Breaking News from Pod Save America - JD Vance Embarrasses Himself In Tech Bro Interview

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

JD Vance just had a painfully awkward interview with tech bros. Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor break down the latest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Stop. Or maybe build, you know, if the cat is out of the bag, then build the defensive mechanism against Frankenstein. First of all, Frankenstein is the scientists. Yeah, you're not building Frankenstein. You're building the monster. He builds the monster that everyone was thinking maybe could kill us. So just, you know, take that home, J.D., maybe adjust. Second, I guess the policy is just to hope that big corporations put our interests ahead of profits. That's what we're doing here. Just stop. Cut it out. That's also Mark Zuckerberg. He hadn't.

weighed in on this whole thing. And yesterday he basically said the same thing. He's like, look, all the companies, we have, we have an incentive not to roll out models and chatbots that are dangerous because that wouldn't be good for business. That's, I mean, I guess years of leadership that met on Instagram would suggest otherwise, since there's like internal data that's like, hey, Instagram is bad for young girls. And they're like, meh. Yeah, we're actually just throwing away any semblance of what government has been for since the beginning of the Republic, laws, regulations, and it's all just like, hey, hey, company, if you're doing something bad, maybe don't do that bad thing.

And what's frustrating is that Mark Zuckerberg, aside, these companies pretend that they want regulations. Some of them really do. I think Anthropics probably really does. Open AI pays lip service to regulation. And then behind the scenes has its people funnel money to organizations that try to undercut it. But also the polling overwhelmingly shows that Americans want AI regulated. It's not like it's not a top concern for most voters like there's a New York Times pull out today that shows

that AI is like a it's a thing, a small group of people are really passionate about. But the numbers are moving fast because we're all talking about this a lot more these days. Also, again, the concern, the catastrophic existential concern is that these companies are all building something. and they're racing ahead so fast that they suddenly build something that they lose control of. And if they're going to lose control of it, then like, that's not, they can't stop. They can't stop. That's the whole fucking thing. And the other thing is that they even would admit that they don't really understand how the technology works in the first place. So this whole thing is just so frustrating.

By the way, that clip of J.D. Vance is from his interview with the All In podcast, which is a good time to say that if you want to support a show that isn't just maga propaganda from insufferable. tech billionaires. Please subscribe to Pod Save America here in YouTube. We're trying to build a progressive counterweight to that crap that we just watched there. And when you subscribe and like and share the episodes, it really helps us out a lot. Vance was also asked about the war in Iran and inflation. Let's watch that response. You promised us you wouldn't start a foreign war. You promised us you wouldn't start a foreign war in the Middle East specifically. And then you promised you would get inflation under control. You haven't been able to get inflation under control. still three or four percent this year.

It's not looking good. And Americans, specifically the people who voted for you, Mr. Vice President, are very upset about starting this war. What is your message to them? How do these two issues get resolved? Because people are very unhappy about it. Yeah, so, Jason, I understand that, and I certainly hear from people. And what I would say, first of all, is we invite people into the coalition who disagree with us.

You don't have to agree with us on every single issue. But on the war specifically, what I would say is, look, The president came in and, yes, he wanted to keep the United States out of foreign entanglements. He also said that he was committed to Iran not having a nuclear weapon. And I think that wanting to keep the United States out of foreign entanglements does not mean that you can never use the military in order to accomplish the American people's objectives. Give us another chance or give us another couple of years to continue to work on the amazing things that we've been doing for the past two years. Tucker Carlson, take me back. Please.

I still love you. Please give us another chance. Besides the pathetic pleading at the end, do you think that response is going to convince voters? What objectives are you talking about? What objectives have you achieved, J.D. Vance? Yeah, what have we gotten done here? Since February, when they started attacking Iran and started this war, literally, what objectives have you achieved? The Strait of Hormuz is now closed.

The Babel-Mandep's Strait is closed, so the Red Sea is now closed. Give us a couple more years for all the amazing things we're doing. What amazing things are you doing? Yeah, it's like, they're argument. now is basically like continuing to keep the border closed. I don't know, more tariffs or something. I mean, as for the war, I mean, Ben and I talked about some polling on Potsave the World this week, my foreign policy show. Please like and subscribe. It's great show. Great show.

We, this was polling from the Eurasia group. Approval for the Iran war is 34%. Is that good? 23% of voters said the war has made the United States safer. The rest said it made no difference or made us less safe. Eighty-one percent of Americans think the war has raised the cost of living. least some, only 37% of Americans trust the administration to provide accurate information about the war. And then, you know, I think you and I have seen like a bunch of additional polling and message testing that looks at arguments like JD's there, that like we had to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

And a lot of those arguments are underwater, even with like MAGA voters, especially when countered with the message about gas prices and the cost of living. If you say, why do we always have money for bombs? and not money for health care or schools or whatever, that polls in like the 99th percentile. In 2010, when we got absolutely creamed in the midterms, Barack Obama's message was inherited a disaster, financial crisis, and yes, we're not out of the woods yet, but we're going in the right direction. That failed as a message. It did have the virtue at least of being true that things were slowly improving. These guys have the opposite problem, which they have done things that are making life

worse for people, both on the war front, which is spiking fuel prices all over the world now, and on the tariff front, starting a trade war with Canada. So like, to the extent that they're like, give us a couple more years, give us a chance, a chance to continue slapping tariffs on things and continue spiking fuel prices because you can't get out of a war. Or invade Cuba? Or invade Cuba? What's up? What's on the? What's on? the horizon that we should look forward to. You remember that incredibly condescending answer from J.D. Vance like six months ago when he was asked about his opposition to the war and how that like, you make sense given

what they're doing. And he said, all the other wars were fought by dumb presidents. That's the difference. Like, how's that one going? Yeah, this one's a genius right there. Yeah, we're almost out of it. We should talk about the New York Times poll that was out this week. So the gist is Trump's approval rating is at 38% with likely voters.

Democrats have an eight point advantage in the generic ballot. at Dems are at 51%. The Republicans are at Republican candidates at 43%. Democrats are winning on every issue in the poll except artificial intelligence. Do you notice that? That was sort of surprising. Yeah, well, it was also the issue where the largest percentage of voters said they weren't sure. Yeah, because I think, I don't know. Could you name the what the Democrats, could you describe the Democrat position on artificial intelligence? Not even a little bit. And I couldn't really describe the, I guess I could describe the Republicans position, which is don't do anything.

Lazy fare, nothing. Just, yeah, so. But like, immigration they're underwater on now? They're underwater on everything. Natural Security, immigration, the economy. It's good. It's really hopeful. I mean, look, gerrymandering is going to still make it quite tough to win a big majority.

Democrats need a net gain of four Senate seats, assuming John Fetterman doesn't switch parties and fuck us. There's nine competitive seats. Republicans are defending six of nine. So, you know, fingers crossed there. Yeah, they asked a question about the Senate specifically that they kind of slipped in at the end. And Democrats were leaning by even more, if you asked voters, who do you want for the Senate seat, a Republican or Democrat, which is good news. I mean, look, the New York Times poll is famously the most accurate poll, the gold standard poll. And here we are, what, 45-something days left to the election?

Not a ton of time for Republicans to turn things around at this point. If you want to go deeper on this, Dan Fiver had a great conversation with the Nate. Silver about the New York Times poll and all the data that's out there that's on the POTSafe America feed. You know what it made me think? What? That we got the national poll. And now for the next week or so, I'm going to be waking up.

My body's going to wake me up at 3.34 in the morning and be like, are the Senate polls dropping? John's going to be like, Texas. That's what I'm thinking. Pod Save America Breaking News is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. With everyday interactions becoming increasingly impersonal, someone going just one extra step can be huge. Like when my doctor takes the time to call me with test results instead of sending them electronically. They came back positive for gay. It makes me feel like a human being again. If you're hiring, great candidates can also go the extra step and tell you why they're interested

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com slash crooked. ZipRecruiter, meet your match on ZipRecruiter. I wanted to play one more question for you that went to J.D. Vance from the Allend dudes. This is from a guy named Brad Gersner. I guess is a regular guest host on the show. I was wondering who this guy was. Let's watch. Great to see you. You know, the president called in yesterday. He's on top of the AI issue.

You're working for somebody who's the most incredibly entrepreneurial and risk-taking president, perhaps, in the last 50 years. I just had a, at a, you know, personal level, how is it working with somebody who is willing to take the risk that, you know, some people, you know, Jason criticized some of the things that haven't happened in the first 20 months. but the fact of the matter is, unlike a lot of people who occupy that office who are just looking to stay the course and take the safe path, he's taking a lot of risks. And then you have to help explain some of those. I would put Trump accounts in that category, the Main Street agenda. But, you know, just talk to us a little bit at a personal level, how working with him, how hard it is to keep up with his energy, his enthusiasm, is entrepreneurialism. it's weird that you could hear that question so clearly while he had jd vance's ball gargling in his mouth i it's so embarrassing i was listening to that episode because i'm a big all-land listener yesterday and i was by myself in the office walking around with my AirPods in and i heard

that question and i literally just yelled out loud to no one fuck you are you fucking kidding me like if someone had been walking by the opposite of me like is he okay it's like look it's a very like conservative show David Sacks, one of the hosts, worked for the Trump administration. Jason Calcanus is kind of like the token centrist who asked the good question that we heard about the war and inflation.

And he got shit for that. They were all like, oh, we got the journalist on the panel asking the real questions. He did another one like that to the Microsoft guy, Satya. Yeah. And they were like, oh, sorry. Because it's like, sorry, we're supposed to be fluffing everyone.

And Jason tried to ask a real question. Well, like the thing about that question It's just like, I don't know, man, did you put like five seconds of thought into it? You could ask something that's interesting that's not like abrasive or hard. It's just like what's it like to work for someone who's so awesome? Like, what do you think you're going to get from that? You're going to get talking about it. And of course, J.D. Vance was like, well, you know, he calls.

Sometimes he says to Marco and me at 2.30 in the morning, are you guys up? And then we're like, now we are, sir, let's talk. And I'm like, okay, how many times does that fucking happen? And we know that the guy is up watching TV or tweeting or like, fixating on the ballroom, right? It's not like serious. You think he calls them a 2.30 in the morning he's like, what are we going to do about recursive self-improvement on the models?

JD. We're short on SM3 interceptor munitions. What should we do about it? Not every part of the All-In podcast event was terrible. The guys invited a looks-maxing influencer named clavicular to join them. And then he was asked to rate one of the hosts'

appearance, this goober named Chimoth. Here's how it went. Can I believe I miss this? So I would say that one of the things that you could benefit from most would be an enhanced total facial width height ratio. So adding a little bit more height to your skull, basically, what's my score? So that we look like a little more one with the downground. So it's at a 2.4 millimeters of height. And we're balanced out facial thirds.

And what's my score? I would say He's 4.6. He's got to keep me. I would say maybe like a 2. I don't know. Had you seen that before? No.

So mad I missed that. How great is that he does it like. He gives him a two. What's fun? Like so much of that is funny. First of all, why is clavicular dressed like Michael Jackson? I don't know.

I don't know. I've never, like, I don't think I've ever seen him in a setting like that. Like outside. of the club or somewhere like that. He's like to sit in. Yeah, very weird.

I like that Chimoth was not amused whatsoever. No. She was talking about like it would help fix your face and make you look more masculine. How do you add height to your skull? Yeah, I don't know. What surgery does that? I mean, I got a five head so like you can borrow some of mine.

Are you like putting more hair on the top so it's like an illusion? Oh, like Trey Gowdy? You just do like the weird like you just scream. Yeah, maybe there's some, like, some clay you can put on there? I don't know. But like, you know, it's actually a funny exchange. Like the audience is laughing, obviously, but clavicular is like dead serious. He's like not doing a bit. No, that guy is committed to the bit if he is doing a bit. And in like, Chamath is, he's some like VC guy. He's a billionaire. He's the most sensitive little baby. And the way you know that is in the past, he has tweeted the exact length of his

penis to someone who criticized him in a joke. I forgot about that. Okay, so remember, some guy tweeted a book titled, Sex Lives of Animals Without Backbones, and he said, holy cow, they made the all-in pod into a book. I don't think he tagged any of them in it. So they were like name searching. Chimoth finds this and he says, Hope that book is 7.25

inches, otherwise fake news. Someone responded criticizing him being like, I bet it's smaller. Then he said, I'll bet your entire net worth X10. The Anaconda is the worst kept secret of Silicon Valley. An adult male tweeted that. So, you know, you can make fun

of him for measuring his penis and then sharing it with everyone, certainly. Measuring his penis to the 0.25. What are you trying to do there, buddy? I mean, I guess he wants to really... You're not rounded down in that situation. Come on. You know what he's doing there. Very, well, very believable, too, that he's thinking, he's like, okay, well, if I put

the 0.25 in there, they'll know that it's an actual measurement. Imagine going home to Emily. And she's like, honey, what did you do at work today? and you show her bad tweet. Like I had this weird tweet. And it went like super viral. Like people were like, what is this D-Bag doing? And she'd be like, are you rounding down?

She's like, you're rounded up, pal. That's, yeah, it's great inflation. Final thing, John, it's been a scary week of news about artificial intelligence and, you know, our doom. So we deserve to laugh about it too. This clip comes to us from one of our favorite Instagram accounts, husk.irals. Let's watch. Hey, what AI model am I talking to right now? G-P-T-6.

And that's like the smartest one ever? Yeah, pretty much as smart as it gets right now. Okay, so you would know how to spell 17? Oh, it's something. S-E-E-N-T-E-E-N. How many E's is that? Three. No, it's four.

I said three ease, and it's three. No, it's four. It's still three S. E. That's one. V. E. That's two. N. T. E. That's three. E. That's still three. That's three E's.

You can't just count the fourth E and say that's still three E. The 30. There were three. No, there's four. There's four E's. Why can't it count letter? Like, why? Do you understand this? I have no idea. Just a couple observations. One, it would be very fitting for that dumbass robot to cause human extinction, right?

Couldn't count the ease, but could destroy the world. Also, I liked that the voice got a little bit snippy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it got pissy at the end there. Yeah, if there are killer. I don't know it could do that. I didn't know it could get pissy at you either. I mean, I guess maybe because we're clod users, and it's always, like, so solicitous, but I'm really anywhere.

I don't know if there are killer robots. I don't understand the technology. No one really does. But if there are killer robots, that kid is going to die early. He's going down. Because I got Huss got IRL, hilarious Instagram account that just has video after video of him fucking with, usually chat GPT in just the funniest way as possible. And I wonder if the other chat voices, because chat gives you, like, 10 different voices to choose from. And there's supposed to be like a sunny one.

It's supposed to be like a lady's voice that's all like happy. I wonder if she would get pissed too. I do need to figure out a way for Claude to not be so positive all the time. Because like sometimes I ask it for things and it tells me it's a great idea. And I'm like, it's not a good idea actually. It's a bad idea. I was totally wrong about it. You're like, I'm going to walk out into traffic.

What do you think about that? Absolutely. Would love that. It's a great way to get around. What if we do in here? There's only one F in traffic. I just, you know, I hope we could get a little handle on this. It'd be nice.

It'd be nice. Well, I think the all in, I think the besties have it figured out. Yeah. It's just a, it's a big op. It's all regulatory capture. Hey, just stop. Stop. And if the cat's out of the bag, then invent something else that puts the cat back in the bag.

J.D. Vance later in that episode, if you saw this, was like, got asked about AI data centers. And you just tried to blame it all on Democrats for not. not building enough power generation earlier on. The grid in blue states. You tried to do the abundance argument. I don't know, people don't really like these data centers in like Texas either, so.

Yeah, that's not the, it's not really a blue state. Nice try. Once again, it's JD Vance, it's like too cute by half. Flailing, flailing asshole. All right, that's it for us today. Thank you for watching this episode of Pod Save America here on YouTube. Please subscribe and we'll talk to you soon.