It's been a big week for US politics.
I feel like we could get a "We Didn't Start the Fire" adjacent musical recap- a song covering the biggest moments of an entire century- and easily fill all 4 minutes and 47 seconds with once-in-a-lifetime events from just the past 10 days. There was an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump just days before the start of the Republican National Convention. During the RNC, Trump announced Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his pick for Republican Vice Presidential nominee. Wastewater estimates project that 1 in 56 Americans are currently have COVID, including President Biden. Yesterday morning, President Biden announced he was withdrawing from the race for president and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. If you're having trouble parsing it all, Pete Buttigieg stopped by Real Time with Bill Maher to help make sense of one slice of the current political landscape.
During the interview on Friday, Maher asks Secretary of Transportation his thoughts on J.D. Vance, and Vance's largest backer, Peter Thiel. Maher mentions that part of the point of the national convention is to roll out your VP pick, and asks Buttigieg about Vance, "What do you think of him?" Buttigieg notes their apparent similarities, and notes that this archetype of man is not foreign to him. Buttigieg says, "Look, we're from the same generation. We're both from the Midwest — different parts of the Midwest. I know a lot of guys like J.D. Vance. I've run into a lot of guys like him." Like Buttigieg, I'm certain many of us in middle America and flyover states can name an easy half dozen J.D. Vance types off the tops of our heads.
Maher chimes in to say, "Peter Thiel- Peter Thiel is his big backer. And, if people don't know, he started PayPal." Buttigieg nods along and affirms all the tidbits Maher throws out. Maher continues, "He's gay. He's a billionaire. I mean, I've had a couple people who knew you were coming on this week says, 'Yeah, ask Pete what he thinks about Peter Thiel being so in love with J.D. Vance, who is flatly against gay marriage.'"
Buttigieg gives a great explanation of the ideology of the New Right, a sect of conservatism including the likes of J.D. Vance and Peter Thiel. He says, "So, I think it's a profound contradiction, but maybe it's not that complicated. I know there are a lot of folks who say, 'What's going on with some of these Silicon Valley folks veering into Trumpworld with J.D. Vance and backing Trump? What are they thinking?' Silicon Valley is supposed to be, you know, they're supposed to care about climate, they're supposed to be, you know, pro-science and rational, and libertarians. Normally, libertarians don't like authoritarians. 'What's up with that?' I think it's actually — we've made it way too complicated."
Buttigieg is right. We have made it way too complicated. His gives the breakdown, clever and succinct, "It's super simple. These are very rich men, who have decided to back the Republican Party, that tends to do good things for very rich men." That's it. That's the take.
Maher laughs as it is all laid out in front of him so plainly. "I couldn't agree more," he says.
Buttigieg takes it a step further, highlighting Vance's notoriously opportunistic nature. "I knew a lot of people like him when I got to Harvard," Buttigieg says. "I found a lot of people like him who would say whatever they needed to get ahead. And five years ago, that seemed like being the anti-Trump Republican, so that's what he was that." Buttigieg highlights more of Vance's former harsh criticism of Trump. "[Vance] Called him an opioid, which is kind of a weird thing to say about a person. But I mean, for someone whose identity is that they're connected to Appalachia, which has an opioid crisis, that really is the darkest thing you could possibly say about Donald Trump, at least in public. Behind the scenes, apparently he's actually calling him Hitler, right?"
The crowd laughs, but Buttigieg is sure to clarify he's not being hyperbolic, adding a "seriously" there at the end. He really isn't joking. In 2017, Vance privately referred to Trump as a "moral disaster," as well as questioning in a different private message whether Trump could prove himself to be "America's Hitler." His outspoken anti-Trump sentiment is extensive. In 2016, called him "reprehensible" in a since-deleted tweet.
Vance was not always as right leaning as he is today. A former classmate of Vance's from Yale even said that at one point the two were so close that Vance had brought them home-baked cookies while they recovered from top surgery. They're not the only one who came forward. Other professors, classmates, and even roommates from Yale spoke to the New York Times to attest that J.D. Vance's character, once "warm, personable, and even charismatic," has been long since abandoned in exchange for power and fame.
Buttigieg points out one of the reasons he's been able to notice and name this progression so easily: he's seen it all before when it happened with former Vice President Mike Pence. Before he was VP, Mike Pence was Governor of Buttigieg's home state of Indiana, and was someone Buttigieg says "I watched [Pence] start out as an evangelical Christian who cared about rectitude and family values, and then get on board with a guy who was mixed up with a porn star, make excuses for him, so that he could have power, and then he did."
Finally, Buttigieg makes clear that when you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. He wraps up Pence's time as Vice President, reading him for filth, and is kind enough to wish Vance at least slightly better.
"He got four glorious years, I guess, as Vice President of the United States. And it ended on the west front of the Capitol with Trump supporters proposing that he be hanged for using the one shred of integrity he still had to stand up to an attempt to overthrow the government. So, I guess maybe not as a politician, but as a human being, what I'll say is that I hope things work out a little better for J.D. Vance than they did for Mike Pence."
Watch the full segment and and giggle along below.