Takeaways from J.D. Vance's speech at the Republican Convention
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00:00Donald Trump's new running mate, J.D. Vance, took to the stage of the Republican Convention
00:04in Milwaukee Wednesday.
00:06It was the latest in the incredible rags-to-riches story for that 39-year-old senator from Ohio.
00:12Vance called Donald Trump America's last and best hope.
00:18For decades, that divide between the few with their power and comfort in Washington and
00:23the rest of us only widened.
00:25From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the financial crisis to the Great Recession, from open borders
00:31to stagnating wages, the people who govern this country have failed and failed again.
00:37President Trump represents America's last best hope to restore what, if lost, may never
00:42be found again.
00:44A country where a working-class boy born far from the halls of power can stand on this
00:49stage as the next vice president of the United States of America.
00:54We're going to talk more about this with our international affairs commentator, Douglas
01:00Herbert, who joins me on the set.
01:01Doug, this was J.D. Vance's first speech since Donald Trump picked him to be his running
01:06mate.
01:07I mean, what kind of expectations were there going into this speech, and did he live up
01:10to them?
01:11Well, first of all, look, all party conventions, Democrat or Republican, what are they about?
01:14They're about blind, loud devotion to the presumptive nominee, the party leader.
01:20And this is no exception.
01:22The Republican National Convention, to many outsiders looking in, it almost takes that
01:26to a new level, this cult-like devotion.
01:29It has like sort of a whiff of North Korea, the devotion to the supreme leader.
01:35J.D. Vance is more Trump than Trump.
01:38For many people, he's not just the embodiment of sort of the future of the MAGA movement,
01:43but he takes Donald Trump's isolationist America first, make America great again agenda
01:49to sort of an extreme.
01:51So he is, like I said, to a lot of people looking in, someone who drank the Kool-Aid.
01:56He is a man who was once, as we've said, fiercely critical of Donald Trump.
02:00People knew that.
02:01He once deleted a 2016 tweet where he basically said, what proportion of the American population
02:09has Donald Trump sexually assaulted?
02:12He likened Donald Trump.
02:13He privately questioned whether he might become America's Hitler.
02:16He called Donald Trump cultural heroine.
02:19There was no love loss between J.D. Vance and Donald Trump a few years back.
02:23What happened?
02:24Did someone wave a magic wand and he all of a sudden became a different person?
02:27Look, he went up there and the expectations were that Vance would be able to bring Trump,
02:32and this is what Trump and his allies are counting on, something that Trump desperately
02:36needs and that is a big boost in the battleground states, which we know in American elections
02:41are the be-all and end-all of the outcome.
02:43Several tens of thousands of devotes might decide this election in November.
02:47And the three real battlegrounds among battlegrounds, Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, are
02:54the states that Vance really latched onto as home to a lot of the white, working-class
03:00Americans that he's from, that he wrote about in his autobiography, Hillbilly Elegy, that
03:05he comes from.
03:06That's what they want.
03:07Donald Trump sees Vance as his ticket to those battleground states, to the non, mostly non-college
03:12educated white working-class voters that he needs.
03:15I will just note that he mentioned Michigan six times in this speech, Pennsylvania five
03:20times, Wisconsin three times.
03:22That shows how central that demographic is to Donald Trump and this vote in November.
03:27It really is.
03:28And the Republicans are showing this unity, something that we're not seeing at all on
03:32the other side of the political fence.
03:34The hits just keep on coming for the Democrats, it seems.
03:37The party is going through a very troubled moment when, just when the Republicans are
03:41having this celebratory display of unity that the Republican Party maybe, not going out
03:46on a limb, hasn't seen in generations, this much display of unity and cheeriness, Democrats
03:52are still divided, divided over his, whether he should even be the candidate.
03:56The latest, more than a two dozen congressmen, Democratic congresspeople have come out saying
04:03that Biden should step aside.
04:05Others have said so privately, expressed some doubts.
04:08The latest was Adam Schiff.
04:09He's running for a U.S. California Democratic seat.
04:14Schiff also oversaw a lot of the investigation into Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the
04:192020 election.
04:21He basically said publicly, Adam Schiff, that Donald Trump should step aside.
04:24That coming on top-
04:25Biden, Joe Biden just did.
04:26Donald Trump, Joe Biden, thank you.
04:28That coming on top last week of the House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, the Senate
04:33Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, both saying that they had met and conveyed their caucuses
04:38concerns that Joe Biden, if he remains at the top of the ticket, would imperil the Democrats'
04:43chances of being able to control, have majorities in the House, which would imperil their chances
04:47of being able to push legislation.
04:49So yes, the tide is still rising.
04:51The hue and cry against Biden publicly and privately is rising.
04:55And lo and behold, he has COVID as well.
04:57When I say the hits keep on coming, I'm not exaggerating.
04:59Doug, thanks for that.
05:01Thank you.
05:02Thank you.
05:03Thank you.
05:04Thank you.
05:05Thank you.