#521 | “A Heartbeat Away” | The Role Of The US Vice President
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Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English, the show where you can listen to fascinating stories and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English. I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about American politics.

On November 5th, as anyone who has not recently emerged from a self-imposed period of isolation in a cave will know, the United States voted to re-elect Donald Trump as president. But we aren't going to be talking about that. Or at least, the US election isn't going to be the focus of this episode. Instead, we are going to talk about the role of the Vice President of the United States.

We'll look at what the Vice President actually does, how the role has evolved over time, and why this Vice President might just be one of the most influential ones in American history. But before we get right into all of that good stuff, I want to remind you that you can become a member of Leonardo English and follow along with the interactive transcript and subtitles over on the website, which is leonardoenglish.com.

Membership of Leonardo English gives you access to more than double the number of episodes, plus all of our learning materials, including instant translations in 12 languages, study packs, and much, much more. So if you are ready to take the next step on your English learning journey, the place to go is LeonardoEnglish.com. Okay then, let's get right into it and talk about vice presidents.

In the hit political drama House of Cards, the Machiavellian protagonist, Frank Underwood, hatches a plot to become president. Through a mixture of political manipulation, blackmail and deal-making, he manages to become vice president. He uses this as a position to weaken the sitting president, his boss, and then claim the top job for himself.

He seems to be on top of the world, but makes a fatal miscalculation by choosing as his vice president his equally ruthless wife. I won't ruin any more of the story for those of you who've never watched it, but all I will say is that while the vice presidency seems to Frank to be a supporting, semi-powerless role, it proves to be anything but.

If you haven't ever watched House of Cards, I would highly recommend it. Of course, it is fictional, so dramatic it seems hard to believe at times. But it is not unrealistic in its depiction of the route from Vice President to President of the United States.

To be precise, out of the 46 individuals who have held the role of President of the United States, 15 of them, one in three, were previously Vice Presidents or VPs as they are more commonly known. And now is a particularly interesting time to talk about the Vice Presidents.

Last month, the sitting Vice President Kamala Harris lost her bid to succeed Joe Biden and become the 16th person to transition from Vice President to the Oval Office. Even the fact that she ran for President was a matter of contest. Her President, Joe Biden, himself a former Vice President, had pulled out of the race over questions about his age and mental agility.

And there were commentators who complained that she had become the Democratic presidential nominee almost by default, that there hadn't been a proper leadership contest.

And on the Republican side, it is an interesting time to talk about the role of the Vice Presidents. Because when Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20th, 2025, he will be 78 years and 220 days old. Half a year older than Joe Biden was at his inauguration. Assuming that he finishes his four-year term, he will be almost 83 years old.

No matter your opinion about Donald Trump, his politics and his character, there is no denying that this makes him an old man and makes the choice of who would replace him were he unable to complete his term all the more important. As you will know, there have been several presidents who have died in office, eight to be precise.

Of these eight presidents who died in office, all of them were at least 10 years younger than Donald Trump. And yes, you might point out that of those eight who died in office, half were assassinated, so it has nothing to do with age. But the counterpoint to this is that there have been at least two assassination attempts on Donald Trump in the past year alone.

So, there are a few factors meaning that there is an even greater reason to pay attention to the person who is a heartbeat away from the presidency. This is, of course, the main role of the vice president. In the event of the president's death, the vice president automatically becomes president. No debate, no election, the vice president becomes president for the remainder of the president's term in office.

But let's assume that Donald Trump does serve out his term in office. He cannot run for president again. The 22nd Amendment, which states that a president can serve a maximum of two terms, prevents this from happening. And before there are murmurs about how this amendment could be overturned and Donald Trump's throwaway comments about running for a third term, it would be immensely difficult for this to happen.

And, to my knowledge, no serious commentator has ever entertained this as a possibility. Donald Trump will not be able to run for president in 2028, and this will be his last term. And the betting markets already have a clear favourite for who will be the next president: J.D. Vance, Trump's VP, his pick for vice president.

As of last week, so months before he will assume the vice presidency, betting sites are suggesting that J.D. Vance has a 40% chance of being elected president in 2028. He is young, charismatic, the natural successor to Donald Trump, and he has the next four years to appeal to the American public and demonstrate his abilities in a way that Kamala Harris did not.

That's the reason to talk about the vice presidency today. It is potentially more important than ever before. So what does the vice president actually do, other than assume the duties of the president if they die or are incapacitated? Well, it's a bit of a cop-out answer, but it really depends. The vice presidency is a strange sort of role.

one that can be incredibly powerful or practically irrelevant depending on the president and the political landscape at the time. In theory, it's an essential part of American democracy, a safeguard to ensure continuity of government. In practice, though, it's a position that's evolved in fascinating and sometimes contradictory ways. When the role of vice president was first created, it was almost an afterthought.

Originally, the vice president wasn't chosen by the presidents or running as part of a team, as they are today. Instead, the candidate who came second in the presidential election automatically became vice president. This often meant that the president and vice president could be political opponents with very different ideas.

Imagine, for example, Donald Trump having Kamala Harris as his vice president, or vice versa. Not surprisingly, the founding fathers didn't envision the vice presidents as a powerful figure. Since the role went to the runner-up, it wasn't intended to hold much influence.

to reduce the chances of two rivals ending up in office together. The process was changed 25 years later, with the 12th Amendment in 1804. This amendment established that people would vote for the President and Vice President as a pair, much like they do today.

Since then, the presidential candidate has chosen a running mate who might appeal to a particular segment of the population. Maybe younger voters, women, people from specific backgrounds, or voters in key electoral states. But what does the vice president actually do? Constitutionally, what is their role?

Well, partly as a hangover from when the role was created, there are only two mandated functions. If there was a job description, it would only have two 'must do' items on it. The first is, as we've said, to act as a backup for the president, to step up if the president is incapacitated or dies.

And the second is to preside over the Senate and cast a tie-breaking vote when needed. As a quick recap of how the American government works, there are three branches: the Executive, which is the President, the House, and the Senate. The Vice President has particular responsibility over the Senate, in that they have the deciding vote in the event of a tie.

The US has 50 states, each with 2 senators, so there are 100 seats in total. If there is a vote on an issue and it is a tie, it is 50 votes for and 50 votes against, the VP casts their vote to decide the outcome. Perhaps it sounds unlikely, but it happens a lot.

To date, there have been 301 times that a VP has been required to do this. And because the Senate was divided 50-50 after the 2020 Senate elections, Kamala Harris's vote became incredibly important.

As of the time of writing this, she has cast 33 tie-breaking votes, making her the most influential VP in American history, from a Senate legislation point of view at least. So, the VP is important when it comes to tie-breaking votes, but what else do they spend their days doing when they don't have to cast votes and the President's heart is beating normally?

Well, especially in the early days of the vice-presidency, there was very little else, and certainly very little in the way of the day-to-day running of the country. This was famously summed up by the first vice-president, John Adams, who is reported to have said that the vice-presidency was "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived". And, for quite a while, he was right.

Vice-presidents, including Adams himself, were often kept at arm's length by presidents and largely excluded from major decision-making. It was seen as a job for those who'd either failed to win the presidency outright or who needed to satisfy a particular political faction within the government. Fast forward a century or two and things started to change.

Throughout the 20th century, the vice presidency gradually morphed into a position with real influence. Under Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example, Vice President Harry S. Truman became deeply involved in wartime decision-making, a relationship that would prove crucial when Roosevelt's sudden death thrust Truman into the role of Commander-in-Chief in 1945.

Then, in 1967, the 25th Amendment was ratified, clarifying what should happen if a president died or became incapacitated, and formally establishing the line of succession. This amendment also allowed presidents to fill the vice-presidency if it became vacant, which added further importance to the role, and established it as a clear second-in-command rather than just an afterthought.

By the time we reach the late 20th century, we see vice presidents taking on even more responsibility. The first VP to be given real responsibility was a man named Walter Mondale, who was Jimmy Carter's VP. He was given an office in the West Wing of the White House, and was the first VP to really adopt the trusted advisor role rather than honorary backup.

It seemed, for once, that the President had understood that a powerful VP could be a great asset, not just to get elected, but in the business of running the country. And moving into the early 21st century, Dick Cheney, who served as VP under George W. Bush, took things up a notch.

When he became VP, he was a seasoned and influential politician, much more so than his running mate and boss, President George W. Bush. He became involved in everything from foreign policy to energy strategy, and is often referred to as the most powerful vice president in history.

For better or for worse, he reshaped the expectations of what a vice president could do and laid the groundwork for future VPs to wield substantial power. Most recently, as you will know, Kamala Harris was Joe Biden's VP.

And one of the criticisms levelled at her by her Republican opponents was that she was not a good VP. There were no major achievements that she could point at during her almost four years as Joe Biden's number two.

Now, her supporters would argue that this is not a fair assessment at all, and that she did a lot of important and necessary behind-the-scenes work, especially around things like women's reproductive rights, healthcare and small business investment, and that she didn't use her role as Vice President to promote herself, but rather to carry out her duties.

After all, she was not expecting to be the presidential nominee until very late in the day. Joe Biden only dropped out in late July. So she had not much more than three months to convince the American public that she was up to the task of the top job. As you know, it did not work.

Donald Trump was re-elected, and with him, J.D. Vance, a man who will be the third youngest vice president in US history, and the youngest since 1953, when a 40-year-old senator called Richard Nixon became Dwight Eisenhower's VP. Richard Nixon went from vice president to president.

His vice president, Gerald Ford, became president after Nixon was forced to resign. And since then, George Bush Senior and Joe Biden have gone from the vice presidency to the presidency. And this is not an anomaly. Out of the 46 individuals who have held the role of president, 15 of them were previously vice presidents.

Some, like Theodore Roosevelt, ascended to the presidency after a tragic assassination, while others, like George H. W. Bush, George Bush Senior, were elected directly following their term as vice presidents. This pathway is one of the most unique aspects of the vice presidency.

While, of course, it's not guaranteed, it provides a direct, often seamless, route to the most powerful office in the land. And there is reason to believe that in the case of this President and this Vice President, the route is already being laid.

Donald Trump became a household name with the Apprentice TV series, where various young people compete to win a one-year contract working for Donald Trump. The idea was they would learn from a master dealmaker and then be able to strike out on their own, if they so chose.

Trump cannot run for another term in office. So, in the public's eye, it is his VP, J.D. Vance, who is his apprentice and natural successor. Just as candidates on The Apprentice competed to learn from Trump and follow in his footsteps, J.D. Vance is seen as the political apprentice set to continue the movement that Trump started.

Young, ambitious and with a loyal base, he has the opportunity to use this role to cement his position as the natural and appointed successor. Politically, well, you might believe he represents the dangerous and acceptable face of populism. You might believe he is a voice of common sense. But this isn't a place to discuss his politics.

He is undeniably ambitious, charismatic, well-connected, a confident public speaker, and with his own powerful story of overcoming poverty and abuse to achieve the American dream. And with a president who isn't getting any younger, one who cannot run for president another time, and one who is keen to continue his political legacy.

At least the betting markets are suggesting that Donald Trump might just have found his next apprentice. Okay then, that is it for today's episode on American Vice Presidents. I hope it's been an interesting one and that you've learned something new. As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode. Had you heard of J.D. Vance before Donald Trump was elected?

What do you think about him? And what do you think about his chances of becoming president in 2028? I would love to know, so let's get this discussion started. For the members among you, you can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com, and get chatting away to other curious minds.

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but they are super helpful and each one brings a smile to my face. You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English. I'm Alistair Budge. You stay safe and I'll catch you in the next episode.