? Which is going to be at the top
26:42
Speaker 1: of the ticket and to the bottom of the ticket.
26:45
Speaker 1: If you word that the wrong way, folks get offended.
26:47
Speaker 1: This is classic Trump. He encourages competition because it reinforces
26:51
Speaker 1: his centrality, the fact that he's the sun and everybody
26:54
Speaker 1: else orbits around him. The successors remain dependent on his blessing.
26:58
Speaker 1: He wants them to fight. He does this to his sons.
27:00
Speaker 1: I mean, we all know this. Their rivalry produces attention
27:04
Speaker 1: that still flows back toward him. He can praise one,
27:07
Speaker 1: elevate the other, and remain the person whose judgment appears
27:10
Speaker 1: to decide the moment's future. For Vance, the challenge is
27:14
Speaker 1: to become inevitable without looking presumptuous. That requires two audiences.
27:19
Speaker 1: He's got to satisfy Trump personally enough to avoid excommunication.
27:23
Speaker 1: He must also persuade Republican voters that he presents more
27:27
Speaker 1: than four additional years of imitation communion. The apology toward
27:34
Speaker 1: the stylistic differences, and the epstein omission all serve that
27:38
Speaker 1: second purpose. They tell voters, I understand the movement, but
27:42
Speaker 1: I can carry it in a different way, and we
27:44
Speaker 1: all gotta admit, don't we really need that? Right about now,
27:49
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do something I rarely do. This is to
27:51
Speaker 1: be continued because I wanted to break this thing down,
27:54
Speaker 1: and I've got several different iterations. I've got other chapters
27:57
Speaker 1: I want to introduce to you, but I wanted to
27:59
Speaker 1: make sure that we broke this thing down in a
28:01
Speaker 1: way that we can digest it and really analyze it,
28:04
Speaker 1: because this is going to be the storyline going forward,
28:07
Speaker 1: and the greater sub storyline is going to be Trump's
28:10
Speaker 1: reaction to everybody doing articles stories and podcasts like this
28:15
Speaker 1: because he's listening intently and he is not good with it. JD.
28:19
Speaker 1: There you're plotting on my demise over there, and people
28:22
Speaker 1: are talking about it, and JD's gonna be trying to No,
28:24
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that, President Trump. That's no. Yes you are. Yes,
28:27
Speaker 1: I'm reading all the articles. I'm listening to, all the
28:29
Speaker 1: podcasts that Joe Rogan interview. Hand me that waterboarding kid again.
28:33
Speaker 1: JD thinks I'm playing this is going to be a
28:36
Speaker 1: soap opera. And I gotta tell you, folks, we here
28:40
Speaker 1: at the briefing room are here for it. Well, folks,
28:43
Speaker 1: that's my time. That's gonna do it for me. Today
28:45
Speaker 1: is JD Vance Preparing for Life After Trump Part one.
28:49
Speaker 1: Tune in for the next episode for part two of
28:52
Speaker 1: this riveting story on the briefing room right here on
28:55
Speaker 1: Black Ciss Media. Big shout out to GMM Getaways for
28:58
Speaker 1: sponsoring the show. But before I go, I gotta call
29:00
Speaker 1: my man, George Morgan the third a k A. Buddy
29:04
Speaker 1: Love to kick that theme song tell our briefing room
29:07
Speaker 1: to get us out of here. George Morgan aka Buddy
29:09
Speaker 1: Love Kick that funky joint We'll see you all tomorrow.
29:12
Speaker 2: Briefer Room, I got a nice firm grip on the
29:15
Speaker 2: sweeper Room, refilling dirt from under the map.
29:18
Speaker 1: I entertained questions later. Now on to the fact reported
29:22
Speaker 1: live and direct. This the brief of Room Room