Insights from JD Vance's interview with Joe Rogan

In an interview with popular podcaster Joe Rogan, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance suggested that he and Donald Trump could win the “normal gay vote” and that families with transgender children are seeking an advantage in Ivy League college admissions.

“I wouldn't be surprised if me and Trump won the normal gay election because they just wanted to be left alone,” Vance said in the conversation, which lasted more than three hours and was published Thursday. “Now there's all this crazy stuff where they say, 'No, no, we didn't want to give pharmaceutical products to 9-year-olds who are changing gender.'”

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The friendly and in-depth interview came less than a week after Trump's own three-hour interview with Rogan — whose podcast has more than 17 million YouTube subscribers — and less than a week before Election Day.

An early part of the interview focused heavily on transgender people and transition-related medical care, which Vance described as “pharmaceutical conversion therapy” for gay people.

“Every day my 4- or 2-year-old comes up to me and says something that’s crazy — crazy because they’re 4 and 2,” Vance said elsewhere. “Like my 4-year-old would come and say, 'Daddy, I'm a dinosaur,' right? Like, I’m going to take him to the dinosaur transition clinic and put scales on him?”

Vance also claimed that giving birth to transgender or non-binary children is a way for some wealthy parents to “reject white privilege.”

“If you're a middle-class or upper-middle-class white parent and all you care about is whether your child goes to Harvard or Yale, that path has obviously become much more difficult for many upper-middle class children,” said Vance, who has spoken about his family's economic struggles as a child and has a degree from Yale Law School. “But the only way for these people to participate in the DEI bureaucracy in this country is to be trans, and is there a dynamic that leads to when you become trans, you have to be that way Rejects white privilege?”

In an August survey of LGBTQ voters conducted by the Human Rights Campaign, 74% of respondents said they planned to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris and 7.5% said they planned to vote for Trump.

Some other takeaways from Vance's interview with Rogan:

Vance gave in to Rogan's concerns about Muslims

Rogan spoke specifically about Muslims, worrying about “religious influence” on the way people “are allowed to behave and how their state is governed.”

“The worst case scenario,” Rogan added, “is that a state applies Sharia law.”

Rogan also noted that the city of Minneapolis approved the broadcast of the Islamic call to prayer and argued that it was unfair to “cry against the concept of Islamophobia” when one has concerns about such issues.

“I mean, that’s what’s so crazy to me about some of the hyper-left reactions,” Vance replied. “The idea that I would somehow force every man, woman and child to attend my church is ridiculous. I just don't want to do that. I never had any interest in doing that.”

“But real religious tyranny is increasingly seen in Western societies where there is a large influx of immigrants who are not necessarily conforming to Western values ​​but are, in my opinion, trying to create religious tyranny on a local level,” Vance added . “And if you think that’s not going to happen on a national level, you’re crazy.”

Rogan also claimed that there were “activists” in Toronto who “said our goal is to outdo everyone who is not Muslim.” Vance said such a scenario “scares the hell out of me.”

Vance railed against the Covid vaccine even though he had received one

“I wasn't vaccinated or anything, but the moment I got really irritated about the whole vaccine thing was when I got the vaccine, by far the sickest I've experienced in the last 15 years. said Vance, describing how his attitude toward the vaccine has changed.

“I’ve had Covid five times at this point,” Vance added. “I lay in bed for two days. My heart was racing. …No, something like a serious injury. But even the fact that we're not even allowed to talk about the fact that I was the sickest I've ever been for two days and the worst Covid experience I've had was like a sinus infection, I'm not really willing to swap that out .”

Trump invited Vance to the rally in Butler, where he survived an assassination attempt

Vance, who met with Trump hours before his July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, about the possibility of becoming his vice president, revealed that the former president originally wanted to bring Vance along and announce him as his nominee.

“Well, I think I'll probably pick you, but I don't know and I'm not ready to make a decision,” Vance recalled Trump saying.

“And then he looks at one of the employees in the room and asks himself, 'Wouldn't it really upset the world if we made that decision today?' So why don’t you meet with me and we’ll just make the announcement in Butler, Pennsylvania?”

Vance liked the sound of it – “Absolutely, let's get this over with because I'm tired of not knowing,” he recalled – but Trump ultimately decided to wait for an announcement and “better prepare for it.” without giving any guarantees that Vance would be the choice.

After learning of the assassination attempt that evening, Vance said he went into “fight or flight mode” with my children.

“We were at a miniature golf course in Cincinnati, Ohio,” Vance said, adding that he had to collect his kids, “throw them in the car, go home and load all my guns and basically stand in the front or back like a sentry. “Door.”

Vance enjoys a good Netflix binge

As Vance shared some stories about how his life has changed since his nomination for vice president, he reflected on a quiet weekend at home with his family in Cincinnati shortly after the Republican National Convention.

“We're sitting there watching some stupid show, 'Emily in Paris' on Netflix or something,” Vance said, before catching himself.

“I'm sorry, I don't want to call this a stupid show. “I actually think “Emily in Paris” is a masterpiece,” he clarified. “But put that aside, bracket it for the moment… We're watching a show on Netflix and you see a man walk past your window, and you see another man walk past your window, and it's just a Secret Service agent patrolling. You realize that your privacy is very tight, and that takes some adjustment and getting used to.”