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J.D. Vance
Hi, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.
Podcast Host
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Political Commentator/Narrator
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Political Commentator/Narrator
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Political Commentator/Narrator
Donald Trump under the bus. Marco Rubio under the bus. Pete Hegseth under the bus. J.D. vance's going in for the kill shot right now. Let me show you what went down. So JD Vance went on Joe Rogan's podcast at the same time that the Wall Street Journal leaked out, likely through Rubio or Hegseth, that Donald Trump was planning on escalating the war in Iran, perhaps sending ground forces to take over Carg island, which would be an absolute disaster, perhaps blowing up Pickaxe Mountain, perhaps invading the coast of Iran. And so J. Vance goes on Joe Rogan and he basically just throws Donald Trump and throws other cabinet members under the bus. And J.D. vance just kind of goes there right away and he starts talking about the Epstein files and how he believes that Donald Trump and the Trump regime really screwed up the way they handled the Epstein files, and it was really bad at what they did. And then J.D. vance, you know, he even says, you know, later on when he was interviewed separately by cnn, of course we're gon support the midterm results. We're not going to challenge them when, you know, Donald Trump's going to completely challenge them and all that. And then you had separately Trump regime people, Rubio Hexlers then leak out as well. And Ms. Now got the exclusive right after J.D. vance went on Rogan that J.D. vance would always arrange for his elementary school son to be flown in a military helicopter for golf lessons across town. And how the Secret Service is facing fed up with the Vance family using the Secret Service and helicopters and, and all of the cars and all of the accoutrements that come with the Oval Office in order to help J.D. vance's family. And this leaked as well. The frustration over J.D. vance making last minute ask the Secret Service has boiled over to the point that agents have made custom coins and stickers to mock the frequency of the Vice President and his family. Minute Travel, using Vance's Secret Service codename, Bobcat. And they have like the Bobcat Survivors club and they hand out these patches. And so J.D. vance called out Trump and his regime, which he's a part of, and then they leaked. And then others inside Trump leaked that to the press. So let me show you what went down. Here's J.D. vance admitting that. Yeah, we had. We mishandled the Epstein files for sure. Trump regime, we mishandled it. Here, play this clip.
J.D. Vance
It was Donald Trump. He also kicked him out of Mar A Lago. Kicked him out of Mar A Lago. It just obvious that Epstein was a sick man. Yeah, but if people want to say we mishandled the Epstein release, guilty. We did mishandle, especially the communications of it. What do you think should have been done? I think that we should have just Dropped everything at the very beginning.
Political Commentator/Narrator
Then JD Vance goes on to say that the Democratic Party far more cool than the Republicans. He goes, you know, the influencers, actors, athletes, they tend to be Democrat. Democrats tend to be viewed as much cooler than us Republicans. This is what he says on Rogan here. Play this clip.
J.D. Vance
There's like an element of truth to it, which is that Republicans still fundamentally have a cool problem, right? There's something more charismatic, more cool about the Democrats as opposed to the right. So you said something about there are too many dorks or something on the right. There's a lot of dorks, you know, fair. I'd say there's a lot of dorks. There's a lot of dorks left too. But it's a different kind of dork. It's a different kind of dork. But the point is that there's something, you know, like, okay, if you're a pop star, you're a rock star, you're an actor, you're in all these cultural centers, you're more likely to be left than right. And so I think that a lot of young people who are attracted to these population centers, they sort of move along with the prevailing culture. I think that's, that's one thing that's going on.
Political Commentator/Narrator
And then at the same time, Donald Trump is saying, we're just gonna bomb the hell out of Iran. We're gonna bomb them, bomb them, bomb them. JD Van's l literally goes, we're not just going to bomb, bomb, bomb and bomb. That's quite literal. Trump literally said we're going to bomb them. We're going to bomb them until they behave. Here, let's play this clip.
J.D. Vance
What the President has done, I think very, very capably is said we're going to use military force in this situation when it's connected to something we're trying to achieve. So if you shoot at ships, we're going to shoot at the facilities at which you used to shoot at the ships. But we're not just going to do something open ended indefinitely. We're not just going to bomb and bomb and bo we're going to try to use our military force as one of the many tools that we have to solve the problem. And obviously, like I'm biased, but I think that's exactly the right approach.
Podcast Host
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Political Commentator/Narrator
Then JD Vance goes on to talk about how and this is fascinating because you know, yesterday Donald Trump talked about how important data centers are to him. We need to build data centers everywhere. Unregulated data centers, unregulated AI. And then JD Vance criticized, criticizes that and JD Bands goes, look, I like wealth being created, but if you don't ensure that some of the prosperity is shared with the people, then you're going to. Then he says, well then you're going to have communism. So he still uses the communism frame in order to fear monger when if anything, I mean the Trump regime is the most communist regime ever, but for for their right wing oligarchs. But it's fascinating that J.D. vance is kind of taking a position that goes exactly the opposite of what Trump and Rubio have been saying here. Play this clip.
J.D. Vance
That to me is the fundamental challenge of AI is it's going to unleash a lot of wealth creation. But if that wealth creation all goes to some segment of people, you're going to have communism. That is the choice before us is a lot of wealth being created. That's good. By the way, I like wealth being created. But if you don't ensure that there's some broader prosperity from that wealth creation, we have run this experiment before and it leads to communism.
Political Commentator/Narrator
Then JD Vance calls out Israel and calls out the influence operation that Netanyahu and Israel run in the United States. And J.D. vance is like, have you read the Time magazine article where it talks about Netanyahu funding all of these American influencers to attack the memorandum of understanding and to attack me when I was trying to do a deal and trying to do a peace deal with Iran? Here, play this clip.
J.D. Vance
Defense contractors, you know, there's a lot of talk about how, how much is the Israeli influencing American politics. And there are certainly certain people within the Israeli government who hate the deal. And we see exact evidence. There was a Time story that came out yesterday that basically there are certain influencers in America who are being paid in order to attack the deal. I think some of it, it's just pure political ideology, right? It's foreign policy perspectives.
Political Commentator/Narrator
More over here from J.D. vance. And J.D. vance says it's just fascinating that he brings this up. Like, it's kind of. He brings us up, in my opinion, with like a wink and a nod. He's like, the idea that Donald Trump can just be easily blackmailed. It's crazy to me to even think that he can be blackmailed. I see the way he processes stuff, the way he picks up the phone. You think that guy is going to be blackmailed? Anybody? Just a fascinating thing to bring up. Here, play this clip.
J.D. Vance
It's more doves. Doves is good, right? So what I think a lot of people I've heard this argument is this idea that Donald Trump was sort of. I've even heard people say he was blackmailed into this by the Israelis. That's not true, dude. It's just not true. I've seen the decision making up close. Again, whether you agree or disagree with our negotiation or whether you agree or disagree with the decision to launch the campaign. Epic fury to begin with. The idea that Donald Trump is being like back blackmailed is crazy to me because again, I see the way that he makes decisions. I see the way that he processes this stuff. Like the idea that he picks up the phone with anybody and says, hey, I'm going to take orders from you. No, that's just not how Donald Trump operates.
Political Commentator/Narrator
Going back to J.D. vance on Iran, J.D. vance says, look, we're not going to send troops ever into Iran. We're not sending them in. Now this. At the same time Rubio and Hegseth, Hegseth is making high T videos. The Defense Department or Department of War becomes high T. Did you see that? Did you see that video that I showed it yesterday. But while Trump Hegseth Rubio are leaking ground invasion, Rubio is out there saying no ground invasion. Let's play this clip.
Goldbelly/Shopify Ad Narrator
Not good.
J.D. Vance
It's not good, right? And so like, if the Iranian people want to rise up and change their government, that's up to them. But we're not going to send 150,000 ground troops in order to accomplish a change in a regime unless the people on the ground themselves want to accomplish that outcome. Now, we're not going to send the troops in regardless, but like to propose sending in the troops. You're basically saying that the US Military should do the job for the Iranian people. We're not in that business anymore. We're just not.
Political Commentator/Narrator
Rubio then admits that Epstein had connections at the highest level of the Israeli government. Let's play this clip.
J.D. Vance
Clearly had connections to the upper. The highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence. In fact, one of the interesting story, one of the interesting things the Epstein saga reveals about, and I try to make this point, one of the reasons why I'm always careful and I say there are some elements within the Israeli government who don't like our peace process, because there are a lot of elements within the Israeli government that actually do like our peace process. They recognize that this indefinite campaign is not good for them either. And the Epstein thing is interesting because as much as I know Prime Minister Netanyahu, not a particularly popular person in the United States of America right now, Epstein seemed to be connected to the elements of the Israeli deep state that were left of center. Like, I've always found that fascinating. It wasn't like he was super connected to the right of center of Israeli politics.
Political Commentator/Narrator
JD Vance also wonders if malicious ghost would be the same thing as a demon. Okay, play this clip.
J.D. Vance
Here's the way I put it, is like there's also a difference between a demon and a ghost, right? These things are two very different conceptual things, right? But if I'm a human being and I meet a malicious ghost, maybe I think it's a demon. And maybe all I'm saying is maybe there's some, there's some point at which the conceptually interesting. This is such a weird conversation, at which point the conceptually interesting discussion of what it is is separate from how it appears to me and how I'm going to understand it as a human being.
Political Commentator/Narrator
And then JD Vance goes on to say how space aliens can be also angels and demons. Okay, here, play this clip that you
J.D. Vance
know Metaphysically, there could be two separate things going on. There could be celestial, there could be extra earth outside of Earth, space aliens, and there could also be angels and demons. These could be two totally separate things.
Political Commentator/Narrator
And then J.D. vance, I think, takes another shot at Trump and Rubio and Hegseth and that crew that wants more War. And J.D. vance says the military is one tool, but diplomacy is another. And I'm frustrated by Americans who say, you can't negotiate with the Iranians. It's Trump, that's Rubio, that's Higson. Here, play this clip.
J.D. Vance
You know, you see Mike Pence, who's sort of a super hawk, my predecessor, who say this. There are people who are super hawkish in the American system who have attacked the deal and frankly, in some ways have tried to derail the deal. And what I always say to those people is, what is your proposal? What is your actual argument? So just take the Strait of Hormuz, like the narrowest, but in some ways the most important part of this back and forth right now. Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway. To the extent you shut it down, you shut down 25% of the world's energy supply. Okay, Joe, you could take $100,000 and go buy a bunch of drones on the black market and post yourself on an island in the Strait of Hormuz or near it, and you could fire drones at those ships. Okay? Now what does that mean? Some oil and gas is still going to get out? Because some ships and some ship captains are going to say, screw you. Now, the United States can help that, right? We can shoot down some of those drones, we can shoot down some of those missiles, and so we can facilitate the flow of traffic. But the people who are like you cannot negotiate with the Iranians. The reason why that's fundamentally idiotic is because so long as you have some person who's willing to fire off a few cheap drones, you're going to have some ship captains who say, no, no, no, we're not willing to do this. So we got to kind of use all tools at our disposal. The military is one tool, but diplomacy is another tool. And I'm very frustrated by the Americans and frankly by people in other countries who are like, you cannot negotiate with the Iranians. Well, then what is your proposal to get people to stop shooting at ships in the Strait of Hormuz? You can bomb them, you can take away their radar, you can take away some of their drones and some of their missiles, and. But it's just too easy to fire at ships in the straits. So you've got to actually be willing to talk.
Political Commentator/Narrator
J.D. vance says, I will go to my deathbed thinking that there is a story there when it comes to Epstein, that he definitely was in on something. Okay, here, play this clip where he
J.D. Vance
was trying to either influence people or compromise people. Correct. So it's not there's some sort of an operation that was going on. There is a story there. And you know, I will go to my deathbed believing there's a story there, but I can't prove it. And I promise you there's not some document that at least I'm hiding that allows us to prove exactly what was going on.
Political Commentator/Narrator
And then finally you have JD Vance as he was heading to Capitol Hill after that interview, he said, of course we will support the results of a free and fair election and we're not going to challenge the results at the midterm.
Podcast Host
Let's play it.
Shopify/Monday.com Ad Narrator
Will the administration support the results of the midterm elections come November, regardless of what they look like?
J.D. Vance
Well, look, of course we're going to support the results of the midterm elections. We think we're going to win. But ultimately that's up to the American people.
Political Commentator/Narrator
There you have it, folks. So right at the same time Trump, Rubio, Hegse, other warmongers leaked to the Journal, ground invasion, Pickaxe Mountain, all of that, J.D. vance on Rogan says, actually, we're not going to do that. We're not going to do any of that. Tell me what you think. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers.
Podcast Host
Thanks for watching breaking news right now. My brothers and I wrote a book. It's called WTF America? And, well, doesn't that just say it all? It comes out officially this October, but you can pre order your copy today. Just scan the QR code or click the link in the description below.
J.D. Vance
Sam.
Date: July 16, 2026
Hosts: Ben, Brett, and Jordy Meiselas
Key Guest/Focus: J.D. Vance, Vice President
In this episode, the Meiselas brothers break down a bombshell moment: Vice President J.D. Vance publicly criticizing Donald Trump and key regime allies (including Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth) in a wide-ranging interview on the Joe Rogan Experience. Vance goes off-script on everything from foreign policy and Trump’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein to the Republican Party’s “coolness problem” and the ethics of wealth concentration via AI. The episode blends sharp political analysis with the brothers’ signature banter, focusing on the growing rift within MAGA world and the implications for democracy, foreign policy, and the 2026 midterms.
| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Notable Moment | |-----------|----------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 04:57 | J.D. Vance | “If people want to say we mishandled the Epstein release, guilty. We did mishandle, especially the communications of it.” | | 05:34 | J.D. Vance | “Republicans still fundamentally have a cool problem.” | | 06:38 | J.D. Vance | "We're not just going to bomb and bomb and bomb." | | 09:26 | J.D. Vance | "If that wealth creation all goes to some segment of people, you're going to have communism." | | 10:21 | J.D. Vance | “There are certain influencers in America who are being paid in order to attack the [peace] deal.” | | 13:19 | J.D. Vance | “Epstein seemed to be connected to the elements of the Israeli deep state that were left of center.” | | 14:26 | J.D. Vance | "There's also a difference between a demon and a ghost, right?" | | 15:10 | J.D. Vance | "There could be celestial...space aliens, and ...angels and demons." | | 15:50 | J.D. Vance | "The military is one tool, but diplomacy is another tool." | | 17:50 | J.D. Vance | "I will go to my deathbed believing there's a story there, but I can't prove it."| | 18:33 | J.D. Vance | "Of course we're going to support the results of the midterm elections." |
For anyone who missed the episode, this is your in-depth window into the latest intra-GOP drama, the evolving Trump-Vance dynamic, and what it means for American democracy in 2026.