JD Vance: The Great Catholic Political Hope? (Guest: Frank DeVito)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:14] Speaker B: Thanks so much for being on the program. I really appreciate having you here. [00:00:18] Speaker A: Happy to be here. Thanks, Eric. [00:00:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So we're going to talk about J.D. vance today, but what I want to do first is I just want to introduce you to the listeners. Could you tell us a little bit about your background and how it led you to write a book about J.D. vance? [00:00:35] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. Well, I won't give you, I'll try to keep it short, but all relevant to your audience. I'm a, I'm a Catholic convert. I was an atheist and a wild child through my teenage years. So came dramatically into the Catholic Church around the age of 20, then went to diocesan seminary for a couple years, was in a Discalc Carmelite monastery for a couple years for reasons beyond the scope of this conversation, was not called to that and left and soon after met my now wife. I had to figure out a way to feed a family that went to law school and figured I would just do the whole, you know, be a lawyer, work at a law firm or be a prosecutor or something and feed my family and that would be that. Then I started getting involved in local politics, helping good Christian candidates that I liked in the area where I'm from in Pennsylvania. Realized that I had a knack for writing about the policy issues and the political stuff that was going on in a way that could take the high level nerdy stuff and make it accessible to normal folks reading about it. So I've been doing that for years. I've been published widely as an essayist, but this was my first foray into a book. So the reason I wrote it, a couple reasons. But first of all, I got the idea right after the 2024 election and figured just as a practical matter, Vance was chosen in an interesting situation. Right. If you're President Trump looking to find a new vice presidential candidate, maybe you're looking to shore up a demographic. You pick a black candidate or a Latino candidate or a woman candidate. Didn't do any of that. Maybe you're looking to shore up support in a swing state. Didn't do that. He picks this young, fresh senator from a reliably red state who's a white Christian man. So why do you do that if you're not at least potentially picking your successor when you're heading into a lame duck administration? So I figured odds were pretty good Vance is going to be an important figure in the Republican Party. After Trump asked a publisher friend of mine if anybody had written anything like this, he said, no, you should write it, but do it fast before someone else does. And so I was off to the races. But I think it's uniquely interesting to write about Vance because for probably most of your listeners and for nerdy people in the Catholic conservative world like me, Vance is a public intellectual. Before he's a political candidate, he's published op EDS and long form essays that are pretty deep on religion, culture, politics. So for someone like me, your average profile of a candidate, you don't have much to go on. Campaign speeches, campaign websites, whatever. Kind of boring. But he really gives you a depth of material to work with to put together a book like this. So I thought it was timely, it was a lot of fun. He's an interesting figure and, and that's how I got here. [00:03:18] Speaker B: Okay, so just for everybody be clear, the book I have right here is JD Vance and the Future Republican party and for by Michael Knowles. That's always impressive. Is that Michael Knowles cigar though? That's my question. [00:03:32] Speaker A: No, although I'm going to tell him. He knows the couple. I met him right before he launched the cigar line. So he crafted the Mayflowers, which are excellent, by the way, with the Oliva Cigar factory, the cigar group. So Oliva's longtime favorite of mine. I can get them quite cheaply. So this is an Oliva. [00:03:51] Speaker B: Okay. My son bought me, you know, I, I'm not a big cigar smoker, but I do sometimes my son, for Christmas, I think soon after it was released, he bought me in Michael Knowles, you know, Mayflower. And it was great. I, I, I enjoyed it. I'm no connoisseur, but I enjoyed it. So that's what matters. Right. [00:04:08] Speaker A: Okay, so no, go ahead. [00:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So Michael, Michael's great. Obviously. Now I need to have him come on the program sometime too. Okay. I gotta note that, Get a hold of him. So, okay, so you wrote this book with J.D. vance. Now people who regularly listen to this podcast, I think they know my views of J.D. vance. I, okay, so first of all, I'm very cynical when it comes to politics. I don't like anybody except like Ron Paul and that's about it. But I will say I have this, I have a real like for JD Vance, which kind of transcends some type of politics, I think, because I think there's like a connection here. So if you read, you know, anybody who's read Hillbilly Elegy, his family comes from eastern Kentucky, very poor area. That's where my dad comes from. My dad actually was like his grandparents in that he moved up to Cincinnati in, you know, in the 1950s. And so there's that connection there. So when I read Hillbilly Elegy, I really understood kind of that culture because I remember going like, here's. Here's a true story. When we visited my grandparents, my. My dad's parents in the 1970s, they still had an outhouse. I mean, they didn't have indoor plumbing for a bathroom at least. And I. I just was a kid, so I didn't think anything about it. So I kind of really. That resonated with me. Him telling. And I was very honestly, made me feel grateful because my dad, he kind of escaped all that when he went to. Came to say he. All the problems that J.D. vance talks about in that culture, which are. They are true. My dad kind of just got out of all that, and he didn't have any of those, you know, so we didn't have any of those issues growing up, which, you know, I'm very thankful to my father for that, obviously, because I realize reading that book may realize how my dad had to escape, you know, some things now. His parents were great, so that, that was a big help. But, you know, the culture, he could have easily kind of got sucked into some of the problems there. So anyway, so that was it. He lives in Cincinnati, as I do. He's actually attended my parish every once in a while. This. Before he became a senator, maybe. He was. I think he was senator even everyone's. Because we have tlm, I think everyone. So he'd show up at our parish and he. He came into the church at a parish not that far from our parish. And so I had that sincere connection with them. And I just. A lot of his positions and the way he thinks about things. Like, I've read a lot of his stuff. I really like it. So I'm coming into this. Admittedly, for those who are interested, wondering. I'm. I'm a fan. I do have some issues mostly associated with his association with Trump. But, you know, we'll go that a little bit in this interview. But why don't you talk a little bit, though, about what you've kind of learned about J.D. vance, the person like. So hillbilly elegy, of course, is what got him on the map as a known figure. There's a lot of people who kind of criticize his tech connections, you know, with Peter Thiel and things like that. How do you. How do you look at, like that, those connections and also like his eventual conversion to Catholicism, like. So let's just talk about JD Advanced a person Here. [00:07:18] Speaker A: Yeah, so it's, he, he's a complicated tale, right? And I think in a way he really typifies what he has written extensively about is reorienting what the American dream is. Right. For too long we've kind of gone more and more into this. You know, it's about economic advantage. We want to make sure that each generation makes more money and gets more degrees and has more stuff than their parents. And that's the materialist American dream. And Vance is very adamant about pushing back on that. It's like, no, the American dream is as many normal Americans as possible can have stable marriages, raise children, and find meaningful work with which to support their families like that. That's the real American dream and that's the Christian dream too. That's what we want, is for ordinary people to be able to support a family on a single income, find meaningful work, and be in communities that are not destructive of the family. So that's a common theme for a decade now, since before he was a politician, when he was just writing op EDS and so on. And now we see it lived out, right, breaking from the mainstream political figure that they just announced that he and his wife were having their fourth child. So something different is going on here, but I think it's going on, like you said, for a very particular reason. I think it's unique to his background. So he has this dysfunctional family background, which I'm not going to rehash, hillbilly elegy. But he brings that with him and then ends up in the rarefied air, the term I use terrestrially, of course, for, you know, he goes to Yale Law School and then he's in Silicon Valley. He's in like the highest echelons of elite American society for three years at Yale, I think about two years in Silicon Valley. But the interesting thing is when he exits that, right, you have this, this period where he goes from Yale Law does, I think, a one year clerkship and a little bit of a stint in a law firm. But he goes right pretty quickly into Silicon Valley. But then he writes a piece at the American Conservative, I think, year or two into his in Silicon Valley, announcing that he's going back to Ohio. And he says something really interesting. He's like, you know, I looked around at these people, the people that I'm working with, the people that I'm living around in Silicon Valley, and they're so optimistic about America and the future for their children and this world that we've inhabited. Isn't everything so great? And isn't there so much progress? And he's like, this is not my experience of America, of our culture, of where we are. Like, he's like, I think back to the people in Ohio that I grew up around and the people that are still my friends, and this is a different world. And so he goes back and he starts to try to raise venture capital money and particularly to bring it to Ohio and to try to uplift, like, normal American towns rather than just continue to inflate Silicon Valley. And then not too long after that, he ends up shifting into the political world. But I think it's interesting because, yeah, he's breathed the air of Yale Law and Silicon Valley, but all signs point to he's more interested in being, you know, a stable and successful and Catholic version of the guy who grew up in Ohio and not one of the Silicon Valley Yale Law elites. I think he very much has kind of a chip on his shoulder, but he very much carries his background and who he is as like, an ordinary American who's escaped hard circumstances with him into politics and the elite world in which he now finds himself. [00:10:31] Speaker B: I mean, what would you say, the argument. I've heard that he's kind of a puppet in some ways, or at least somewhat beholden to people like Peter Thiel, who have obviously given money and stuff like that. And so, like. And people worry. I'm not. I don't think Peter Thiel is the boogeyman. A lot of people think he is. At the same time, I'm not, like, I think he's got a lot of problems. Don't get me wrong, I'm not like, a supportive of him, but. But at the same time, like, you know, has he distanced himself? Like, how has he distanced himself from, like, what, Peter Thiel? His agenda? [00:11:05] Speaker A: Yeah. So I'd say two things. For one, of course it's all speculative, because at the end of the day, you don't know somebody's motivations or who they're talking to privately. Right. So we can read the evidence and hope. But I'd say two things. For one, there was an interview he. Vance gave. I'm blanking on where it was, but he was asked specifically about Peter Thiel's money and donor money more generally. And, like. And asked, you know, what do you owe to the people who have funded your rise into politics? And he said, listen, Peter Thiel gave me an important start in my career. And, you know, he was important. He was the first person who introduced me to Christianity from an intellectual. Like, now Peter Thiel's Christianity is certainly not mine, but that's. That's a separate issue. It's kind of tangential. But he's to the question of what do I owe to the people who have given a lot of money to my campaigns? Nothing. They. They believed in me and they see something in me that they want me in public service. That's great. But I, I represent the people I represent. I don't represent the people who give me money. And I haven't seen a lot that would make me think that he's a teal puppet in terms of actual policy and work. But what I will say is, who is he close to? And again, this is. I live in Pennsylvania, so I get to live in America, but I do work for a D.C. nonprofit, so I have a lot of friends in the administration. I'm down there a lot. Vance's staff, you know, his inner circle of advisors, the people who are running the show in his office. It's not secular Silicon Valley tech people. It's a lot of very fervent Catholics, a lot of really solid, smart, conservative, religious people. So again, can't know for sure. But I don't see him beholden to that money, and I don't see the Silicon Valley overlords as the people he's surrounding himself with. [00:12:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So I want to talk then about how Catholicism is part of his political life, because I think that's what most people who at least watch this podcast would care about. Like, there's so many Catholics in public life. Every from Nancy Pelosi, you know, on one end of the spectrum to, you know, on the other end of the spectrum. Maybe somebody like, you know, Scalia back in the day or something like that, or Thomas. And, and so like, saying you're Catholic is almost meaningless as far as telling the person what their political views are, because it's just like it could be anything based upon, you know, just a lot of other factors. So where would you put Vance in that spectrum as far as how his Catholicism really impacts his faith? Not just his policy issues, but kind of how he looks at policy issues from a, from his Catholic perspective? [00:13:45] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. So couple of things. For one, as, as you've said, not all Catholics are the same. You can be Catholic Nancy Pelosi, or Catholic Joe Biden, and that means you grew up in a family that was at least culturally Catholic. It doesn't have anything to do with not only your politics, but even necessarily your day to day life. Maybe they go to Mass, maybe they don't. Maybe they know something about Catholic teaching. Maybe they don't. Doesn't look like they do. Or if they do, they don't care. So you can see right off the bat that there's something that distinguishes Vance, which is that, for one, he actually practices the faith in a serious way, which does automatically distinguish him from a lot of Catholic politicians. Right. Like you've said, you've seen him show up at Mass from time to time. I was in Alexandria last year when he was newly vice president and Secret Service showed up to the Mass and was wanding everybody. And he comes to Mass and I'm watching him, and he's holding at least one kid throughout the entirety of the Mass, and then he goes and receives communion kneeling on the tongue. And obviously this doesn't say, okay, he's one of us in every way. He governs, but it distinguishes him. This is clearly somebody who takes the faith in the sacraments seriously. He looks like me at Mass. He's holding kids, he's receiving reverently. Great, love this. But then beyond that, you can see him grappling with the Catholic faith and how it relates to politics. Now, that's not gonna be 100% slam dunk, that every issue he's gonna be aligned with scholars of theology and Catholic social teaching. But I think even the fact that he's trying to engage seriously for me is a real sign of hope. So two examples. For one, he was at the Catholic prayer breakfast in D.C. last year, and he spoke and said, you know, I'm a baby Catholic, I'm a newish convert, I take the faith very seriously, but I don't know all the answers. How does this apply to my role as a political leader? How does this apply to policy? I'm not always gonna get this right. I'm not even gonna always know the answer. I'm kind of relying on my Catholic friends, my Catholic brothers and sisters, like, tell me what I'm doing wrong. Tell me what I need to do to conform my public life to my faith. Which I really loved seeing that. But then practically, I'll say too, this great spat that went viral on X last year over his application and interpretation of the Ordo Amores over the immigration restriction stuff. And I really enjoyed that. Right. So he. I'm sure pretty much everyone listening to this is probably familiar with that. But he talked about Augustine and Aquinas and the understanding of the Order of Maurice. Right. The Order of Love, and. Which is basically, I'm not a theologian, but this understanding that we owe love in different Ways according to different relationships. Right. The way we love our, our spouses and our children is going to be different to how we love our next door neighbors or people in the next state over or people in a different country. And so he's saying, you know, we're not a global society if we love everybody. And that means exactly the same thing for every citizen of the world. That's not how human nature can function. That's not what the Church teaches about charity. So to force mass migration as a consequence of Catholic charity is incorrect. And then people jumped in and started saying that he's misinterpreting the Ordo Amores or he's got Aquinas wrong here and there. But to me, it's like, hold on, back up a step. The fact that we have the Vice President of the United States citing Augustine and Aquinas and trying to grapple with how Catholic social teaching applies to the current presidential administration in America is itself a whim. And I don't think that was performative. I think that is really a Catholic politician trying to figure out how our Catholic tradition is to apply to prudential questions of politics and governance. And so I really appreciate that. And I think, especially if he were to be the presidential candidate and the president rather than the vp, which I'm sure we'll talk about, because that's a different role when you're Trump's vp. But I think we would see more of that. I think we see a real, honest, sincere Catholic who's trying to apply Catholic teaching whenever possible in his role in American government. [00:17:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought that discussion, the Ordo amoris was great because I, first of all, I thought Vance was pretty much nailed it. I think he was correct in what he said, but also would say that just like you said, just the fact that he's bringing in a real, I mean, how often in our modern political discussions do we have any talk of, you know, Augustine or Aquinas, anything like that? But what I want to ask though, is, okay, so we know, you know, we can talk. It's just the two of us and all our listeners. But, but we can. We know the Democrats, if you're Catholic, Democrat, you're probably not Catholic. I mean, that's just, that's the reality. But that's not, doesn't mean the Republican Party is lockstep with the Catholic Church. And so are there ways in which Vance goes away against the Republican Party because of his Catholic faith? Or is he pretty much just a pretty straight Republican who just happens to be Catholic. [00:18:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So obviously a lot of policy areas we can dive into. But let's, let's just jump to the two that I think are the most important and probably the more controversial one since it's just you and me talking here. So first of all is the abortion issue and the life issues more generally. Right? Because that's an issue that's been something where the pro life movement or anti abortion movement, I don't know how much I like the term pro life lately because of how it gets wasted. But that, that aside, right. So there was this big controversy a few weeks ago, right, When Vance was invited to speak at the March for Life. Somebody wrote an op ed saying that Vance, Trump, Vance is the least pro life Republican administration in history. [00:19:05] Speaker B: Right, I remember that. [00:19:06] Speaker A: And I actually ended up citing that and kind of disagreeing with it pretty strongly and had a nice back and forth with the author, by the way. He's a good guy, Catholic guy. Point well taken, even if I disagree. [00:19:17] Speaker B: So. [00:19:18] Speaker A: So on the abortion issue, let's just say a few things here because I have a lot of thoughts and they're nuanced. For one, I think arguments like that, that Trump Vance is like the first breakaway from hardcore pro or anti abortion Republican policy in decades. Like, I'm sorry, spare me. Because before Dobbs, this was not a real political issue. This is purely performative. So if we could only go back to the days of Romney and you know, Pence and Bush, because they were so pro life, they could campaign and fundraise off it, they could rely on the pro life movement, they could get their money, say, well, we're pro life and we want to ban abortion and everybody knows who's serious and there's not a thing you can do about it because Roe and Casey make it a completely non political issue, nobody can touch it. Once Dobbs turns this into an actual political issue where there are things that can be done, political movements to make political consequences of losses. Now it's a real political issue. This is the first time we've seen this since abortion has been mainstream. So brave new world. And I think it's unfair to compare pre 2022 to post 2022 politics on this because now there's real skin in the game. So that being said, you know, the reality is things are bad, the culture is really bad on this issue. Right? Like there was, I wrote a piece at the Federalist a few weeks ago on this issue. You look at it, there's the last Pew Research poll on this. Polling by political party was like barely a majority of registered Republicans are interested in restricting abortion in most or all cases. That's not general population. That was like 57% of voting Republicans. Democrats is like, you know, I think almost single digits. So you look at the general population and it's like, it's really bad. If you give even deeply conservative red states the choice between ban most or all abortions or allow most or all abortions they choose allow. And there are a lot of reasons for that. There's a ton of money being dumped from national organizations on the pro abortion side. It's not a fair fight, but the reality is we've had constitutionalized abortion for 49 years. That has deeply wounded the culture and there's not much you can do now. I'm going to caveat that, but there isn't much you can do without. For one, the bills failing and then getting voted out of office because we live in a pro abortion culture. It's really bad. And that's just the reality. So if you want to be all in on. I want abortion bans, I want politicians who are just going to legislate, you know, federal abortion bans. Listen, I would do it tomorrow if I thought it would stick. I don't think there's any political will for it. I don't think it'll stick. I think if you had a ruling from the Supreme Court, for example, that the unborn child is a person under the 14th Amendment and ban all abortions tomorrow, I would love it. I think the next day you would have a groundswell for a constitutional convention and abortion amendment enshrining abortion in the Constitution. I think we're that far away. So I obviously abortion. [00:22:14] Speaker B: That's essentially what happened in Ohio, because Ohio, we, we. It became constitutionally enshrined after Dobbs, and it actually was. In some ways I'm. I'm glad Dobbs happened. I'm not trying to act like I'm not. But at the same time, Ohio is actually worse in a way on its abortion loss than it was before Dobbs, because exactly what you said. [00:22:38] Speaker A: Yeah, right. So that's a perfect example. And that pivots well to Vance. So the question is, who is this guy on abortion? Is he just another Republican politician who's going to compromise away this issue? I don't think so. I think he takes his Catholic faith pretty seriously. We've seen some of his early comments before referendum in Ohio and he understands this issue. It's not a politically pragmatic issue. Every abortion is the killing of an unborn child, no exceptions. He's aware of it. He's also aware that the political reality is pretty, pretty bleak here about what we can do. So I don't think he's just going along to get along. I think there's someone there who wants to do whatever can be done to restrict abortion in this country. But I think eyes wide open, he knows that there's very little political will. So that being said, I hope that there are ways to not just give up the issue, because I think there you still want to fight at the extremes, whether that's banning late term abortion, whether that's making sure that you keep enshrining the Hyde Amendment, whatever can actually get through and start to recreate a legal culture of life, however incrementally. I don't think you just want to wash your hands and say, this is a bad issue. There's no political will. I'm not touching it. But I'm hopeful that a President Vance or a presidential candidate Vance is going to be a political realist without just giving up the issue. And I think his faith lends me to believe that that's on the table. [00:24:00] Speaker B: Okay. I want to push back just a little bit on the pro life thing. I'm with you on everything you said so far. However, I would argue that in some ways the Trump administration is actually not just not trying to restrict things, but they're actually pushing it forward, particularly with the ivf, because he's been, Trump's been promoting that. You have at the State of the Union this week. You have him promoting IVF and, like, seeing how great it is and all this stuff. I, to my knowledge, I haven't heard Vance say one thing about this. Maybe this gets, maybe we should go ahead and get a discussion about the role of vice president. But that seems to be something where it's not just, okay, Trump isn't, you know, he's pragmatic about the fact that we're a pro abortion country, but he's actually actively promoting ivf, you know, beyond. And he doesn't have to do that. And I don't hear Vance really saying anything about that. So how do you respond to that? [00:24:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question. So I would distinguish Trump and Vance like this, and then we can talk about the role of the vice president. They're not the same right now. We're not seeing Vance come out on this issue, and I think that's for a political reason. But practically, you look at Trump and he's been fairly consistent as far as I Read it. He came down the escalator in 2015 and he's the candidate and he is talking about making America great again. He has a few key policy issues that he cares about. He's not a Christian of any recognizable orthodox variety. We don't really know what he is religiously. He cares about closing the border because immigration is out of control. He cares about reshoring manufacturing and making the American economy functional. He cares about trade deficits, maybe to a degree it looked like getting out of stupid forever wars. Although he's a little more hawkish in this term than. Or actually in both, but especially in this term then that I'm happy with. But my point is, anybody who thought Trump was like a pro life stalwart who then bent in this second term was not paying attention to Trump. Trump was always very in on a few issues and then transactional on everything else. He knew what he had to do to keep a coalition together to make the social conservatives happy. And in that, especially in Trump 1, he actually did more than a lot of the hardcore supposedly pro life presidents did to actually deal with this issue. Now he's not interested, probably for political reasons. I don't think he has a real commitment to the abortion issue. That's my read anyway. I think Vance does because of his Catholic faith. So I do see a distinction where I'm hopeful that Vance will be prudent but not just uncaring about this issue in a way that I think, frankly, Trump is just transactional on this issue. And so I guess that transitions to the VP question. This is a very hard one. The VP has no power. Right. He's a heartbeat away from the presidency, but he doesn't really have a role. Right. Like the Secretary of State runs the State Department. Secretary of War runs the military. Vice president is just kind of a hatchet man for the president. And, you know, he has an office. Yeah, right. And so obviously he's very important in terms of messaging and all that. But this is a very unique time, which is why I wrote the book. Right. Trump has dominated the Republican Party for a decade. He's been a one man wrecking ball. He's realigned the party completely in terms of its coalitions, its policy priorities. Some of that's been good, some of it is questionable. But ultimately he runs the party. Right. There is no Republican leader after Trump without Trump endorsing or at least being friendly. Vance knows that. He knows that if he comes out ahead of or away from the president on any severe issues, he, he risks the ire of the president, and he gets nothing done. Right. Because the risk is you go too far afield from Trump, Trump feels you're disloyal, and then he turns to, oh, maybe we go with Marco Rubio, maybe we go with someone else, and that's the end. I mean, right now, Trump still has such a chokehold on the party that if you lose his good graces, you are not the presidential candidate. I think that's very much the reality. And so having no power and waiting in the wings for an endorsement or for at least a tacit approval to run a campaign, I don't see much political advantage or much practical purpose in Vance going too far afield of Trump right now. Now, that being said, last thought on this is Vance is going to have to make himself his own man on some issues. I think foreign policy might be one of the ones where we start to see that. But it's going to have to happen in a measured, controlled way there. If I, again, I'm an outsider with friends on the inside, but there will be a conversation in the next six months to a year between the Trump people and the Vance people to say, okay, is Vance the candidate? Is he who you're looking to to be your successor? Yes. Okay. There have to be some ways where you give him a little bit of a longer leash to distinguish himself from you. We have to start doing that. If he's going to run a campaign for 2028, I would expect that. And then when those conversations happen, we won't see them reported. But I think we'll see in the next year Vance have a little bit more room to come out into his own in the public spotlight. But we're certainly not going to see it without Trump more or less tacitly giving the approval for that. [00:29:06] Speaker B: This is why I can never be a politician, because I just couldn't do Vance's job, that's for sure, in the sense of, like, if I saw something that was like Trump was doing those wrong. I mean, if, if, for example, he goes, you know, and attacks, like he bombs Iran or something, let's say he does something horrific over there. I mean, and I'm Vance, I just couldn't just keep my mouth shut. But I do understand what you're saying. That is, his job is to keep his mouth shut and to just be the good soldier. Now, let's talk about then him as a presidential candidate. I personally cannot see a world in which Trump doesn't require, like, complete support of him for his endorsement, even after I'm not even 100% sure how much Trump's going to leave. I'm not, I'm not in a conspiracy theory going stay president. I'm not saying that. I just mean, like, leave the scene and kind of like past presidents mostly have done. Obama didn't do so well, but, like, you know, kind of step aside and say, okay, I'm gonna let the next generation run it. I can't see Trump ever doing that until he dies. And so, like, do you really think there's going to be, during the campaign, 2020 campaign, Vance will be able to criticize Trump in any way without Trump going ballistic on him. [00:30:24] Speaker A: So this is why, you know, you said you could never be in politics. I can never be in politics. I've had some overtures and I kind of laugh at them because what I do is much more fun. And, and also, yeah, you get all the upsides of never having to run a campaign or do any of this terrible stuff. And you can also just say what you want as long as somebody will publish or platform it. But the reality is a good politician, and Vance is a good politician. You know, he's a very smart guy. He's a good intellectual thinker beyond your average politician, but he knows how to navigate politics really well. There is a way of crafting policy statements that differ from your successor without looking too much like you're criticizing or breaking from. It's a hard dance. It's a dance that will have to be done for whoever succeeds Trump in this very unique, an odd time. But I think if anybody has the ability to do it, to start to say, well, here's where I am on foreign policy, here's where I am on abortion. I, I support and respect the president. Here's where I am. And I think it's essential. You know, it's a similar position, but I'm going this way, and I think you'll start to see that. I think, like I said, it's a hard dance to do, but I think he's, he's capable and it won't be an out and out. No, no, I'm the candidate. Trump was wrong, and we're moving on from this platform. It'll be more subtle than that, but it will happen. [00:31:40] Speaker B: I, I've been very impressed with Vance as a political animal as far as, like, understanding how to say things in a way that he gets his message across but doesn't do damage to himself, so to speak. So if anybody could do it, I do think it's him. I do think it would be him. I mean, maybe Rubio. I think Rubio is not quite as smooth as advances on some of this stuff. He can, he can be a little bit less so. But I, so what I want to talk about though is with, with Vance is like you, you titled the book JD Vance and the Future the Republican Party because that's, I kind of want to talk about that as Republican Party because Vance is not a cookie cutter Republican. And, and, and particularly on the role of federal government. Okay, I, I'll say it out here because my listeners already know this. You might notice I am definitely a libertarian leaning political guy. Like I said, Ron Paul's my hero. I like, I love Thomas Massie and you know, I'm sorry, Trump supporters. I know you've been told he's awful, but I love him. And, and, but like, and so obviously Vance is not a libertarian. Some people kind of think maybe because the Purito connection he is. No, he's not. I still love him in a lot of ways, but like he's not. And really though, and I'm, I'm personally of the view that this whole idea that libertarians kind of have dominated Republican politics for wise is nonsense because people like Massie and Rand Paul usually are not major players that much. But like, how does, and from a Catholic perspective as well, how does Vance kind of see the role of the federal government? I see the role of federal government as get out of my way. But how does he see the role of the federal government in using it, you know, in policy, in society? [00:33:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good question. So I think my, so I am not a libertarian, principally, although I tend to agree with libertarians in practice, just because government is so bad at so many things that like getting them out tends to be a good idea. Right. But I do, and I make these cases in the book, so it's worth. There are a couple chapters dedicated to these types of questions. So in principle, I'd say the government exists to promote the common good. We're naturally political animals. So I don't see government in the Catholic tradition as like a necessary evil or as an evil at all. It's a good that's very corruptible because of the power that comes with it. But that being said, we live in a federalist system where and where there's a lot of deference written in and now completely trampled on right of subsidiarity, where most things should be done at the town hall and then in the state capitol and very little done on the federal level. So it's a hard balance. So I would say again, limited federal government is correct. Principled libertarianism. I'm not one. Vance is clearly not one. But then there's this practical question in this uniquely decrepit age where I wrote a chapter about a piece Vance wrote about a poisoned garden, right? Where if you have a healthy garden you can let the sunshine and the rainfall and the gardener doesn't have to do much, right? He weeds, he sows, he reaps, it's healthy. You can let the sun and the rain do their work. You're good to go. That's what a healthy garden looks like. But then when you start introducing poisons, right, Toxin after toxin, fertilizers and chemicals and pesticides, and you get to the point where you've just overloaded this garden. Libertarianism no longer works because and I think we see this pretty clearly in our current age where yeah, the federal government is fraught with corruption and danger and overreach, but you can't simply remove the intervention. You can't simply stop adding the toxins. You can't simply get rid of the government intervention and. And let the sun and the rain do their work anymore because it's thoroughly poisoned, right at this point you need active intervention of some kind to. To remedy what ails you. So the garden. It's an obvious case, right? A dirt full of chemicals. [00:35:36] Speaker B: Sorry, I think the. I was going to say libertarian be the every time government takes action to and they're actually another time instead of actually it their intervention because got us there in the first government keep adding these times and it's supposed to so how would like. And you like kind of this time government's going to help things even though every other time they've gotten used their power and given themselves more power it's actually hurt things. But this time is different. This time that's. And honestly that's probably my personally my biggest concern about Vance is that he. I think he kind of falls for that in my. What I would say is a trap of okay, we got these problems. They're mostly caused by government. So let's go ahead and have government somehow fix it. Which I just think adds to the problems. [00:36:29] Speaker A: I think sorry we both unmuted. I won't touch it anymore. The So I think we're at a place though where government intervention is no longer the only problem. Right. So if we get a libertarian utopia, right the federal government keeps a modest military for defense and keeps the roads and the. And the post office and does pretty much Nothing else. Like then, then we're ruled by Meta and Amazon and Google and like all these terribly corrupt, you know, institutions of higher education, school districts, media. But we don't have a healthy societal infrastructure where if you take out the government, we have something good or even any better. I don't, maybe worse, I'm not sure. But you're right. So this is where I think the conservative who is not a libertarian needs to tread very carefully. Like I, some of it I like completely getting federal funding out of these horrible higher educational institutions, letting them all die all for it, you know, restructuring. So CNN and MSNBC don't have a place in the White House briefing room. Love it. These are, you know, active interventions to get. Well, some of them are actually not. Some of them are just defunding, which is actually arguably a limited government move. But I think we are in such dire circumstances between corrupt and toxic and Marxist controlled institutions in the private sector and also a completely collapsing sense of family, community, neighborhood, town that I'm again, I'm not a libertarian in principle, so I'm not opposed to government intervention if. But again, you have to tread carefully. So seeing movements to cut the way that our social welfare programs are done and retooling them in creative ways to try to encourage couples staying together, people having families, you see a lot of this going on in Hungary, I'm open to it. I think there are some key areas where we've so hurt, hurt the common man, the common town, the average family and worker that I think again, to say this a third time, you do need to tread carefully. But I think I'm hopeful that this is kind of Vance's view that a muscular non libertarian conservatism does not mean government intervention can fix everything that government intervention has so far destroyed. But I do think there's a case to be made that targeted use of government power for the common good in certain areas in careful ways should be on the table. [00:38:58] Speaker B: Speaking of like government use of government, I personally am not a fan of a lot of Trump's foreign policy this, this term. And I know some, some of our listeners are fans of it. They're supporter. That's fine. How do you think Vance, if he were president, how do you think he would differ from Trump in his foreign policy? You think he'd follow the same path? Do you think he'd be completely, you know, do a Ron Paul move or how do you think he would be when it comes to foreign policy? [00:39:30] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question. So the Overton window in The Republican Party has shifted on foreign policy, thanks be to God. It was like so dominated by neoconservative interventionism, like, let's go spread liberal democracy abroad with random war, whatever that means. And not only that, but we're going to like half commit to a war and be there for 20 years. It was like the worst of all worlds. Like, why were there, how we're executing everything was terrible. So I think they still hold positions in State Department and Defense and the Pentagon where they're neoconservative. Conservatism is not quite dead in the government, but it's dying in the Republican base. This is one of the places where I think there's really room for a realignment and like, let the neocon war hawks go. They are destined to be Democrats in the coming decade anyway. I don't really think that most of them are part of the coalition if that's their priority. They really don't fit here. I think that's where we're headed. Again, thanks be to God. But what we're left with is not one uniform foreign policy view. Right? You have this kind of spectrum now from a view of like a very targeted but real American empire, right, that controls this hemisphere, that does muscular things to keep shipping lanes open, to keep trade routes going, whatever. But that also just does see itself as having a place in checking the rise of China and other things. So that's kind of one wing of what now I think is the realigned Republican Party. And then you have full on non interventionist isolationists. And so, yeah, right. So the people who. And I'm sympathetic and I think I'm probably closer to that than to the American empire side. But I don't think you're going to see an extreme isolationist who says, like, nope, we use the military to, you know, defend our dome over our country, to keep shipping lanes open, otherwise we're not involved. I don't think that's where the party is now, but that's a wing of it. And so where does he fall? Because I think Trump falls very much on the muscular American empire side. And you have like a Ron Paul or an Eric Sammons on the other end of it. I think for a couple of reasons, Vance falls somewhere in the middle, leaning toward the non interventionist side for a couple of reasons. For one, he was actually deployed. Obviously he wasn't like an infantryman, he was doing PR stuff, but he was in the Middle East. But also you see hints of this. And again, I think this is one of Those places where as he's given some, some leeway to be his own candidate. I think this might be one of the places he does start to distinguish himself from Trump. You can see like when they were ready to go and bomb the Houthis, right there was that leaked signal thread that somebody was on and then it leaked out and I think they did find who did it. But Vance was the one who had said what are we doing? How is this not the Europeans problem? What are we doing bombing these people? And then again he's the Vice President, he has no real power and so that's it. He could put himself at odds with the President, but what he can do is pretty limited. But, but I think it was a nice little mini glimpse that in the Trump cabinet you still have some hawkish people, you have some American empire folks. And then if you have people who do represent the like, can we stop intervening in things that don't concern us wing of the party? I think Vance is the best hope at a high level of government to be that person. I think that's where his instincts are. It might be one leak signal message but to me it's a sign of like who's the most sane person on foreign policy who has a shot at the nomination. I think it's J.D. vance. [00:43:03] Speaker B: That's probably a good way to put it because I, I know we're not, you know, Rand Paul is not going to be the next president United States and I fully acknowledge that he wouldn't make it through the primaries, didn't make it through the first time, he's not going to make it this time. And so if you look at the people who are realistically on the Republican side, you got J.D. vance, you got Rubio, we got a few others. Vance is probably the best from my perspective of a more non interventionalist idea. He at least has an instinct of being guess I, I feel like Trump had that instinct. I feel like he's lost it a more instinct against that. But I don't, I mean I know Trump, you never. Trump's so unpredictable. I, I think so now if Vance, Vance is a Catholic convert, one of the most famous ones in the country right now. And there's been a rise in com conversions to Catholicism from young men, particularly of a more conservative bent. And I feel like Vance is a, could be a good example of that. So. But at the same time there's clearly, there's clearly tension right now and there would be tension between advanced presidency and like let's say Pope Leo still Pope probably will be because he's, you know, relatively young for Pope. How would that work? Like, how do you think his relationship would be with the Vatican? And how would do you think that would impact, like the, the Catholic witness to this country that could potentially bring people to the faith? Because, of course, that's more important than any political thing he would do. He wouldn't. I'm not saying he'd get up there and preach, but at the same time, his witness could be, could be significant as a Catholic, a serious Catholic president, be the first one. So, I mean, I think that that could have a big impact. [00:44:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, this is one of those things where until you're the president, we don't know how you'll act as the president. So your guess is as good as mine. But I think he's, for one, trying to be a faithful son of the church, which, like you said, would be, I think, a first for a presidential. Well, for a president. He also doesn't share Trump's Reddit. He's good at jabbing left wing media people and stuff. But Vance is not Trump. So he doesn't have this. He's more thoughtful, more calculated, less likely to lash out at somebody because they don't like him. Right. So there's going to be a tension because the reality is America has a real problem being one of the wealthiest nations in the world and the whole world wants to come here. And so we have a border problem, an immigration enforcement problem that is in the works but still very much needs to be dealt with. And then you have a Pope and a USCCB who are very much not on board with immigration restriction, at least from the way they talk. And so there, I think, again, this is where you have to be a good politician and figure out, like, how do I maintain my faithful Catholic practice as an individual? How do I maintain good relationships with the Holy Father, with the Vatican, with the bishops, while still recognizing that they don't make policy and they're probably not particularly good at making practical, prudential policy judgments. I, I don't think I would want most of our bishops to be like president of the United States. So it's a different role. And so I think the key is how do you articulate that? How do you remain a spiritual son of the Holy Father, Right. A faithful Catholic and son of the church, while still recognizing that your role is obviously to be faithful and consistent with Catholic doctrine. But you're not beholden to the Pope or the bishops telling you how you ought to govern on an issue like immigration in particular. It's a tough dance. How do you be respectful? How do you be faithful and still be what you need to be as, as a figure like President of the United States. [00:46:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's for sure now. Okay, so I guess I want you to give the pitch here for J.D. vance for 2028 for our listeners. Why him? And not like for example Rubio or anybody else like, why do you think as cat, particularly as Catholics we should be? Because honestly I, I voted for Trump Vance in 2024. I was very enthusiastic. I've been disappointed since about last May ish or so. I feel like things have kind of gone south. I'm not saying Trump is awful. The administration, I, it's done. It does good things as well. Don't. I'm not like this anti Trump syndrome type of thing. At the same time I've been disappointed. But like why Will, why try actually try to sell me then on why Vance will be an improvement and really be. I know he's going to be better than a Democrat. That's not really debate. But why, why should I be in that. Okay, I'm getting to my question here eventually. But why should I be enthusiastic about Vance? Because the truth is if Vance is the candidate and the, the Democrats put whoever I'm voting for Vance, I mean, I'm not like claiming I'm not. But why should I be enthusiastic about Vance becoming president in 2028? [00:47:59] Speaker A: Yeah, great question. So I would say most of the alternatives who are not named Marco Rubio, I don't, I don't trust. I think there are a lot of people waiting in the wings who have kind of maintained the worst of the pre Trump era of being extremely hawkish on foreign policy and defense budgets. [00:48:19] Speaker B: Who are some of those people, by the way? [00:48:22] Speaker A: I think Nikki Haley is an easy one to swing at. I don't think they'll run her again as the primary opponent just because you get 2% of the vote or something. But I mean she's a good example because she really typifies. I think what, what happened to the Republican Party is that especially in red states. Right. She's an ambitious young woman from South Carolina. Red state. If you want to be in politics, you have to be a Republican. So if you're more or less like a modern liberal in your outlook on life, you have to figure out how to adopt a Republican platform. So you pay certain lip service to social conservatism, but you don't really care about it. You're hawkish on foreign policy. And maybe like tax cuts or whatever. But the. So the problem is, I think there are a lot of other people who are kind of waiting in the wings and it's hard to know that, right. Who, who has really embraced, like Christian principles and a sane way forward and who is just kind of waiting in the wings to restore Nikki Haley ism to the or George W. Bush ism to the gop. Hard to tell. I think Rubio gives me hope. Although anybody who had a pre Trump future, I would say there's also like an electoral liability there that the Trump coalition brought in a lot of people who are like, I don't know, is he just going to go back to being like the war hawk like every other Republican pre2016? I don't think Rubio would. I think I've heard from people who know him well that he too reads Catholic social teaching and takes the faith very seriously, which is pretty heartening. But why be enthusiastic about Vance? I think for one, the foreign policy issue for me is big on the American empire versus restraint of foreign policy. I think he's the best hope. I'm a practical, pragmatic guy on politics. I don't think you're going to get a Rand Paul, Ron Paul on foreign policy in the White House. So if you care about trying to restrain our use of military force, I think Vance is by far the best that, that we have on the horizons on, on everything else, domestic policy, actually applying Catholic doctrine. Rubio is pretty good. You know, that's, that's the most common question from Catholic audiences. Well, why Vance and not Rubio? And I would say two things, I think. One, I don't believe Rubio is going to run. I think unless there is a political catastrophe, I think Rubio will endorse Vance and we'll likely have a Vance Rubio ticket in 2028. But two, electoral politics really matters. And, you know, this is not a popularity contest. It's not a popular vote. It's a race to 270 electoral votes. And so where are the swing states? As much as people like to talk about Vance as being he's too extreme. He's this and that. I don't know. I look at this guy and his story and the way he can talk to ordinary, like middle American folks and the way Vance plays in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, I like his odds. So I think in terms of electability, I think he's a really important figure to kind of keep the new Trump coalition together without torpedoing the whole thing, which, like a Nikki Haley by the way, would do. The whole Trump coalition would just fall apart and she would lose miserably. And so would a lot of other people who I, I won't name because it's a little harder to separate the sheep from the goats there. But in the end, I think it goes back to what I was saying saying throughout this interview, I think Vance is our best hope for a sane foreign policy that stops sending our troops away to die in wars for no reason. And then on domestic policy, you never know how a president's gonna be until he's president. But I mean, this is someone who looks at immigration and says, well, how does Aquinas and Augustine's Ordo Amori supply to this? I think we'll see more of that as he can be his own man, his own candidate. So again, we don't get to anoint the Catholic monarch who's going to bring us into a golden age of Catholicism in America. I like you, I'm pretty cynical about politicians, but I see a guy who's a faithful Catholic who's trying to engage with Catholic social teaching and apply it to politics, something I haven't really seen in politics in quite some time. So, always cautious. But I think for someone who thinks the way I do, there's nobody close. I think this is the most interesting and the most hopeful figure for, you know, a Catholic traditional person that we've seen in politics in quite some time. [00:52:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll admit I haven't warmed DeMarco Rubio, my son in law who's part Cuban from Florida, he likes him a lot and I, and I, and so I get in some discussion with him about it. But I also agree with you though, just practically speaking, Vance is going to hang out with Pennsylvania blue collar workers a lot more naturally than, than Rubio is. I mean that's just, that's just a personality thing. It's a background thing. It's not Rubio's fault or anything like that. It just simply the reality that Vance, that's his upbringing, his upbringing is, is lower class. It's, you know, blue collar, all that. He just naturally fits with that, that crowd and that matters in, in a presidential election. My hope is that what Vance would do, his first thing when he starts his campaign, his first like opening speech, he would say, I just want to say Lindsey Graham will be, have nothing at all to do with my administration. If he says that he's got my vote, he's got my enthusiastic vote, he just condemns Lindsey Graham to start off. Then I'm like, okay, now we're. Now we can work together on something. So. So we'll go with that. But. Okay, I'm gonna wrap it up here, but I, I first, I wanted to ask you. Of course, the book. I'll put a link to the book in the show. Notes, JD Vance, the future Republican Party. But is there anywhere people can kind of find out, like, the work you're doing, the things you're up to? [00:53:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So I am an only reluctant adopter of social media, unfortunately. So, um, I mean, like, I. I have a subset, modest sub stack and a modest Twitter account, but I'm, you know, here and there. I'm mostly like a lurker on those places. So for the people who care to follow, like, what I'm doing with the book, all of the. The essays, the things I publish, the stuff that I really care about on the faith and on politics, LinkedIn is actually the place that's most updated, so you can find me fairly easily on LinkedIn. And that's. That's where I'm. I'm active and pretty much my whole corpus is on there. [00:54:22] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. So again, the book is J.D. vance and the Future of the Republican party, by Frank DeVito. And, I mean, JD Vance. I'm still a fan. I'm. I'm, like, gonna hold on to him. I hope he. I'm a little worried that when he actually runs for president becomes. If he becomes president, that'll be disappointing because then he'll actually have to do something, because now he can hide behind the I'm vice president type of thing, and. And. But then he'll actually have to do something. But, you know, that's okay. That's okay. So. Okay. Well, thanks again, Frank, for being on. I really appreciate it. And until next time, everybody. God love you.