Nearly every time United States Vice-President J.D. Vance steps into an interview with the media, he knows he’s in hostile territory. As a conservative, he’s not unique in possessing that knowledge; he is, however, uniquely gifted at acting on it.
That’s because Vance pushes back — he doesn’t evade, for the most part, or cower; usually, he ends up ridiculing his interviewers with his superior grasp of the law, the facts and the morality of the general population. An excellent demonstration of this was provided on Sunday morning, in a 20-minute interview with CNN’s Margaret Brennan, host of “Face the Nation.”
Brennan, naturally, grilled the vice-president the best she could with pointed, close-ended questions, often cutting him off mid-answer to interject her incredulity at his answers.
“You campaigned on lowering prices for consumers. We’ve seen all of these executive orders. Which one lowers prices?” Vance began to reply that there were “a number of executive orders that have caused already jobs to start coming back,” which was part of a greater mission to lower prices and increase capital investment. He was cut off.
“So grocery prices aren’t going to come down?” she chuckled over him.
“No, Margaret, prices are going to come down, but it’s going to take a little bit of time,” he replied, explaining that lower food prices are a function of lower energy prices, which were somewhat hindered under Joe Biden — only to be cut off again.
“Well,” Brennan interjected, “there are a lot of things that contributed to higher energy prices, and there was record oil and gas production, but the price of eggs —”
“Yes, Joe Biden did many, many things to lead to an increase in prices, I agree, Margaret.”
Brennan prodded some more, but Vance stuck to his original thought: complex systems take time to pivot. She later moved on to immigration: does Vance support, as one new executive order allows, immigration enforcement at churches and schools?
“Of course, if you have a person who is convicted of a violent crime, whether they’re an illegal immigrant or a non-legal immigrant, you have to go and get that person to protect the public safety,” said Vance.
“So you personally support them going into schools and churches?” she cut in.
“I support us doing law enforcement against violent criminals whether they’re illegal immigrants or anybody else…. If you had a violent murderer in a school of course I want law enforcement to go and get that person out.”
“Of course, of course,” she seemed to agree.
“So what’s the point of the question?”
“You changed the regulation this week, that’s the point of the question,” she answered. “Giving the authority to go into churches and go into schools —”
“Exactly! We empowered law enforcement to enforce the law —”
“But that also has a knock-on effect, a chilling effect, to people to not send their kids to school.
“I desperately hope it has a chilling effect on illegal immigrants coming to our country,” he retorted.
And so the cross-examination proceeded, interviewer speaking frequently over interviewee, contempt on full display. Her efforts to rally the vice-president into a corner failed, however. Even on the topic of refugees, often used to twist conservatives into angry-sounding xenophobes, Vance leaned in without fear.
“I don’t want my children to share a neighbourhood with people who are not properly vetted, and because I don’t want it for my kids, I’m not going to force any other American citizens’ kids to do that either,” he said.
None of this would be worthy of bias accusations on the media’s part if this harsh treatment was equally thrust upon the left. But we all know that’s not the case. Brennan gave us a control variable last year by interviewing Kamala Harris, then the vice-president, in a very cordial 30-minute interview, filled with smiling, open-ended questions and understanding nods in response to imprecise answers. No cross-talk, no aggressive attempts to squeeze out a particular answer.
It’s reflective of the entire media landscape: just look at the little charity that was afforded to J.D. Vance. Clips from one now-notorious 2021 interview, in which he criticized the political beliefs of “childless cat ladies,” were re-circulated to paint him as a sexist character from the manosphere. Worse, a false rumour about a sexual encounter with a couch was reported with hilarity by NPR, the Associated Press, Newsweek and of course, late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and John Oliver. While the news was clear that the rumour wasn’t true, they often made humorous reports, and their attention to the issue fuelled snickers across the country.
Now compare that to the thesis that Harris’s political start came from her relationship with California politician Willie Brown, with the harshest critics saying she “slept her way” to the top. Not a classy way to go about scrutinizing her, sure, but the media was careful not to turn the accusation into a comedy show: a fewfact-checks were offered to set the matter straight, along with some analysis to show how these utterances were sexist.
Conservatives have long understood their reality, and long known it’s not fair. But too often, they’ve ducked and dodged. That’s the kind of conservative most millennials and gen-Zers grew up seeing on screens: the subtle kind, the kind that lives in constant dread of having a statement clipped and reconstrued into (false) evidence of racism, sexism and every other -ism.
Vance has broken ground for a new crop of young conservatives: no longer is it necessary to perpetually fear the thought of an unflattering soundbite. A new fashion is in, one of unflinching bull-by-the-horns confidence in one’s position.
National Post