"He Thought He Had This Election in the Bag" Maddow on Trump's Pick of J.D. Vance
"He Thought He Had This Election in the Bag" Maddow on Trump's Pick of J.D. Vance
Transcript
00:00I do think you're right, Katie, that there's going to be an interesting fight about who
00:03ends up being her running mate.
00:05I don't really care.
00:06I mean, they'll pick somebody.
00:07I feel like the Democrats have a really good bench right now.
00:12And you know, maybe they'll pick Mark Kelly.
00:13Maybe they'll pick Pete Buttigieg.
00:15Maybe they'll pick Andy Beshear.
00:16Maybe they'll pick Gretchen Whitmer.
00:18Maybe they'll pick Raphael Warnock.
00:19I mean, Wes Moore, I don't know.
00:21Pick somebody.
00:22You know, maybe they'll pick John Tester.
00:23I don't know.
00:24I just feel like any of those would be great.
00:27Kamala Harris is going to be the next president.
00:29You don't think they need to focus on Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and pick somebody
00:33from one of those states to ensure winning that state?
00:38If picking somebody from one of those states ensured winning those states, then you would
00:42do it.
00:43Right.
00:44But I think what they need is they need to, obviously, has to be somebody who Kamala Harris
00:50believes is qualified to do the job of president.
00:53Right.
00:54That's the that's the most important qualification.
00:56Has to be somebody who's a really good campaigner.
00:58Has to be somebody who has personal chemistry with the nominee.
01:02And it has to be somebody who's got chops for both doing the job and winning the job.
01:07And I just feel like there's a lot of really good options.
01:10And the fact that this contest, however, you know, she's going to make this decision is
01:16going to be won from a position of strength.
01:18I mean, you can feel the Democratic Party consolidating right right now as we sit here.
01:23You can feel it coming together.
01:25And that momentum means she's going to be choosing from a position of strength.
01:28And the next three and a half months are just going to be lights out in terms of this campaign
01:31against Donald Trump.
01:32Donald Trump thought that he did not need to worry about winning this election because
01:36he thought that he was running against Joe Biden.
01:39And while Joe Biden has had a very good record as president, he was presenting himself as
01:43enfeebled in a way that was going to be very difficult for this campaign because he thought
01:47that he didn't really even have to compete very hard to win.
01:51He picked J.D. Vance.
01:52He picked somebody who isn't going to help him at all.
01:55The Republicans were going to win Ohio anyway.
01:57They did not need a thirty nine year old ultra conservative guy who idolizes Victor
02:02Orban to try to consolidate new votes for Donald Trump that he wasn't otherwise going
02:06to get.
02:07And somebody J.D. Vance because they wanted him to govern the way that he's they wanted
02:12him for governing, not for campaigning.
02:15And Kamala Harris, I think, gets to pick somebody for both.
02:19And that's a that's a better position to be in.
02:21They wanted him for governing because he is aligned with Donald Trump or the idea of Donald
02:25Trump that conservatives are pushing on policy.
02:28And one of those ideas is abortion.
02:30Donald Trump has said that he believes it should be left up to the states.
02:33But the apparatus behind him doesn't believe that.
02:37Project 2025 is saying that use the Comstack Act to ban the abortion pill from being shipped
02:43nationwide, ban the tools needed for the abortion procedures, ban them from being shipped nationwide
02:50across state lines.
02:52Use the FDA to make the abortion pill even harder to get.
02:55J.D. Vance is somebody who said in the past that he believes in a federal abortion ban.
03:00I thought it was so interesting, Rachel, being at the RNC last week.
03:04Abortion didn't come up.
03:05They didn't talk about abortion at the RNC, not once, not once.
03:09And that is exactly what Kamala Harris has been campaigning on day in and day out for
03:16about a year now.
03:17Yeah.
03:18I mean, J.D. Vance, I mean, Project 2025 is is really something on on on women's rights
03:25generally and women's role in the country and in society and in politics.
03:29It's really something.
03:30But, you know, just look at J.D. Vance.
03:31J.D. Vance signed on to a letter that says that prosecutors should be able to get women's
03:40medical records from out of state to pursue prosecutions for abortion.
03:45So if you live in a state where abortion is banned and you travel to California or
03:50New York or Illinois or someplace else to get an abortion in a state where it is legal,
03:55J.D. Vance wants prosecutors, law enforcement in your state to be able to get your medical
04:00records against your will from somewhere else.
04:03You went in the country to pursue you across state lines so they can use your medical records
04:08in prosecutions.
04:09I mean, J.D. Vance on abortion is the worst case scenario you would invent for a bar room
04:17argument, for an inarguendo discussion with your friends about how bad it could possibly
04:22be.
04:23They picked J.D. Vance because they thought they had this election in the bag.
04:26And then Joe Biden did this today.
04:28And now it is an absolutely different ballgame.
04:32And J.D. Vance and Donald Trump are going to lose in November.
04:36And Donald Trump is going to regret picking J.D. Vance as his running mate now that he's
04:39up against Kamala Harris.
04:40And J.D. Vance also at one point said he was against no-fault divorces, saying it's too
04:45easy to get divorced.
04:48And that's what has enabled women historically now to free themselves of some pretty violent
04:53marriages, or just bad marriages.
04:57The idea that you can go in and say it's not working for me any longer, I'd like out.
05:02He does not believe in that, or he said in the past.
05:04He's explicitly said a woman in a violent marriage shouldn't be allowed to get out of
05:08it.
05:09Specifically talking about violent abuse by a husband, he thinks a woman should be made
05:14to stay in that marriage.
05:15I mean, this is not what America is going to vote for.
05:16So if you're talking about this, don't you want to see a woman debating J.D. Vance in
05:20a vice presidential debate?
05:22Do you?
05:23I mean, you have Kamala Harris going after former President Trump now in a debate if
05:27it happens again in September.
05:29Let's see if the debates change.
05:31But wouldn't the positions that J.D. Vance has taken on abortion, on divorce, on violent
05:37marriages, wouldn't that be the red carpet being rolled out for a Gretchen Whitmer to
05:41stand there next to him and to say, here's what you believe?
05:45I mean, sure, but given what he believes, I mean, I'd be happy to watch a protein shake
05:51debating him.
05:52Like, I don't think it matters.
05:54I mean, any Democrat who can talk about the, I mean, those are issues, the kinds of issues
05:59where J.D. Vance has taken the kinds of stands that you and I have just described over these
06:03last few minutes.
06:04Those are not 50-50 issues in this country.
06:07They are not 60-40 issues, 70-30 issues.
06:10He's taken the kind of stances that single digits of Americans support.
06:14You do not need any type of Democrat in particular to prosecute a case against J.D. Vance.
06:20He is a real weirdo from a really, really, really narrow slice of the very far right
06:26side of the ideological spectrum.
06:29They picked him because they didn't think he'd have to be defending himself at all.