Who should be worried? Because I have a feeling a lot of people applied for those loans that didn't deserve it.

Yeah.

Well, who should be worried? I would say opponents of J.D.

Vance on the political level.

And then in terms of these these loans, everybody who took one who didn't do what they were supposed to do.

Right.

I mean, this is first of all, I voted for this.

But why key in on now the COVID loans and will this be nationwide?

But J.D. Vance is really the first politician that you've seen on the national stage that is in this America first mold.

Yeah, what makes him different? I mean, in some sense, that's what the entire book is about.

You know, who is this guy? What has he been saying, thinking, writing for the last, you know, 15 years or 10 years, at least, since Hillbilly Elegy came out.

But the two big things, I think, are a real... reorientation of foreign policy, right? How do we get away from both, like he said at the press conference the other day, the wokeness and the absurdity that's weakened our military, but also the foreign policy excursions of the last couple of decades that have gotten us into so much trouble and really harmed our place on the world stage.

How do we get back to a realistic, not isolationist, but a realistic America first foreign policy? I think Vance is a really important figure for that foreign policy discussion.

And then on the home front, I think the biggest thing that I like to talk about is the reorientation on the American dream.

I think for too long, the Republican Party has moved toward uh being perceived and in some sense really being the party of the corporate class right the party of the wealthy and donald trump did something amazing he really shifted this party for the first time in a long time to have the opportunity to be the party of the american working class and the party of the ordinary american family and you listen to some of what jd has said And about the American, let's stop talking about having more money, having more degrees, having fancier cars than our grandparents and our parents.

What is the biggest difference from a foreign policy perspective with J.D. and, say, the old right, if you will?

How would you describe J.D. Vance's political philosophy for someone who is relatively new, uh, to following? And, and, and how closely aligned is it with what you would call Trumpism?

Yeah.

It, it's a good question.

So the first question, right? What, what is his core philosophy? It...

You can...

The nice thing, and part of the reason that I wrote this book, is Vance leaves a trail, a pre-candidate trail.

It's one thing once you're on the campaign trail, and you're making speeches, and maybe you're more inclined to do or say or align yourself to the voters and the issues of the day.

All right, what do we make of this and, and, and, and, and how do conservatives square JD Vance bringing in a guy like Huey Long into the conversation?

Do you think Swalwell knew she was a spy? Because that would change the whole game if he did.

Yeah, you know, it's hard to tell.

It's partially hard to tell because the U.S. government dropped the investigation, said there wasn't enough there.

So I'm kind of with you.

I think he actually is dumb enough where this could all have been him being duped.

But I don't, you know, that creates a whole different set of problems.

I'm going to kind of assume that because if he's in bed, literally and figuratively, but with Chinese spies and he's doing so notably, like knowably, that's its own problem.

My assumption is there's probably more and this is probably still going on and we don't even know the depths it goes, Frank.

What did you find when you did research for your book, Frank?

Yeah, so a lot of what I focused on when I was writing the book was about what he wrote, what he thought, what he said before he was a candidate.

I think we have a really interesting, unique track record in a man who was something of a public intellectual before he was a politician, right? So we have more than just campaign speeches to go on.

But I find a couple things.

I think, one, he's kind of at the pinnacle of the foreign policy conversation going on in the Republican Party right now, where you have clearly a split between people who kind of want to continue America's interventionist place on the world stage and people who want to return to a more, whatever you want to call it, restrained, realist foreign policy.

And I think Vance's certainly in the latter category.

We saw him come out as a new senator against intervention in Ukraine.

What do you see happening there?

But what distinguishes the leaders then who can carry institutional weight from those who cannot?

Yeah, I think a lot of it is what I've already said, right? If the leadership is not virtuous and doesn't cultivate those character traits, then it's kind of hard to expect that of your downstream subordinate staff.

But I also think that there's this hard balance in leadership between delegation and also ultimate responsibility.

Maybe this is an obvious point, but on one hand, right, you can have micromanaging leadership, which can stifle staff.

And I've definitely seen that a lot.

But I think on the other end, you can get Oh, who is it? Jocko Willink.

I don't know if you've heard of him.

But going back to the Vance example, well, who would you want as a better example of how to get into the middle class than Vance, given his impoverished background and difficult young life? So what should leaders be thinking of if they do want to resuscitate the American dream for this century?