"He Thought He Had This Election in the Bag" Maddow on Trump's Pick of J.D. Vance
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00:00I do think you're right, Katie, that there's going to be an interesting fight about who
00:03ends up being her running mate.
00:05I don't really care.
00:06I mean, they'll pick somebody.
00:07I feel like the Democrats have a really good bench right now.
00:12And you know, maybe they'll pick Mark Kelly.
00:13Maybe they'll pick Pete Buttigieg.
00:15Maybe they'll pick Andy Beshear.
00:16Maybe they'll pick Gretchen Whitmer.
00:18Maybe they'll pick Raphael Warnock.
00:19I mean, Wes Moore, I don't know.
00:21Pick somebody.
00:22You know, maybe they'll pick John Tester.
00:23I don't know.
00:24I just feel like any of those would be great.
00:27Kamala Harris is going to be the next president.
00:29You don't think they need to focus on Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and pick somebody
00:33from one of those states to ensure winning that state?
00:38If picking somebody from one of those states ensured winning those states, then you would
00:42do it.
00:43Right.
00:44But I think what they need is they need to, obviously, has to be somebody who Kamala Harris
00:50believes is qualified to do the job of president.
00:53Right.
00:54That's the that's the most important qualification.
00:56Has to be somebody who's a really good campaigner.
00:58Has to be somebody who has personal chemistry with the nominee.
01:02And it has to be somebody who's got chops for both doing the job and winning the job.
01:07And I just feel like there's a lot of really good options.
01:10And the fact that this contest, however, you know, she's going to make this decision is
01:16going to be won from a position of strength.
01:18I mean, you can feel the Democratic Party consolidating right right now as we sit here.
01:23You can feel it coming together.
01:25And that momentum means she's going to be choosing from a position of strength.
01:28And the next three and a half months are just going to be lights out in terms of this campaign
01:31against Donald Trump.
01:32Donald Trump thought that he did not need to worry about winning this election because
01:36he thought that he was running against Joe Biden.
01:39And while Joe Biden has had a very good record as president, he was presenting himself as
01:43enfeebled in a way that was going to be very difficult for this campaign because he thought
01:47that he didn't really even have to compete very hard to win.
01:51He picked J.D. Vance.
01:52He picked somebody who isn't going to help him at all.
01:55The Republicans were going to win Ohio anyway.
01:57They did not need a thirty nine year old ultra conservative guy who idolizes Victor
02:02Orban to try to consolidate new votes for Donald Trump that he wasn't otherwise going
02:06to get.
02:07And somebody J.D. Vance because they wanted him to govern the way that he's they wanted
02:12him for governing, not for campaigning.
02:15And Kamala Harris, I think, gets to pick somebody for both.
02:19And that's a that's a better position to be in.
02:21They wanted him for governing because he is aligned with Donald Trump or the idea of Donald
02:25Trump that conservatives are pushing on policy.
02:28And one of those ideas is abortion.
02:30Donald Trump has said that he believes it should be left up to the states.
02:33But the apparatus behind him doesn't believe that.
02:37Project 2025 is saying that use the Comstack Act to ban the abortion pill from being shipped
02:43nationwide, ban the tools needed for the abortion procedures, ban them from being shipped nationwide
02:50across state lines.
02:52Use the FDA to make the abortion pill even harder to get.
02:55J.D. Vance is somebody who said in the past that he believes in a federal abortion ban.
03:00I thought it was so interesting, Rachel, being at the RNC last week.
03:04Abortion didn't come up.
03:05They didn't talk about abortion at the RNC, not once, not once.
03:09And that is exactly what Kamala Harris has been campaigning on day in and day out for
03:16about a year now.
03:17Yeah.
03:18I mean, J.D. Vance, I mean, Project 2025 is is really something on on on women's rights
03:25generally and women's role in the country and in society and in politics.
03:29It's really something.
03:30But, you know, just look at J.D. Vance.
03:31J.D. Vance signed on to a letter that says that prosecutors should be able to get women's
03:40medical records from out of state to pursue prosecutions for abortion.
03:45So if you live in a state where abortion is banned and you travel to California or
03:50New York or Illinois or someplace else to get an abortion in a state where it is legal,
03:55J.D. Vance wants prosecutors, law enforcement in your state to be able to get your medical
04:00records against your will from somewhere else.
04:03You went in the country to pursue you across state lines so they can use your medical records
04:08in prosecutions.
04:09I mean, J.D. Vance on abortion is the worst case scenario you would invent for a bar room
04:17argument, for an inarguendo discussion with your friends about how bad it could possibly
04:22be.
04:23They picked J.D. Vance because they thought they had this election in the bag.
04:26And then Joe Biden did this today.
04:28And now it is an absolutely different ballgame.
04:32And J.D. Vance and Donald Trump are going to lose in November.
04:36And Donald Trump is going to regret picking J.D. Vance as his running mate now that he's
04:39up against Kamala Harris.
04:40And J.D. Vance also at one point said he was against no-fault divorces, saying it's too
04:45easy to get divorced.
04:48And that's what has enabled women historically now to free themselves of some pretty violent
04:53marriages, or just bad marriages.
04:57The idea that you can go in and say it's not working for me any longer, I'd like out.
05:02He does not believe in that, or he said in the past.
05:04He's explicitly said a woman in a violent marriage shouldn't be allowed to get out of
05:08it.
05:09Specifically talking about violent abuse by a husband, he thinks a woman should be made
05:14to stay in that marriage.
05:15I mean, this is not what America is going to vote for.
05:16So if you're talking about this, don't you want to see a woman debating J.D. Vance in
05:20a vice presidential debate?
05:22Do you?
05:23I mean, you have Kamala Harris going after former President Trump now in a debate if
05:27it happens again in September.
05:29Let's see if the debates change.
05:31But wouldn't the positions that J.D. Vance has taken on abortion, on divorce, on violent
05:37marriages, wouldn't that be the red carpet being rolled out for a Gretchen Whitmer to
05:41stand there next to him and to say, here's what you believe?
05:45I mean, sure, but given what he believes, I mean, I'd be happy to watch a protein shake
05:51debating him.
05:52Like, I don't think it matters.
05:54I mean, any Democrat who can talk about the, I mean, those are issues, the kinds of issues
05:59where J.D. Vance has taken the kinds of stands that you and I have just described over these
06:03last few minutes.
06:04Those are not 50-50 issues in this country.
06:07They are not 60-40 issues, 70-30 issues.
06:10He's taken the kind of stances that single digits of Americans support.
06:14You do not need any type of Democrat in particular to prosecute a case against J.D. Vance.
06:20He is a real weirdo from a really, really, really narrow slice of the very far right
06:26side of the ideological spectrum.
06:29They picked him because they didn't think he'd have to be defending himself at all.