Shownotes Transcript
This is the sound of your ride home with dad after he caught you vaping. Awkward, isn't it? Most vapes contain seriously addictive levels of nicotine and disappointment. Know the real cost of vapes. Brought to you by the FDA. With an hour before boarding, there's only one place to go. The Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. There, you can recharge before the big adventure.
or enjoy a locally inspired dish. You could recline in a comfy chair to catch up on your favorite show or order a craft cocktail at the bar. Whatever you're in the mood for, find the detail that moves you with curated touches at the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. Chase, make more of what's yours. Learn more at chase.com slash sapphire reserve. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Subject to credit approval.
Hi. Sorry, did I startle you? When you're used to hearing a certain type of commercial, something like this can, well, take you by surprise. That's kind of how it is with the Lexus RX, a vehicle that has continued to defy expectations for over 25 years. From the first luxury vehicle of its kind, to the first hybrid luxury vehicle, to the only plug-in hybrid worthy of the RX name, we understand you want more than the everyday SUV. And isn't being understood an amazing feeling?
Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer. Hello and welcome to the Restless Politics US with me, Kati Kay. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. We've just watched the two vice presidential nominees, J.D. Vance and Tim Waltz. They've been battling it out in their first and only television debate. It was about 90 minutes long. And since Donald Trump
so far hasn't agreed to another round with Kamala Harris. It looks like this is going to be the last big opportunity for either of these campaigns to get their principles out there and make an impact before election day. We can talk later about how much impact we think the vice presidential debates have had in history and how much we think this one might have. I actually think this one might have more than it generally does. But look, I think
My overarching impression was that JD Vance is a skilled debater, as we had expected. He showed up and decided to be Mr. Nice JD Vance and not the more aggressive, acerbic JD Vance that we've been seeing over the last few weeks.
And Tim Walsh, who the campaign had already kind of put out there is not as experienced as J.D. Vance in debating, seemed very nervous at the beginning, kind of mixed up quite a lot of his words, got better as the debate went on, but wasn't the kind of confident coach that we've been seeing in the rally. So I guess, you know, if you're going to put it colloquially, yeah.
J.D. Vance was not the kind of rottweiler that we've seen in television interviews. And Tim Waltz wasn't the kind of folksy, charming, confident coach that we've been seeing in political rallies. So if this was just a purely a contest between these two, I think you'd have to give J.D. Vance the win on that one. Okay. So, I mean, what I love about doing this podcast with you is that it's
objective. That could be the BBC journalist in you. I don't know. I wanted Waltz to win, but he did not win that debate. And so we have to be very objective as to why he didn't win that debate. So I'm just going to list off four quick things. And then I'd like to ask a few questions. He was very unfocused. He got very nervous. Also, he had a glare going. There was a side piece. Remember,
If you're going to go into a debate on national television, it's not just what you're saying to the camera. It's where you're looking and how you're looking. OK, Vice President Harris practiced all that. She was flawless in the silence and the body language piece of this. He looked lost. People are going to be mad at me, but he was not ready for the debate. He was not ready for the debate.
earnestness that Vance was presenting. There were four things that he did, I think, that were ridiculous. And whoever prepped him either didn't know how to prep him or he didn't prepare for the debate because you have to be ready for the
in dead air and you could feel screeching in the room. But he got better. He got better in the middle of the debate. He got better with gun control. He got better with health care. He got better with women's reproductive rights. He also got better. He did something that Donald Trump is not going to like. And that is, yeah, well, you're saying that
And I agree with you, but that's not what your top of the ticket candidate is saying. That's not what he's saying. And he split Vance three or four times. And I'm going to tell you that Vance did well enough for Trump to pretend that he liked it, but he really is not going to like it. Okay. And I'll, and I'll say this before I ask you this question, both of those guys did way better than Donald Trump did on September the 10th. So, but my, my question is, is JD Vance, uh,
too young to be president of the United States or too young to be vice president? Yes, he's a terrific debater. If we were at the Yale debating Oxford or debating one of your fancy pants schools over there and he won the debate, yes. But is he too young? Because that was my feeling looking at him. And then secondarily,
What does Waltz do from here? Look, so I think a couple of things. We're getting lots of people are already texting in, a lot of them not happy with our analysis, saying that Waltz definitely won it. I think that's a tricky one to argue, actually. I think there's a counter argument. I was texting all through this with a Republican congressperson, Democratic congressperson and a Democratic senator.
strategist and I was kind of had an ongoing text the whole way through this and one of the strategists pointed out that although Walt came across as nervous
His kind of folksy manner may have actually been more appealing to audiences and seemed more human and that kind of Vance had a kind of slight smirk about him. And maybe that gets to the youth thing that you're talking about when he was looking at Tim Walsh and that he always had this kind of slight half smile about him. I think it's that J.D. Vance came into this debate deciding he was going to be disarmingly personable, which right
from the beginning, by the way, he kind of thanked Tim Waltz right at the top for being there. He thanked the moderators. He was very polite to the moderators. He wasn't rude to Tim Waltz. I was really struck. One of the things that struck me was the number of times actually both of them agreed with each other.
and said, you know, I think you're right. Because it wasn't just that Tim Walz was trying to split J.D. Vance from Donald Trump. J.D. Vance was also trying to split Tim Walz from Kamala Harris at various points. And neither of them, I think, did a really good job of, in those moments, defending their principles. I mean, what is the point of a vice presidential debate?
The point of a vice presidential debate is to be partly attack dog and partly defense, right? You've got to score goals, but you've also got to defend your principle again and again and again. This is about the top of the ticket. Americans vote on the top of the ticket. They don't care really who's the vice president. Candace, it was half the time they can't even remember who the vice presidential pick is.
So they're voting on the top of the ticket. There's not going to be another presidential debate. So in this one, it was really important that these two really, you know, made the theory of the case, made the argument for the top of the ticket. And whenever one of them said, oh, I agree with you or, you know, I agree with you, but I don't think the top of the ticket agrees with you.
The onus was on both of them really to jump in and say, hold on a second, you know, that's not what Kamala Harris thinks on immigration or that's not what Donald Trump thinks on the economy or whatever it was. And I don't think either of them actually did a great job of doing that. Listen, I wanted the guy to win. I'm
I'm a supporter of Walt. I've said that. I'm a supporter of Kamala Harris. Wanted him to win. He did not win that debate. If you want to pretend that he won the debate, that's fine. I know there'll be people in the spin room that will spin that he won the debate. He did not win that debate. There's a second thing. So first question, is he too young? And then the second question, have you ever seen The Dead Zone by Stephen King?
Do you remember that 1983 movie? Do you remember it? I'd like to think I wasn't actually up for watching movies in 1983. I was so much younger than you remember. Yes, you weren't born in 1983. I was not. No.
But what I didn't like about Vance, he was almost had the overbite of perfect. It was almost too robotic. And when he said, you know, praise Jesus or praise the Lord or whatever it is. And listen, I'm a Catholic. And of course, I praise Jesus. But it was it was an overbite. It was unnecessary. He also when they talked about splitting the families, he did a what about ism. He didn't he didn't address the thing. And and Walt's got him into the corner and hit him again.
And so if you said to me, okay, who would I want to be president? I would take Waltz over Vance. Okay, let me explain that quickly. Waltz is a Midwestern guy that has Midwestern values and Midwestern principles. And to use his own words, he may be a chucklehead or a knucklehead at times, but he is a guy that would build a coalition of people, right?
I felt like it was the character from the dead zone debating a youngish Harry Truman. Okay. And so he won the debate, but the question is, would you, after watching those two people for 90 minutes, would you,
Who would you like to be the president United States? I'm gonna waltz the guy was Caring what he said about health care reproductive freedom. It's actually libertarian I'm surprised the conservatives are not embarrassed that Tim Waltz is making the conservative libertarian argument what he said about Immigration and what he said about his love for the country and for our communities. I
Yes, Smarty Pants won on debate points. Smarty Pants got him on some of those issues and Tim, Governor Walz looked nervous.
But the question is, who would you rather have as president, Katie Kay? I think the question then is, were there undecided voters? And this is the only question that really matters with almost everything that happens over the course of the next five weeks. Are there undecided voters responding to a certain event, whether it's this debate or some other event, who will have their mind swayed one way or the other by this debate? I think it's hard to know. I mean, are undecided voters...
because they just haven't tuned into the race and are very busy or are not that interested. And if they are undecided voters, will they have been swayed by... I think there's a chance that J.D. Vance, who has terrible negatives, right, going into this, he's a lot less popular than Tim Walz was. And I think he went into this debate... I mean, watch, it was interesting, one of the people I was texting with, the Republican congressman and the Democratic congressman, both...
both raised that this is kind of J.D. Vance trying to mitigate his negative approval ratings because he's auditioning for 2028. He's auditioning to be the presidential candidate next time around, and he knows that he can't be the presidential candidate if he's as unpopular as he is today.
So I think he made the decision to turn up and be personable, to be polite, not to say things about childless cat ladies, not to be even extreme on abortion. I mean, that was one area of the debate that I think was quite surprising was where he kind
kind of turned it, I mean, he's a clever debater because he didn't really address what they would do about the states that have taken more draconian positions on abortion, but he just said, we've got to win back the trust of the American people on abortion.
health issues. I mean, he talked again about, you know, pro-family. And I think Tim Walz gave good reply saying, listen, you can defend Roe v. Wade, but still give more money to kids in the country. It's not an either or. And I think that was a good response to that. But he somehow managed to kind of make his position on, and he definitely rehearsed that line, talking about regaining the trust. And there was a kind of element of kind of humble pie there, you know, recognizing that we've sort of got a problem on this.
Interestingly, halfway through the debate, by the way, guys, if you don't follow Trump on Truth Social, which I do, he sent out an all caps kind of Truth Social post saying, I absolutely will not sign into law a national abortion ban. I've been totally clear on this. So this is something that Trump and Vance want to get out there very clearly. And I thought, you know, he did manage to kind of
he managed to have a good moment. But I think the underlining question is, will there be undecided voters who will have been swayed either way by this one? So I don't necessarily think that, but for those people in the chat session that are saying that waltz won the debate or I'm being too harsh on waltz, I ask you please, if you've recorded the debate, to please go back to the question on Tiananmen Square and watch the 90 seconds. It was a technical knockout. You can't do that
in a debate. You have to assume any possible question is going to be asked of you and you have to have an answer. And even if you, hey, you know what? I wasn't there on June 4th, 1989. I got there a few months later. I did exaggerate that at a time in my life when I was a lot younger. Stakes are much higher now. He could have said something like that. Why do politicians hate apologizing? I mean, what's the problem? Just say, I'm so sorry. I made a mistake. I shouldn't have said that.
Well, because their strategists tell them, never say that you're wrong because they're going to use that. You know, Roy Cohn would tell Trump, you can never admit that you're wrong. Never admit that you lost anything because they'll use it against you. They'll chock-a-block it and send it out on Instagram and TikTok, you know, that you said something about you being wrong. Dom, our producer, is saying that we have to explain the Tiananmen Square gaffe.
Basically, a couple of times Waltz has kind of said things that weren't necessarily true about like he didn't hold an assault weapon. He didn't go to war with an assault weapon about his retirement ranking when he left the military. He's also said that he was in Hong Kong during Tiananmen Square. And it turns out he wasn't in Hong Kong during Tiananmen Square and he was pressed on this, but he just fumbled the answer. And he said, I've been to Hong Kong and China lots of times. And sometimes I'm a knucklehead.
Well, if you don't mind, I'm going to interrupt because I read an article about this. He basically said that he was in Tiananmen Square during the protests when the- In 1989. In 1989. But he didn't get there until August of 1989. And so the point was he has said some things that are exaggerated statements. You know, there's a great expression in American politics,
don't let the truth get in the way of a great story. And so he has stem windedly spoken running for Congress or running for governor about being in certain places, doing certain things. So there was an, an American journalist that, you know, fib that he was in rocket fire and hell fire and a helicopter when it didn't happen. You know, I think things like that, people have a tendency to do that. I, I would say to anybody listening to this, if you've never gotten caught in a lie, you're a better person than me and God bless you. Okay.
But he got caught in a lie. And all you have to do is say, yes, I shouldn't have said that. It was a hubristic moment for me as a younger man. The stakes are much higher now. Can we move on to the next question? But he didn't do that. And he dug himself in a hole. But here's the point. He came in nervous again. People have to listen. It's not about whether who would be a better vice president or not. Who won the debate?
He did not win that debate. You can pretend that he did. He didn't. He was better and more compassionate on reproductive rights and reproductive freedoms. He was better and more compassionate on the shooting stuff. He was better and he was more thoughtful on the health care. I give him all of that stuff, but he just did not seem ready, caddy. And I'm just telling you that I wish I wish it was different. You know, now Vance came across pitch perfect, smart high school debate. Perfect. And he did something that I think caught them off guard. He wasn't Trump.
OK, and it was civil. And he wasn't even J.D. Vance of the last few weeks. There was no attack. You know, it was civil. It was no ad hominems. I watched it with my wife and she looked at me and said, well, why? Why couldn't Trump talk like this? You know, why? Why can't we have some type of ideological or policy disagreement in the country? Which, of course, every country does. That's what makes a country. Founders understood that we had to bridge the gap.
But why can't we make it civil like that? And I applaud both of those guys for that. Yeah, they taught a lot of substance. Harris started slowly on September the 10th, and then she ramped up. And then once she got the glide path right, she shot to the moon. Trump started where he always does medium. And then when she hit him hard, he cratered and just started screaming and barking into the microphone.
So Vance was on his game. Again, you can like or dislike him. He was on his game. He was proficient in his talking points. But he did two things that Donald Trump is not going to like. Number one, he's way smarter than Donald Trump. It's not even a question. And then number two, he did try to separate himself a little bit.
from Trump. He provided space and daylight. And that's something Waltz did a good job of. Waltz said, whoa, let me put the flashlight. Let me take my iPhone out and flash on this guy right now. Shine a light on where he's separating from Trump. Trump is not going to like that. And trust me, this debate
He's walking out of the debate thinking he won. He's thinking Trump is thinking he's the man. Trump is not thinking he's the man. Trump is bummed that Vance did better than him. That's how Trump is. We're going to take a quick break. With an hour before boarding, there's only one place to go, the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. There, you can recharge before the big adventure.
or enjoy a locally inspired dish. You could recline in a comfy chair to catch up on your favorite show or order a craft cocktail at the bar. Whatever you're in the mood for, find the detail that moves you with curated touches at the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. Chase, make more of what's yours. Learn more at chase.com slash sapphire reserve. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Subject to credit approval.
Max Bankman, I'm the new doctor. Welcome aboard the Odyssey. ABC Thursdays. This ship is heaven. We're tending to our past their streams. I'm in. From 911 executive producer Ryan Murphy comes a splashy new drama on a luxury cruise ship with Joshua Jackson and Don Johnson. It's your job to keep everyone alive. She's in V-fit. One, two, three. Clear. Clear.
I have a pulse. You're going to be okay. Dr. Odyssey, Thursdays, 9, 8 central on ABC and stream on Hulu.
Oh, it's such a clutch off-season pickup, Dave. I was worried we'd bring back the same team. I meant those blackout motorized shades. Blinds.com made it crazy affordable to replace our old blinds. Hard to install? No, it's easy. I installed these and then got some from my mom. She talked to a design consultant for free and scheduled a professional measure and install. Hall of Fame's son? They're the number one online retailer of custom window coverings in the world. Blinds.com is the GOAT!
Shop lines.com right now and get up to 45% off select styles. Rules and restrictions may apply. There are a couple of things that were moments where I thought Waltz had some really good lines, but
And there were, like you said, towards the end of the debate, he had a very nice line on gun control. He told the story actually about how his 17-year-old had witnessed a shooting, a mass shooting. And Vance, to his credit, said, I didn't know that. I'm really sorry for your son. Those things really leave a scar. And it was...
Again, it was kind of this, they had these moments where they sort of, you know, seemed to get on well together. But then I thought Walt's turned it around because Vance was saying, look, we just have higher rates of mental health problems in America than in other countries. And Walt says, look, you don't want to end up making your school into a fortress when we know that there are things that you can do about it. And he talked about mental health and he said, we end up stigmatizing mental health and sometimes it's just about the guns.
And actually, Vance had no real comeback to that. He was sort of flawed at that point. That was a really good moment for him. I agree. And he also handled the election lie well.
Cause you could see, you know, if I advance, if I was going to say that was his best moment, if I was in the room with Vance right now and he said, how did I do? You won the debate. No question. Came across a little bit like the dead zone protagonist or antagonist and the Stephen King novel that became the movie in 1983, the horror movie, a little bit of that, a little bit too much of that. And in the end, you know, Trump lied about the election and,
And all Vance had to do one extra sentence, J.D., you told people that you would have voted in a different way than Mike Pence. It makes you a traitor, son, young man. That makes you a traitor to the United States. He had him right there on the ropes after losing the first eighty five minutes.
He could have hit him with that, but he didn't. And it's a sign of his niceness, by the way. He's a gentleman. That moment where Walt said, you know, did Trump lose the 2020 election? And Vance came back and said, I'm just focused on the future and on censorship.
And Walt said that was a very good non-answer. Yeah. And I thought actually that was pretty good. I mean, yeah, you're right. Maybe he could have pushed him even further. Too Midwestern for me. Okay. Maybe I'm just too New York. I would have said young man. Okay. Who barely has whiskers. And I know I could be a fake beer. Young man, calm down for a second.
You admitted to the American people you'd be a traitor to our Constitution. A clip that's going to run on social media, that's going to run. Tomorrow that will be replayed and replayed. Did he lose the 2020 election? But the other clip is, you know, Vance makes Trump look like a dunce, like a meathead. They both make him look like a meathead. And somebody's writing in the chat, which I have to address because it's a very insightful thing, did Vance upset or piss off Trump by calling him his running mate?
And the answer to that question is unequivocally yes. You have to call him, you know, the great one, the president. You have to say President Trump. You can't call him your running mate. You can't do that. You know, it puts him, you know, Trump is a brittle, insecure guy. Can't say my running mate. So whoever put that in the chat, I think it was Gersom or something.
It's a very big insight into where it is. I got a text from a Democratic congressman during the course of the debate who texted me and said, is J.D.'s debate performance about helping Trump, question mark, or is it about helping rehab his image for 2028? Trust me, you trust me, he's going to have a falling out with Trump over the next three weeks and he's not going to understand anything.
what the falling out is about. Trump's not going to overly praise his performance. He'll say a few nice things about it because he has to, but he's not happy about it. Waltz is walking out of there. He's got people in his psychotherapeutic spin room telling him how great he did
But he knows he's not stupid, Waltz. He knows he didn't do what he needed to do in that debate. Is it going to affect the polls, Katty Kay? I say no. What do you say? I don't think it necessarily affects the polls very much. Listen, a quick question for you watching it.
and put your Republican hat on or your, you know, old school Republican hat on. Because I got this from Congressman Mike Lawler, who you know, who's a New York congressman, centrist congressman, who at the beginning of the debate texted me and said, listen, this is just...
all the questions have been coming from one bent. Every question to Waltz is, Governor, please respond just to what J.D. Vance said. And he was saying that all the questions to J.D. Vance were much tougher than the questions to Tim Waltz. Did it strike you that the moderators were biased one way or another or not? I think actually it may just be that Congressman Lawler was listening to it at that particular moment because I then started noticing that much more.
and it felt to me like it got more even, you know, as the debate went on. Okay, listen, you know, I don't want to
Here's what I would say. I don't know. I mean, listen, the media leans left in this country other than Fox News and the right-leaning media. And so CBS is a left-leaning place, but I thought it was fairly balanced. And I think if Vance is being honest, it was fairly balanced. And they did something that they allowed Vance to do something that I thought was very smart from a media perspective. He was eating into Governor Walz's time and
And they let the two of them engage each other. Okay. And so you can't say that that's not favoring Vance because it did favor Vance because he sounded like he was on his game when they allowed that. And it was eating into his time. And some producer rang Vance.
one of the women, I can't remember if it was Margaret or not, but I thought it was Margaret. They rang Margaret's ear and said, hey, he's taken up too much of Walt's time. Oh, yeah. And they muted the mics at one point, too. They did. Well, they were sparring. I think it was important to do that. It was a ridiculous thing. What do you think of this question coming from the Rational Party? The Rational Party, I like that handle. It's
Is Trump more likely to, yeah, we certainly do. Yeah, join us. Is Trump more likely to debate again to overshadow Vance? This is exactly the way Trump thinks. Whoever the rational party is, he's now stewing that the last presidential, vice presidential debate was,
could be his guy doing better than him. He's not going to like that. He's not going to like that. So he may accept that invitation on the 23rd. Also, you know, the polls are tight.
But they're not they don't they don't to me, if I'm Donald Trump, I'm not looking at these polls saying, oh, I've I've got this in the bag. I mean, both both campaigns are going to lie to the press and say, you know, we got it in the bag. We're fine. Polls are tight. He's got to get out and work. You're going to pass up the chance to speak to 71 plus million people on the 23rd of October. And and maybe maybe he's going to do that. Or maybe he knows that he's slowing down, Caddy, and maybe he knows he's not.
ready, he's not energized enough physically or mentally to go into that debate. And maybe he doesn't know how to handle Vice President Harris. So maybe he'll pass up on it. But if he is going to pass up on it, if there's anybody in the Harris team listening, call him a chicken every single day over the next 30 days. Hit him hard on this. I think they'll come out and they'll say, we won that one. And I think they'll have some... And they'll play the clips, particularly the first...
half of the debate where, and it was unfortunate for Waltz, foreign policy is clearly not Waltz's strong suit. Right. And his first answer was super shaky. And he confused Iran with Israel at one point and had to kind of backtrack on himself. And it is,
is an area where J.D. Vance, you know, sounded very confident and brought in his service abroad in Iraq. So that kind of, you know, burnished his credentials a little bit. He's a smart kid. I want to ask you this question. I would be surprised if they came away and said, listen, we won that debate. I don't need to do another one. That'll mean, because I know Trump, that'll mean he feels like he's off his game. You know, that'll mean that he knows he's going to get good air time at the, uh,
the Cardinal, the Al Smith dinner. I think it was a big mistake for the vice president not to take that invitation. 70 million Catholics, including myself, the chance to be funny and humorous and human at a place like that. And it's for a good cause. I think that was a mistake. So Trump knows he's got that ahead of him. So maybe he won't, but, but, you know, we hadn't asked me anything for our premium members. And someone asked who we each thought would be the rising stars for
I said Vance was in the poll position. After tonight, I think that strengthened him. Do you agree with that or do you disagree with that? I agree with that. And I think that was the strategy. I think I mean, I think J.D. Vance's risk tonight is that he has overshadowed Donald Trump by being a very good debater and.
But I think he came into this looking at those disapproval ratings, which are super low. And he came into this and said, I'm going to address that. And right from the beginning, when he thanked the moderators, he thanked Tim Walsh for being there. He several times said, you know, I agree with you. He said about the story about Tim Walsh's son. This was not the J.D. Vance that we have been hearing about who has,
talked in kind of derogatory ways about immigrants who has perpetuated this lie, this myth about immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, who's talked about women who don't have children as not somehow having a stake in the democracy in the way that other people do. I mean, none of that was there. This was a more kind of, yeah, he had that kind of smirk,
And one Democratic strategist texted me just now to say he was too smarmy. But he was trying to be nice. He was more personable and more reasonable. He was like, gigabot 71. It was almost like he had the artificial, he had the neural link in from Elon. Take the powder, add the water, shake and mix. So we just, you know, on the next debate, you know, J.D., take the neural link out. Calm yourself down a little.
But what question do you want to take?
I would say the one we've seen on the campaign trail is the Vance who has come out of this very aggressive form of attack politics that, and owning the libs that people on the right of the Republican Party and in this kind of new conservative movement really want to see. That's what they want. And I think that is the J.D. Vance. But what I don't know is, is J.D. Vance a shapeshifter?
J.D. Vance is capable of being many things. You know, one of the I think Megyn Kelly was on an interview with Megyn Kelly. And she said, you know, I read your book and the way you act in terms of like you're you're shooting around for different identities to be somebody. You're not exactly sure who you are. You haven't healed from your childhood trauma. And Vance looked at her and said, yeah, that's probably true. So to me, I think he's a phony. I just call it straight out. He's a very, very smart phony.
And I don't think the people like phonies. Now, Donald Trump is a liar, but they don't look at him as a phony. See the difference? He's not a phony. What you see is what you get with Trump. And I think that one of the things about Waltz was likable to him. If I was Waltz's friend, let's say the phone rang here in this hotel and it was Governor Waltz. He said, how did you do? And I was trying to be gentle on him. I said, you know, you didn't do your best. Just be honest.
You handled some of the questions really well. But you know what? You came across as a likable guy, somebody that would trust with the house and somebody that would know that if you were in the job, you're really going to try to do the best thing for all the people around. Vance comes across as a automaton and somebody running against him in 28 is going to bring him. Is this guy a slave and being puppeteered by a group of a billion gazillionaire oligarchs?
I think he's very vulnerable to that because he hasn't found an anchor in his personality. But let's go to another question. Okay. This is from Karen Grover. Why did J.D. Vance act to the center if it will annoy most of the MAGAs? Will this not negatively affect the party? I think he had to. I mean, it's interesting. Coming out and being the J.D. Vance of the last few weeks, I mean, now I'm kind of thinking about it.
What does that give him in terms of electoral turnout when he's already doing that? Now, I think he kind of wanted to do something about his negative approval ratings. And I'm sure this was a strategy. I imagine it was discussed with Trump, too, that he was going to come out and not be the kind of rottweiler that he has been.
But I think the question is, what does he do now? Is the J.D. Vance of the next five weeks between now and the election day? And the Vance who said, by the way, there's one point where he says, if Tim Walz is the next vice president, he'll have my prayers and my help. That was definitely not the only way that Kamala Harris can win this election is by cheating, which is kind of the message that Donald Trump has been saying at rallies over the last few days.
Trump didn't like any of those answers. What's J.D. Vance going to do for the next five weeks? Does he go back to what he's been on the trail recently? Yeah, he's got to go back in a hurry because he's in trouble right now. He's right now. There's going to be one day where you did a good job and then tomorrow Trump's going to be miserable because Vance outshined him and
Vance is going to be like, you know, his mind is going to be like exploding. He's going to be talking to his friends saying, what the hell do I got to do to please this guy? And the answer JD is get in the back seat, keep your mouth shut. And every time you're on TV, talk about the great leader and the great wonder he is. That's it. You know, but, but, but I don't think he hurt himself by not being full on MAGA in that debate. And I don't think he overly helped himself for 28, you know, because I, I think that, uh,
I just think that the people will be on to him by then. I mean, one debate doesn't. There's not a guy you want to have as president. There are other Republican leaves. He's going to be there, though. That was my opinion. He's going to be in the race, the Kentucky Derby of Presidencies. He's going to be an odds-on favorite. But I just think the American people don't want that. Anthony Scaramucci, you have a beach to get to.
Let's quit while we're ahead. We've already done 10 minutes more than we said, which we always do every single episode. We're sorry, guys. One day we will actually give you an episode that is meant to be to time. But Anthony has to go and work on his suntan. I have to go to bed in New York City. And we will be back on Friday with our regular episode of The Rest Is Calling. She's making me get up really early here in Hawaii to record this thing. I just want people to know that. Poor you. Poor Anthony. If you have violins in your houses, please play them for me.
on Thursday when I'm recording the Friday episode. Please play them. That's a wrap. Anthony, get to the beach. We'll see you on Friday. Thanks for listening, everybody.
