JD Vance is just getting started

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: Today, Explained
Episode: JD Vance is just getting started
Date: December 18, 2025
Hosts: Noel King (Vox)
Guest: Ian Ward (Politico)

This episode examines the turbulent, meme-savvy, and controversy-prone first year of JD Vance as Vice President under Donald Trump. Political reporter Ian Ward walks listeners through Vance’s embrace of online rightwing culture, his legislative and diplomatic maneuvers, and the many contradictions at the heart of his political identity. The episode traces Vance’s transformation into both a new-age conservative communicator and a central, often polarizing, figure within the MAGA movement — and explores whether he’s serious presidential material for 2028.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Vance’s Embrace of Meme Culture and Online Politics

• Memeification as Political Strategy

  • Vance didn’t reject but leaned into online memes and mockery, even dressing as a meme version of himself for Halloween ([02:42]–[03:04]).
  • Quote – JD Vance: “Happy Halloween, kids. And remember, say thank you.” ([03:04])
  • Ian Ward explains: This signals that Vance is attuned to the younger, internet-driven conservative base in a way previous generations weren’t ([03:07]).
  • Quote – Ian Ward:
    “If he was too self-serious, it would be sort of boomer-coded…he’s privy to that dynamic and sort of savvy at navigating it.” ([04:05])

• Online Combativeness as a Political Stance

  • Vance views participation in social media brawls (even with random users or over pop culture beefs) as being in “the engine room of the right” ([03:07]).

Key Moments in Vance’s First Year as Vice President

• Senate Shepherding for Trump’s Agenda

  • Trusted to guide through controversial cabinet nominations, including Pete Hegseth, RFK Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard ([04:42]–[05:08]).

• Europe Trip and Disrupting Norms

  • Delivered critical speeches challenging U.S.-Europe relations ([05:28]) and promoting AI optimism ([05:43]).
    • Quote – JD Vance: “But we think it’s an important part of being in a shared alliance together that the Europeans step up while America focuses on areas of the world that are in great danger.” ([05:28])
    • Quote – JD Vance:
      “Oftentimes our response is to be too self conscious, too risk averse...never have I encountered a breakthrough in tech that so clearly calls us to do precisely the opposite.” ([05:43])

• Contentious Meeting with Zelensky

  • Played a combative role in a high-stakes White House meeting, accusing Ukraine of freeloading and failing to show gratitude ([06:22]–[07:38]).
    • Quote – JD Vance: “Have you said thank you once this entire meeting?” ([07:38])
  • Ward contextualizes this as rooted in Vance’s belief that the U.S. working class bears the cost of global hegemony ([06:50]–[07:38]).

• Israel-Iran Conflict and the ‘Trump Doctrine’

  • Privately opposed, but publicly supported, major military intervention ([08:12]–[08:42]).
    • Quote – JD Vance:
      “When you can’t solve it diplomatically, you use overwhelming military power to solve it, and then you get the hell out...That is the Trump Doctrine.” ([08:32])

Controversies & Culture Wars

• Charlie Kirk Assassination and Right-Wing Martyrdom

  • Vance was closely aligned with Kirk—delivered an impassioned, presidential-sounding monologue after his killing, and recast the event as a sign of left-wing violence ([09:11]–[10:08]).
    • Quote – JD Vance:
      “I can’t promise you that all of us will avoid Charlie’s fate...But the way to honor him is to shine the light of truth like a torch in the very darkest places.” ([09:52])
  • Vance’s selective use of the free speech argument exposes him to charges of hypocrisy ([10:23]–[10:49]).
    • Ian Ward summarizes Vance’s ethos: “All politics can be reduced to the distinction between friends and enemies. You help your friends and you attack your enemies.” ([10:49])

• Handling Youth Right-Wing Scandal and Nick Fuentes

  • Downplayed leaked racist and antisemitic messages from a Young Republican group ([11:20]–[11:58]).
    • Quote – JD Vance:
      “Kids do stupid things, especially young boys...I really don't want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke…is cause to ruin their lives.” ([11:40])
  • Deliberately avoided denouncing or expelling Nick Fuentes, recognizing the necessity of hard-right online influencers for a MAGA electoral coalition ([13:05]–[13:38]).

Navigating Identity and Movement Contradictions

• Multicultural Family, Nativist Base
  • Handled criticism from the right about his wife’s immigrant background with caution, while leaning into “heritage American” rhetoric ([13:55]–[16:17]).
    • Quote – JD Vance:
      “I hope eventually my wife comes to see [my faith] the same way.” ([13:55])
  • Faces a tension between MAGA's nativist elements and his own diverse family—appears to be pivoting from foreign policy to “affordability” and domestic issues ([16:17]).

Electoral Strategy, Future Ambitions & Movement Dynamics

• The 2026 Midterms & Immigration Focus

  • Poised to campaign heavily on administration’s immigration and mass deportation statistics, which unifies MAGA's base ([20:43]–[21:30]).
    • Quote – JD Vance:
      “But why have rents gone down for four consecutive months? Because we're starting to get those illegal aliens out of the United States of America, those criminals, those gang members.” ([21:18])

• 2028 Presidential Hopes

  • Publicly denies presidential aspirations for 2028, but “it’s his nomination to lose,” per Ian Ward ([21:30]–[22:00]).

  • Outside of MAGA, may struggle with the pivotal “Trump-but-not-MAGA” swing voters, especially independents and those frustrated with the economy ([22:26]–[23:38]).

  • Quote – Everyday Person:
    "Talk to anybody who's broke…The economy's bananas right now." ([23:11])

• Managing a Fractured, Diverse GOP

  • Holds MAGA and elite conservative support but risks losing swing voters; much depends on the next three years’ record ([22:26]–[24:47]).
    • Quote – Ian Ward:
      “The process of anointment matters a lot for whether the charisma rubs off on a successor… If the current trends continue and people are discontent…he’s in a very, very difficult position.” ([23:52], [25:47])

• Tech Policy and Silicon Valley

  • Vance is more “tech optimistic” than some right-wing peers, seeing AI as an opportunity not just a risk ([24:54]–[25:30]).
    • Quote – JD Vance:
      "If you're so terrified with the problems with AI, you don't actually embrace the potential, then you're going to get the worst of the problems without any of the benefits." ([25:13])

• Vance’s Endgame: A Populist Realignment

  • Hopes to forge a multi-decade, broad populist-nationalist majority along FDR-style lines ([25:47]).
    • Ian Ward summarizes:
      “That requires a type of consensus that is extremely, extremely rare in 21st century electoral politics…by hitching his wagon closely to MAGA, he inherits all that division and all that baggage.” ([25:47])

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “[Vance] is signaling that he's kind of in the engine room of the right at this point and that he gets it in a way an older generation...didn’t.”
  — Ian Ward ([03:07])

• “Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Pete Hegseth...”—JD Vance, during a mock ceremony for a controversial nominee ([04:59])

• “Have you said thank you once this entire meeting?”
  — JD Vance to Zelensky ([07:38])

• “You help your friends and you attack your enemies...”
  — Ian Ward, explaining Vance’s reference to Carl Schmidt ([10:49])

• “I can't promise you that all of us will avoid Charlie's fate...But the way to honor him is to shine the light of truth like a torch in the very darkest places. Go do it.”
  — JD Vance ([09:52])

• “The Trump Doctrine: When you can't solve it diplomatically, you use overwhelming military power to solve it, and then you get the hell out...”
  — JD Vance ([08:32])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |-------------------------------|------------| | Introduction to Vance’s rise | 00:00–02:23| | Meme politics & online persona| 02:23–04:31| | Senate confirmations & Europe | 04:31–05:55| | Meeting with Zelensky | 06:07–07:38| | Israel-Iran, Trump Doctrine | 07:42–08:42| | Charlie Kirk’s death, fallout | 08:58–10:23| | Free speech, enemies/friends | 10:23–11:20| | Leaked chat/Young Republicans | 11:20–12:32| | Nick Fuentes/Tucker, coalition| 12:32–13:38| | Multicultural family tensions | 13:38–16:23| | 2026 Midterms & immigration | 20:43–21:30| | 2028 prospects, swing voters | 21:30–23:52| | Tech optimism, Silicon Valley | 24:54–25:30| | Vance’s ultimate vision | 25:47–27:29|

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Conclusion

This deep-dive into JD Vance’s first year as vice president spotlights a millennial leader fully integrated with the online right, unafraid of controversy, and navigating the contradictions between populist nationalism and the cultural realities of both America and the GOP. Vance’s future as heir apparent to Trumpism hangs on his ability to both manage those contradictions and convince a broader electorate that MAGA’s vision can work for everyone — not just the movement base. The 2026 midterms and the economy will be his proving ground.

Transcript

[Noel King]

Ian Ward, who writes for Politico, became interested in JD Vance a few years ago when he realized who else was interested in J.D. vance.

[Ian Ward]

I was talking to a lot of young MAGA conservatives in Washington who I was asking, who on the national stage shares your worldview? And so many of them were telling me that it was J.D. vance and J.D. vance alone who really encapsulated a lot of the political intellectual currents that were swirling in that space.

[Noel King]

Ian went on to spend time with Vance, who arguably is like no other vice president in history in 2025. Yes, he played the traditional role of Veep, traveling to Europe defending his president, but he consistently pulled focus online, brawling with randos on Twitter, inserting himself into the Nikki Cardi beef, RT ing memes and rumors. And like me hosting a podcast Coming up on Today Explained, JD Vance, vacillating between Trump era parent and Twitter troll, is just getting started. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura Frames. Rather than letting your family photos just sit there in your phone, Aura Frames suggests you upload them into a digital picture frame from Aura Frames for a limited time. You can save by visiting auraframes.com to get $35 off Aura's best selling Carver mat frames, named number one by Wirecutter by using promo code todayexplained at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code today explained. This deal is exclusive to our listeners and Aura Frames or frames sell out fast, so you can order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning Today Explained at checkout. Terms and conditions do apply.

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[Noel King]

This is today explained POLITICO's Ian Ward, here to talk about one year of J.D. vance. All right, so from late last year onward, you see these memes of Vance with the huge head dancing, the little boy hat, the lollipop, and it starts out as a way to mock the vp. But he does not treat it that way, does he? What does he do.

[Ian Ward]

Instead, he's embraced it. One notable example was there's this sort of famous meme of the vice president, overweight, with long, curly hair and big bulging eyes that started circulating around the. And for Halloween this year, Vance dressed up as that meme and took a picture with big, bulgy eyes and posted it online.

[JD Vance]

Happy Halloween, kids. And remember, say thank you.

[Ian Ward]

He's part of a generation, the millennial generation that grew up at peak era of online blogging and sort of early social media. And he understands that those are very potent political and communication tools. And at the same time, I think he understands really innately that conservative politics are flowing upwards from the Internet at this point. So if you're not engaged in the online fight, you're not really engaged in the engine of conservative politics at this point. I think he understands that, and by engaging with some of those memes, he's signaling that he's kind of in the engine room of the right at this point and that he gets it in a way that an older generation of. Of politicians didn't.

[JD Vance]

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.

[Ian Ward]

In fact, I think if he was too self serious, right? Or sort of dismissed these things and was offended by them, it would be sort of boomer coded, right? That's not really how younger generations operate on the Internet. It's a lot of exchanging insults and exchanging digs as a way to build solidarity across the coalition. I think he's privy to that dynamic and sort of savvy at navigating it.

[Noel King]

That's a good point. All right, so he comes into office, as everyone does, on January 20th, and then what does some of his early wins look like?

[Ian Ward]

He was deputized very early on, even before they took office, to shepherd some of Trump's more controversial nominees through the Senate to get people like Pete Hegseth or RFK Jr or Tulsi Gabbard through the nomination process. Process. Despite some of the hiccups they run into.

[JD Vance]

Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Pete Hegset. I, Pete Hegsett.

[Noel King]

Do you solemnly swear that I will.

[Ian Ward]

Support and defend the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the United States. So that was a big win for him, I would say. A second one was his trip to Europe. Early on, he gave two very notable speeches there. One at the Munich Security Conference, where he basically torpedoed 50 years of transatlantic collabor.

[JD Vance]

But we think it's an important part of being in a shared alliance together that the Europeans step up while America focuses on areas of the world that are in great danger.

[Ian Ward]

And one in Paris where he laid out the administration's view on AI.

[JD Vance]

Oftentimes I think our response is to be too self conscious, too risk averse. But never have I encountered a breakthrough in tech that so clearly calls us to do precisely the opposite.

[Ian Ward]

And those both showed that he was willing to enter into these spaces and disrupt what he perceived, that the status quo, a status quo that in his mind wasn't working.

[Noel King]

Also in February, President Trump meets Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. Might have been not a big story. Became a big story in part because of the role that JD Vance played. Remind us what happened.

[Ian Ward]

Zelensky was in town to finalize a critical mineral deal. Thank you very much. It's an honor to have President Zelensky of Ukraine. The meeting in the Oval Office between Trump and Zelensky and Vance and a couple other cabinet members very quickly devolved into Trump and Vance berating Zelenskyy.

[JD Vance]

And do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is prying to trying to prevent the destruction of your country?

[Ian Ward]

Vance has an idea that Europe has benefited tremendously in the past half century or so from the international order governed by American military and economic hegemony. At the same time, I think he thinks that that international order has harmed the type of working class blue collar American that he grew up with in Ohio. These are the people who actually fight the wars. They're the people who've borne the brunt to of the deindustrialization that's accompanied economic globalization. So I think in his mind, Europe and Ukraine by extension are sort of freeloaders who are leeching off the economic and actual well being of working class Americans and not thanking them for it.

[JD Vance]

Have you said thank you once this entire meeting? No, in this entire meeting.

[Noel King]

And then in June we have this 12 day war between Israel and Iran. And J.D. vance defends Trump when Trump drops the bunker buster bomb. And at the time a lot of people said, hey, Mr. Vice President, didn't you say you were gonna be against this type of thing? How does Vance navigate his clear and obvious disdain for foreign wars with President Trump, who at times exhibits the disdain and at times seems like he just really wants to get involved?

[Ian Ward]

All signs indicate that behind the scenes, he was advocating against direct US Intervention in that conflict. But once it became apparent that Trump was going to intervene, Vance publicly fell in line. After the strikes in Iran, Vance articulated what he called the Trump Doctrine to justify these strikes.

[JD Vance]

When you can't solve it diplomatically, you use overwhelming military power to solve it, and then you get the hell out of there before it ever becomes a protracted conflict. That is the Trump Doctrine.

[Ian Ward]

So it all sort of goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning, about him as not just a defender, but a kind of explainer and justifier. Right. It's not really sufficient in his mind to defend these things. He wants to offer a kind of intellectual rationalization or justification for them.

[Noel King]

In September, of course, Charlie Kirk was assassinated. What was Vance's relationship with Charlie Kirk and what did you see him doing in the aftermath of the killing?

[Ian Ward]

Kirk and Vance were very close questions from him.

[Charlie Kirk Associate]

I've known JD For a while. He has an only in America story.

[Ian Ward]

Some reporting came out after Kirk's death that Kirk was actually one of the first conservatives to identify Vance as a rising star. That he eventually introduced him to Donald Trump Jr. S team and vouched for him as a legitimate convert to the MAGA movement.

[Charlie Kirk Associate]

To introduce a friend of mine, somebody that I have just been so thrilled to see ascend American politics, he hosted.

[Ian Ward]

Charlie Kirk's show couple days after his death, sitting behind his desk in the Old Executive Office Building, delivering a straight to camera monologue with an American flag behind him.

[JD Vance]

I can't promise you that all of us will avoid Charlie's fate. I can't promise you that I will avoid Charlie's fate. But the way to honor him is to shine the light of truth like a torch in the very darkest places. Go do it.

[Ian Ward]

It looked extremely presidential. He sort of led the charge in positioning Kirk's death as a consequence of rising political violence on the left, which he said is a much larger issue than right wing political violence.

[Noel King]

It was interesting that the same guy who went to Europe early in the year and very passionately lectured the Europeans about free speech was after Charlie Kirk's death, somebody who did not decry people losing their jobs for criticizing Charlie Kirk or making bad jokes at his expense. It opened him up to charges that he's hypocritical on free speech. What does he say?

[Ian Ward]

He has mentioned this German philosopher by the name of Carl Schmidt, who was a very prominent Nazi jurist back in the day during the Weimar period and then the Nazi period who had this Distinction he drew. He said all politics can be reduced to the distinction between friends and enemies. You help your friends and you attack your enemies. And I think that sort of informs Vance's broad political view and can help explain his asymmetrical deployment of the free speech argument.

[Noel King]

In October, some messages from a Young Republican's group chat were leaked. And there was lots of racism, there was open antisemitism. JD Vance involved himself in that story. How so? What did he say?

[Ian Ward]

He downplayed the nature of those statements.

[JD Vance]

The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys. They tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like that's what kids do. And I really don't want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive stupid joke is caused to ruin their lives.

[Ian Ward]

And it's something I think more broadly there's a sense of on the right that for the past five or ten years Republicans have sort of laid down and let what they call cancel culture take over. The term that gets thrown around a lot is like giving up a scalp. And I think Vance and others are trying to effectuate a kind of broader cultural shift where they're going to say no matter how offensive comment was, we're not going to give up one of our own and we fight back against our enemies and our perceived enemies in the media.

[Noel King]

Does that extend to the. The next skirmish? Because a few weeks later Tucker Carlson interviews Nazi curious Nick Fuentes doesn't ask him any hard questions.

[Charlie Kirk Associate]

So that's pretty young to get canceled and pretty young to have friendships destroyed over politics. Like that's usually, you know, like decades down the line.

[Ian Ward]

Right.

[Charlie Kirk Associate]

What did you do?

[Ian Ward]

Well, I just became more emboldened and so I.

[Charlie Kirk Associate]

Do you wear those weird one piece shoes?

[Ian Ward]

I do.

[Charlie Kirk Associate]

You actually do?

[Ian Ward]

Oh yeah, absolutely.

[Charlie Kirk Associate]

Like in public?

[Noel King]

Yes.

[Ian Ward]

You don't think that's cool? Yeah, he stayed sort of conspicuously quiet in that whole controversy. At the same time, I think he's doing some coalitional management here. I think he rightly recognizes that Fuentes, despite his very odious views, has a very real and very mobilized following of young men that MAGA needs desperately to keep in its electoral coalition. He's called Fuentes some names, but he's made no real effort to actually banish him from the conservative coalition.

[Noel King]

In late October he was at a Turning Point USA event and he takes a multi barreled question from a young woman and ends up saying that he hopes that his wife Usha, who is Hindu, will join him in his Catholic.

[JD Vance]

Faith because I believe in the Christian gospel and I hope eventually my wife comes to see it the same way.

[Noel King]

How do you see him walking this line between being a guy who's in a multicultural family and talks very proudly about it, but also has perhaps even a base himself who simply do not like that his wife is from an immigrant family?

[Ian Ward]

There's a term that gets thrown around a lot on the right called Heritage America or Heritage Americans. And these are Americans whose ancestry stretches back to the colonial period or the founding period. They tend to be white Protestant. These people form the cultural core of America, and their ethos and values should inform the political culture of the country. And so long as immigrants respect that cultural ethos and immigrate legally to the United States, he's okay with having them there. The Trump administration's crusade against illegal immigration, but also to some degree, legal immigration, has just unleashed rather a lot of xenophobia that Vance is now having to contend with, directed his own family. Right. I think it's very hard to stake out a sort of principled anti immigrant position without tapping into some very, very nasty undercurrents of xenophobia and emboldening those. And once the cat's out of the bag, there's really nothing to stop it from being deployed against his own family. I think you're starting to see a subtle tension emerge two of the movement slogans and the ideas they represent. One of them is America first and then the other idea is maga. Right. And I think you're starting to see Vance get the message a little bit and pivot a little bit away from some of the diplomatic issues and foreign policy issues towards issues like affordability. So I think he's very, very sensitive to these coalitional dynamics and very sensitive to the criticism that America first is eclipsing MAGA in the administration's priorities. And I think he's trying to correct that. I'm not sure if it will be effective or in time for the midterms.

[Noel King]

Ian Ward of Politico. Coming up, could J.D. vance, with all his contradictions, become the next American president?

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[Ian Ward]

They should have.

[JD Vance]

Have you said today explained once this entire meeting? No, in this entire meeting. Have you said today explained?

[Noel King]

It's today explained. I'm Noel King, back with POLITICO's Ian Ward. All right, so let's talk about the midterms. They are approaching in little under a year. What role do you think the vice president is going to play in these big elections?

[Ian Ward]

I think you'll see him out on the trail again selling some of these economic accomplishments.

[Noel King]

What grade would you give the economy today?

[Sponsor Voice 3]

A.

[Ian Ward]

Definitely talking a lot about immigration. I think immigration is at this point really the issue that's holding the otherwise somewhat fractious MAGA coalition together. And I think they will run very prominently on the very precipitous drop in illegal border crossings and also whatever progress they've made on the mass deportations, despite the controversy that's kicked up.

[JD Vance]

But why have rents gone down for four consecutive months? Because we've, we're starting to get those illegal aliens out of the United States of America, those criminals, those gang members.

[Noel King]

What has JD Vance said about whether or not he plans to run for president in 2028?

[Ian Ward]

Well, the decorum, of course, is not to talk about your presidential ambitions until you're actually a candidate for president. And Vance clearly understands that and has said it's not my focus right now and denied that he's angling for it. But I think everyone understands that he's the heir apparent and that it's his nomination to lose in 2028. So I think his denials are mostly pro forma at this point.

[Noel King]

The world of conservatism is vast and varied and more diverse than ever. Traditional hawks, the Chamber of Commerce style Republicans. There are still some. Mitt Romney's, the MAGA populace, the tech guys in Silicon Valley are now on the right. Do people think JD Vance has what it takes to bring together all these different factions if he's gonna be a viable candidate in 2028?

[Ian Ward]

I think he has pretty much a lock on the elite conservative class, right. The activists, the donors, many of the people who would identify as kind of MAGA Republicans, even if they're more tech right or new right or populist right. The group of voters he is and probably should be most worried about are the 2024 Trump voters who do not identify as MAGA or even in some cases as Republicans, who view themselves either as political independents or swing voters who the sort of imagined podcast bro, right. Who isn't A MAGA ideologue, but was unhappy with the state of the country during the period of the election.

[Everyday Person]

Talk to anybody who's broke. Talk to anybody who's struggling to pay for bills and groceries. Talk to anybody who's trying to buy a car. The economy's bananas right now.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

We don't live in this Care Bear world anymore. Our politics, it's become a dirty fucking business. So I think you want a businessman in there.

[Ian Ward]

I think you're seeing preliminary signs that those people are swinging away from the GOP.

[Noel King]

Do people like J.D. vance? What's your impression of the way your ordinary person who's kind of allergic to politics and says, I'm an independent, I'll vote for the person I think is going to do the best job? What's your sense of what they think of Vance?

[Ian Ward]

The polling is not very good on this, so it's hard to peer into the electorate. I think a lot these days about the sociologist Max Weber, actually, who wrote about the structure of charismatic movements and the way that charismatic leaders end up anointing successors. And the process of anointment matters a lot for whether the charisma rubs off on a successor. Right. And so I think a lot of that question hinges on how exactly Vance ends up securing the nomination. Is it an endorsement from Trump? Does Trump throw it open to a factional fight in which someone like a Vance and someone like a Rubio and Ted Cruz have to duke it out where some of the dirty laundry coalitionally is aired out? Then it's a much, much harder task for Vance to consolidate the MAGA base behind him.

[Noel King]

How do his politics align with the broader Republican Party on things like tech, things that are really top of mind right now?

[Ian Ward]

I think he's proved to be rather tech optimistic, and I think that's causing some friction within the movement. Some of the tech skeptics in the movement were expecting or hoping that he would take a more forceful line on things like AI and he's actually proven quite friendly to AI and some of the tech interests out in Silicon Valley.

[JD Vance]

They'Re so terrified about the problems with AI. And to be clear, there are problems with AI, but if you're so terrified with the problems with AI, you don't actually embrace the potential, then you're going to get the worst of the problems without any of the benefits of the upside of it.

[Noel King]

You spent time talking to JD Vance before he was vice president. You watched him closely throughout the last year in this very high profile job. Do you think the vice president is getting what he wants out of all of this. And what does he want?

[Ian Ward]

I think he imagines a future in which the Republican Party, under a kind of populist nationalist banner, can consolidate an electoral majority of somewhere between 60 and 70% of the electorate. That provides the party with a kind of FDR era style consensus, right, in which Republicans can carry out a really, really far sweeping transformation of the country at both an economic, a cultural and a geopolitical level. That requires a type of consensus that is extremely, extremely rare in 21st century electoral politics. And by hitching his wagon very closely to the MAGA coalition, he inherits all of that division and all of that baggage. And I think that makes it very difficult for him to realize the type of far reaching electoral coalition that he wants to achieve. I think a lot of this will depend on the next three years of the Trump administration. And if people feel good about the direction of the economy come 2028, I think he has a pretty good chance of succeeding Trump and carrying that movement in the future. If the current trends continue and people are discontent with the state of the economy, people feel like the administration has squandered its political capital on foreign entanglements and not done enough domestically. I think he's in a very, very difficult position.

[Noel King]

Ian Ward he writes for Politico. Arianna Espudu produced today's show. Miranda Kennedy and Jolie Myers edited. Patrick Boyd is our engineer and Laura Bullard checked the facts. I'm Noel King. It's Today Explained.

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