INTERVIEW: Republican Vice Presidential Candidate, Sen. JD Vance on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan”

Ans And of course – and of course Donald Trump has criticized this person. Look, I think the guy’s a total loser. Certainly I disavow him. But if you ask me what I care more about, is it a person attacking me personally, or is it government policy that discriminates based on race? That’s what I really worry about. Is bad government policy that harms people based on their immutable characteristics. Look, a lot of losers are going to attack me and attack my family. I think the proper response to them is to ignore them. Don’t feed the trolls, and they largely go away. What I worry much more about is bad government policy, Margaret, because I think it’s a bad, bad thing.

Q I want to ask you about some of the things you’ve said on the business front. You said you’re among the most pro-labor Republicans in the Senate. You’re not a big fan of Right-to-Work laws that make it harder to, you know, for unions to organize. Our latest CBS poll shows your ticket is down 13 points, 56 to 43, among voters with a union member in their household. Why do you think there is this differential? Why behind? 

Ans Well, first of all, Margaret, I’m skeptical of any polling at this level, because I think that you have to persuade voters. The poll that actually matters is on election day. And I think we’re doing great with union voters, especially people like the Teamsters, the United Auto Workers, because we’re the people who are trying to protect their jobs. Kamala Harris has pursued a series of green energy policies that would ship more and more manufacturing jobs to China, more and more energy jobs to China. That’s going to destroy a lot of union jobs. And what President Trump and I have to do is make the case to these workers, union and non-union alike, that we’re the candidacy, we’re the presidency that’s actually going to protect their jobs and protect their right to earn a good wage in the country they love. I think that when people know about the policy difference between Kamala Harris, pro shipping American manufacturing jobs to China with ridiculous energy policies, and Donald Trump, who wants to drill and actually open up American energy markets so that we can manufacture more. They’re going to vote for President Trump. I have no doubt about that.

Q You’re one of the few Republican supporters of antitrust reform.

Ans Yeah. 

Q Which has actually been a cause the Biden administration, the Biden-Harris Administration, has taken up here, trying to block mergers and ramp up antitrust. You said of FTC Commissioner Lina Khan, “She’s done a pretty good job.” 

Ans Yeah. 

Q What do you mean by that? If you’re in office, you’re going to go after trying to break up Google, trying to break up Microsoft? What does that mean? 

Ans Well, look, I don’t agree with Lina Khan on every issue, to be clear, but I think that she’s been very smart about trying to go after some of these big tech companies that monopolize what we’re allowed to say in our own country. I don’t want a billionaire–

Q Like which companies? 

Ans I don’t want Google or a billionaire that controls Google that’s in bed with China to be able to censor American information, and that’s exactly what they’ve done. I think these companies are too big, too powerful–

(CROSSTALK)

Q Elon Musk, though, comes to mind immediately and he’s a huge supporter of your movement–

Ans But he does not censor–

Q And he does so much business with China. 

Ans: One, he does not censor. And two, he does not have a monopoly over free speech in a way that Google has a much, much bigger company, a much more powerful control. And by the way, the presidency that started the antitrust lawsuit against Google was Donald J. Trump’s presidency, right? So in a lot of ways, President Trump and I look at this in the same way. We want good wages for American workers. We want Americans to be able to speak their own mind in their own country, and sometimes that means you’ve got to take on those monopolies. President Trump already did it, and I think he’ll do it again if we give him another chance.

Q It just stands out as interesting to me, because you, you courted so much money, effectively, for the campaign from Silicon Valley and from so many of these tech guys – 

Ans Not from, not from Google and Facebook, Margaret. I think there’s a big difference between big tech and little tech, right? A lot of these companies are upstarts. They’re trying to build a cool product. They’re trying to take on the Googles and Facebooks of the world. Google and Facebook are not giving me a whole lot of money because they don’t like me, because I believe that Americans ought to be able to speak their own mind in their own country. And I think these companies are too big. We ought to take the Teddy Roosevelt approach to some of them. Break ’em up. Don’t let them control what people are allowed to say. So yes, the big tech companies don’t like me. The little tech companies, people, I think, who are trying to do something important to take on those big tech upsta-, those big tech incumbents? Yeah, a lot of them do support me, I’m of course, proud to have their support because we agree on a lot of big issues.

Q So you’re promising them, what, less regulation of certain things is that what you–

Ans Promising who?  

Q Small tech. You didn’t give any names. So I don’t know which you’re talking about–  

Ans Well look, I mean, I think Twitter, for example, if you look at its user base and you look at how much control Google has over the digital advertising infrastructure. We ought to be going after some of those incumbents. And certainly I don’t think that Elon Musk has any monopoly. He’s not using his company to try to destroy competitors. And that, to me, is when something crosses the line where you’ve got to be a little bit more focused on antitrust issues.

Q So I want to move a little bit to foreign policy here, excuse me, if I could. We’re going to mark this year the three year anniversary of the U.S.- the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. President Trump negotiated that withdrawal. The execution, you’ve been very critical of, was very chaotic, under President Biden. But let’s look at what you could do if you’re in office. There are about 80,000 or so Afghans who were left behind, many of whom worked for the United States. Does America owe them? Should you bring them here? 

Ans Well, I think that we should bring people here who helped us and have been properly vetted. And that’s very, very important, because a lot of the people the Biden administration has brought in have not been properly vetted and I think–

Q Are you talking about Afghan vets?

Ans And I think the most important- certainly, the Biden administration has let in Afghan nationals who say that they supported Americans but actually did not. We also need to remember, Margaret, there was a lot, when we were in Afghanistan, a lot of so-called Blue on Green, or Green on Blue violence, where people who are allegedly supposed to help us killed American troops. So I want them in our country? Of course I don’t. In fact, I wish they weren’t on this earth anymore. So we have to be careful about who we let into this country–

(CROSSTALK)

Q I’m talking about– 

Ans But I think–

Q People who worked alongside United States service people– 

Ans And if they’re–

Q On the ground in Afghanistan.

(CROSSTALK ENDS)

Ans And if they’re properly vetted, I think that we should help them. Some of them don’t want to come here, by the way, Margaret, some of them would like us to give them safety in another country. 

Q Right.

Ans You don’t have to bring every single person who helped the United States into the United States, you can send them to other places as well. But, certainly, I don’t think we should abandon anybody who’s been properly vetted and actually helped us. 

Q I ask you that because President Trump said a few days ago he’ll suspend refugee admissions to the United States–

Ans Exactly, because we’re not properly–

Q But you’re saying not in this case?

Ans No, absolutely I’m saying in this case, Margaret, because we’re not properly vetting the people that are being let in through these refugee programs. What President Trump said is very important. You cannot show up at an American consulate and say, I helped the Americans, go let me into America because I’m a refugee– 

Q That’s not how the process works, you know that.

Ans It very often is how the process works, Margaret–

Q It is not.