Breaking News from Pod Save America - JD Vance Embarrasses Self In Hard to Watch Interview

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett react to JD Vance’s painfully awkward appearance on Katie Miller’s new podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a Bose moment. Your 10 boring blocks from home until the beat drops in Bose clarity. And the baseline transforms boring into maybe the best part of your day. Your life deserves music. Your music deserves Bose. Find your perfect product at Bose.com. All right, love it. A new competitor has entered the podcast arena.

And after watching the first episode, I think we should be extremely worried. All right. Hi, I'm Katie Miller. Welcome to my podcast and welcome to my living room. You may be wondering what I'm doing here hosting a podcast. It seems these days just about everyone has a podcast. For years, I've watched from the sidelines as people I know, people I respect, have hosted TV shows, radio shows, podcasts, you name it. And I thought, hey, I could do that too. And why? Because for years I've seen that there isn't a place for conservative women to gather online. There isn't a place for a mom like me, mom of three young kids, four, three, and almost two, and a wife, and trying to do a career, eat healthy, work out, there isn't a place for a mom like me. And so I wanted to create that space where we have real, honest conversations with people across the political spectrum and across the world to get lifestyle information, news, laugh with our friends, gossip about what's going on in the world from our perspective.

From that of a mom with three kids who's trying to make every day be the best to count. from bedtime to bath time to breakfast in the morning to getting out the door for work and everything in between okay so a mom of three kids thank god there's finally a place for conservative women to gather online i know so Candace owens Megan Kelly what what's going on before we get to that I'm stuck on the decor and finding out that this is her living room uh because it looks like somebody just like went to a Kempton and was like, I would like a dog shit version of this. It's also like, boy, boy, is she loose already, you know? She's just a mom like her.

She sounds like a Hillary Clinton announcement video. I know. I like feel like I just sort of, you know, it must be tough. I'm going to be empathetic for a moment. It must be tough to have to launch this, right? Because she has some notoriety already. She doesn't get time to put this thing on its feet, try some stuff out. We're just out of the gate getting a lot of attention.

And for people don't know, that that's Katie Miller. She was in the White House press office during Trump's first term. Then she became Mike Pence's communications director. Awkward. Then Elon Musk's advisor and spokesperson for Doge. Then she left Doge to work for Elon in the private sector. And now she's doing what all washed up has been former White House staffers end up doing, which is start a podcast. And you know what?

It's well-trod territory. And of course, she is married to. our favorite Santa Monica fascist, Stephen Miller. Yeah, the, like, the idea that there's this, like, whatever, it's like, you know, I guess like you go like soft, like soft filter conservatism, I guess. Like the softer side of fascism. Yeah, like a kind, yeah, like the lifestyle fascism. Yeah, that's what does that.

But like also the whole thing, like there's an empty space here. It's like, Candace Owens does this better. We don't have to agree with Candidotones. Megan Kelly, we all know how I feel about Megan Kelly. She does it better. There's not a dearth of right-wing women having successful podcasts and being in online spaces. And there's tons of right-wing content about like home life and traditional life. I mean, maybe is the argument that there's not something that's about home life from the perspective of somebody who's working?

I don't, it seems covered ground. She's trying to get out the door. She has three kids. All right. So for Katie's first episode, she somehow landed a guest big enough to rival the hysterically anticipated appearance of Taylor Swift on Jason Kelsey and Travis Kelsey's podcast tonight. How do they get that booking, by the way? Well, that's same here. Let's watch.

Now we're going to do some cabinet confidential here. Okay, great. Your answers can only be that of cabinet members. Okay. Okay. Who would you draft first on your basketball team? Oh, Marco. Okay.

Yeah. He's fast. He's well coordinated. He's not the tallest guy in the world, but yeah. Okay. I would have gone with Scott Turner, maybe. Okay, yeah, that's a good one. Okay.

Who would you pick in a chess tournament? Doug Bergum. Very logical. Very chill. Who is sitting next to you on a long-haul international flight as your seatmate? Maybe your husband, actually, though I guess he's not technically in the cabinet. Probably Chris Wright. Very good guy.

Who would you trust most to babysit your kids? Kelly Leffler. If you could only eat one condiment for the rest of your life, what would it be? One condiment? Does barbecue sauce count? Yeah. Okay, barbecue sauce. Not mayonnaise?

No. Now, mayonnaise is like in low doses as good, but it's kind of... Like, I had a buddy who used to eat French fries and mayonnaise. I thought that was disgusting. It's the only thing that was. husband needs. With French fries or like period? Period. Okay. Wow. I didn't realize. Yeah. He's only a manet's guy. Okay. I learned something about Steve and I didn't know. Yeah. It's whatever. So Mark Rubio is known as a funny jokester. What's the funniest joke he's told you? Or the funniest moment you've had with him.

Okay. So you guys will have to determine whether we can actually put this in the final. We can cut it if not. We can cut it if not. So he, so this is, we were talking about something very serious related to the Middle East. and he starts this joke totally deadpan he's like you know I learned something interesting about the Middle East because I had a constituent call a few years ago when I was in the Senate and a woman was visiting Israel and her husband died while they were in Israel and I was like oh man that's terrible and she was trying to get help from us for how to get the body back to the United States and she said to me you know man

I don't know maybe I don't want it back the last time somebody was was Sorry, the last time somebody died over here, they rose from the dead three days later. And I didn't know until the very end that it was in a totally bullshit joke. I was like, on the edge of my seat, like, what happened with this poor woman or husband? He's got jokes. So I have a lot of questions, but my first is, how does it feel to know that you were the Marco Rubio of our White House? He's got jokes. You're not super tall.

I'm not super tall. I would definitely draft you first in basketball. I don't think that's right. There's something so chilling about it. There's a couple things that just jump out about this. One, it's like this, they're playing an icebreaker's game and it's not working. It's not causing the conversation they're hoping to have. Lovett, that was minute 15.

The whole, so I watched, Levin has not seen these clips, by the way. I watched all 44 minutes of this. It's 44 minutes of that. There's nothing else. It's, um, she's nervous. like it doesn't have a reason to exist. I guess we're trying to get like what, like a, like understand who J.D. Vance is like as a person,

but the questions do not elucidate anything because they're supposed, I don't, you're just to be like barbecue sauce. Next question. How about the silence between what the mayonnaise? Like mayonnaise, huh? That's what my husband eats. Oh, really?

Learn something new about Stephen. Also, this is more maybe the substantive comment about this whole thing, which is J.D. Vance. really love Stephen Miller. And he recently said, I brought it up on some pod, I think it was the All-In pod when they interviewed him. He said that it's like, oh, well, in the White House, the two furthest right on immigration are me and Stephen Miller.

And then he called Stephen Miller his friend some other time. Now he goes outside the cabinet. He was supposed to just name a cabinet official and he wants to be on a long haul flight next to Stephen Miller. What? So, yeah, that's interesting. He loves Stephen Miller. Well, I can see it, right?

Because they are both very smart guys. And, like, they are operators. And they are surrounded by buffoons and Fox News hosts. Except for Marco who's got jokes. Except for Marco, who got jokes, who he also chose. And so, like, I can see that. I also can see J.D. Vance knowing the power, like, how much power Stephen Miller has. And maybe it's a less of a statement about what J.D. Vance actually thinks about Miller

and more about J.D. Vance knowing that he's got to keep this guy close to him. him. It's, I think, a little bit of both. I also kind of think it's that Stephen Miller is a more openly radical, fanatical version of what J.D. Vince actually does believe. And he's better at putting on somewhat of a mask in public because he wants to become president. Yeah. And just making sure that Stephen Miller, that he has seen as being part of the anti-immigration. Yes. It's going to be very helpful in a future primary. They also like kind of teeter on the brink of doing a round of, oh, is it mainly? B'nese bad, which is like the hackiest fucking shit. Just wait.

Just wait. And that story. The joke, the Marco joke? It's such a long journey to get to. It doesn't make sense. Just as the math of the joke doesn't make sense. You don't necessarily want to bring him back because Jesus rose from the dead three days later. Why would you not, why would that affect whether or not you transport the body?

You're saying that if you keep him in. Is the joke that you don't want him back? Or is the joke that you want to stay in Israel with the corpse in case he wakes up? And also a question, was the joke better? And as we saw from that, he could barely deliver the joke as it was. So maybe, you know, Marco did have a good joke and we just didn't really get. Yeah, it could have been butchered. We didn't get the best version.

Yeah, it could have been but I also feel for Katie Miller here because you think J.D. Vance is going to be a big get for your first interview. But then you realize that that the kind of dealt. between who he is as a person and the performance he's doing of what he wants to be, makes him so stodgy and stuck and hard to talk to. And so she just doesn't get anything out of him. Does he not get anything? So, of course, the two got personal.

There were seemingly dozens of questions about the vice president's home life. And we got to see a lighter side of J.D. Vance, the family man. Let's listen. So how do you handle a toddler tantrum in a public place? Usch and I handle it very differently. So it's crazy. In airports, people would always come up to her. Like, we had this woman come up to her a couple years ago and say,

I'm like a child therapist. And the way that you interact with your son is so amazing and like praising her. And I'm like, it is amazing. She's super patient. She'll try to reason with them. If they have a tantrum in a public place, I immediately grab them, take them to the bathroom and say, you've got to cut this shit out. Like, I'm the parent who's like, no, no, no, this is not okay.

She's the gentle parent. And the thing is, I actually, even though she has her way, she kind of becomes sympathetic to my way, because if the kids have a total meltdown with all the cameras on, then it becomes a viral moment through no fault of their own. I mean, a three-year-old is going to have a temper tantrum from time to time. So one of the things we do try to do is protect them from becoming like the subject of a viral moment. And sometimes that requires me to be very quick and to sort of anticipate the stuff as it happens. What's your secret to keeping your marriage solid while the entire country and the world is in your business? So something, I actually came up with this idea, and it's one of my better ideas as a husband is probably six or seven years ago. We do a husband-wife book club, and we try to do it once a month.

And so we fall in a little bit behind just because I don't have enough time to read. But we even during the time I've been vice president, we've done two books together, and I'm currently working on the third. She's done with it. But like actually forcing us to do something together that makes us think, that makes us talk, that gives us something that we're sort of thinking about and talking about at the exact same time, that's been very good. Would you rather your kids publicly rate your parenting on C-SPAN or never be able to tell a dad joke again? Never be able to tell a dad joke again.

Now, my kids, they are very judgmental of our parenting in public. And I think they know that, you know, there are always cameras around. So they use that as an opportunity to say, oh, You know, dad should, he should have child protective services called because he didn't give me two scoops of ice cream last night. It's like, no, son, that's not how this works out. But they know they have an audience. What's your best dad joke?

I have a few. I have a few. So this is from Pulp Fiction, and my kids love this because they kind of get it. Mama tomato, Pop Tomato, and Baby Tomato, or taking a walk one day. and Baby Tomatoes started lagging behind, so Papa Tomato got kind of angry, went back and squished him and said, catch up. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right,

so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak, and get your trip.

Right. Kayak. Got that right. Not bad, right? That one's good. And so why were you running after your kids at Disneyland? You're on Tom Sawyer Island? Like, what's the story there? I saw that. And somebody was like, oh, he runs funny. No, the actual... Like the dad run.

The dad run. No, the actual answer is, so we had the island of ourselves, which is very cool. I'd never been to Disneyland. They were shutting down the Disney World one. Yeah, that's... Sorry to all the people who were Disneyland for the longer lines, but we had a very good time. But I was actually, my kids really like this game called Oger, where I like chase after them, but I don't run full speed. And so I was playing Oger. The old Oger excuse.

So, man, a lot of content. It's the oldest trick in the book. A lot of content. You run weird. The country sees it. I was just being, I was just playing Oger. I don't know why he feels like he needs to lie about that. If that is a lie, I don't know what's true.

But like, what it looked like is he got nervous that the kids were where they shouldn't be. And he didn't want to run in a way that, like, he didn't know. looks scary, but he kind of wanted to move fast. I thought like he wanted to grab them, takes him to the bathroom and tell them to cut the shit out. Right, for sure. But so then they could call, then they could tell the cameras that we need to call child protective services. And then he could tell the joke about squishing the small tomato. I'm not, I'm not going to judge anyone's relationship with their, with their children. But that was, he seems like a fun dad. I, I don't. There's something so like, like, like he's like, like he thinks of

the joke from Pulp Fiction whether or not he tells that he's playing ogre i thought i like i like thought he got shit look i when he were i i saw people being fun of him for running after the kid and i was like i don't know it looked like somebody who was like oh got nervous for a second that his kids going somewhere without doing kind of like oh it's like but there's something about like this like this this this sorry to everyone at disneyland there's just this like i know i don't know there's something of feminine also i noticed oh a little feminine i noticed too this is very like and Ush is you know amazing she's a great way but you know and I'm tougher but she's come around to my version and then also with the book club it's like my best idea is my best idea it's very

possessive yeah it's very possessive it's funny too and it's just like you know oh in the great in the great war between justice and mercy you've brought Ushah usha over to the justice side even when it comes to the scolding of children like you know we're just like you've even here even here you've shown the world that there's a need for more justice. Your wife has learned from you about how to see that there's just just too much mercy in our society

and we once again have to bring justice back. So Katie spent obviously so much time asking hard-hitting questions about politics and news of the day. She did intro by saying, you know, we're going to cover some news. Yeah. Zero questions about news or politics. I don't understand how you're doing this for 45 fucking minutes.

But she did decide to end on a lighter note. What shows are you watching right now? So we're watching Gilded Age. So that's on HBO. You don't think it's gone woke too? Has it gone woke? It's really bad. Really?

Stephen and I are watching it right now. Oh, interesting. Okay. I guess I haven't noticed. Cynthia Nixon is on there. Well, yeah, but she's like the opposite of Cynthia Nixon in real life. I actually made this observation that she's like a sort of a normal human being on Gilded Age. What songs are on your playlist right now?

So I'm a big classic rock guy and a pretty big 90s rock guy. So a lot of my songs are, you know, like sort of the Pearl Jam era or the Led Zeppelin era. But even some of the 90s songs, I talk about embarrassing shows. There are some embarrassing 90s songs that I'm really into. Like Stay by Lisa Loeb. I'm a Barbie girl? I'm a Barbie girl? No, no.

That's not. Don't like that one. Do you have a guilty pleasure show that's embarrassing to it? other than Emily in Paris. Love Island. We're doing like the hunting wives, the samurai turned pretty. I mean, I really like to show Outer Banks, but

I don't know if that's really embarrassing, but you know, it's not. No, I don't think so. I think Emily and Paris is pretty embarrassing. Okay, here's my riff on Emily and Paris. I actually think that it's like a super smart meta-comitory on

European culture and it's basically it's a criticism of millennials. I think it's basically the entire show is like kind of fun and it's bubbly and you know you get to see like beautiful things and beautiful people, but it's fundamentally it's a criticism

of millennial culture and as a proud geriatric millennial I think it's pretty fascinating. And that's it, that's our vice president. There's a lot there. There's a lot there. I'll let you unpack. Did we get the books? Did he ever say what the books were? It's Ross Douthit has written a fantasy novel.

That's his choice for it to read with Usha. That's what they're currently reading. All the Pretty Horses was the last one they did. I have no opinion about that. And then he couldn't remember the other one. It was a nonfiction one. It might have been about therapy. But it's Abby Shire's therapy thing.

She's like that right wing sort of. Like even just his music taste, it's all this. It's the worst of millennial culture, actually. Well, right. But also it's like this, it's this sort of like catalog of the correct answers, you know, the correct answers for like what he can say and what he's saying. Even Emily in Paris is like the perfect thing to say. He can say, I'm sure he would, you know, whatever, he washes it with Usha, right? Like it's this perfect catalog, like a curated version of, of being like normal, right?

Like even the classic rock, like I have some embarrassing 90s songs. But then you hear the critique of Emily and Paris. And it's like, God, that is very specific. It's almost like he, like, there, there was commentary at the time about how it was, like, about, it was like a boomer's, I think people were calling it like a boomer, like a boomer, uh, idealized version of, uh, like critiquing millennials. Right, right. But of course, of course he sounds more like a boomer. Right. No, he just doesn't, he just doesn't feel like he's our age. No, no, he feels 30 years older. He feels older. He's younger than us. I know. He's younger than us. But I just, it's just like the, the suit he's wearing, like just the emotional suit he's wearing, it just seems so heavy. Also what comes through with the Cynthia Nixon thing is they just, the woke thing is real. Like, there was another question where she asked him, like, would you rather be in a car for 12 hours with your kids with no child care or anything else? Or an elevator with Stephen Colbert for two minutes.

And he was like, oh, definitely the kids. And then he goes, well, is it Stephen Colbert from years ago or Stephen Colbert from the last few years? And she's like the last few years are like, oh, definitely not. Right. It's so tight. It's like a. So also like what like they're watching the Gilded Age. They're sticking with it, right?

But they're annoyed that Cynthia Nixon exists as a performer and has views outside of it. Like I don't. I'm surprised that she can play something other than a liberal psychopath? Right. I guess. And like she's playing a character. She's not Cynthia Nixon. This took place a long time ago.

There is a there is a gay character. I only want I like have dipped in and out of Gildedades. but like there is a gay character they are there are black characters on the show I don't know if they were always black characters from the first seasons I've only watched part of this season Is there a DEI in the show?

There is a black doctor Is there a DEI storyline? There is a black doctor who saves the life of a white person Is there a transports storyline? There's very little transports In the episodes I saw I can't speak to the entire season

Yeah there's no point in which Is it a trans? Oh, I don't know what they call them Mr. Morgheim or Mrs. Mordingham. Swim, swim, swim, swim. No, that doesn't happen in the show. Unbelievable. It's, yeah, like that.

This is a day old. How many YouTube views? How many views do you think that got on his sitting on YouTube right now? Vice President of the United States is on a podcast. 100,000. 40. Wow. Wow.

Made to your lowly segment. More people might see it from this. Yeah. Look what we did. We're drawing attention to it. Yeah. We're drawing attention to it. It was too funny and too boring.

It's, it is quite boring. She's got to, you know, she'll get the hang of it. I'm sure she'll figure out how to kind of bring some more life into it. It's a tough first guest.

Maybe, maybe, or she'll stop doing it. She needs someone with some life as a guest, I guess to. Right. I'm very, we're coming back and doing the Stephen Miller episode for sure.

Is he going to come on? I assume so. He's got to come on. He's got to come on. Barack Obama went on Michelle Obama's podcast. Right. Yeah, tough booking. I actually am genuinely interested in the Stephen Miller episode.

I actually would like to see what happens, you know, when he lets his hair down, as it were. He wears his shoes in the house that angers her. They had that conversation, too. Stephen Miller wears his shoes everywhere. She's like, where my kids are eating, it's just terrible. Oh, is there no rule? Is it a shoes? Like, that's a matter of communication.

Yeah, we don't need to get into it. That was a whole part of this podcast. Anyway, it's going to stick in my brain for a long time. Anyway, here's the thing. There's no space for conservative women online. And there's no space for just a couple of pro-progressive podcasters online. Which is why we want you to subscribe to the Podsave America YouTube channel because we are close to a million.

Right on the cusp. Right on the cusp. And that means Elijah might not get fired. And I heard. For every subscriber over a million that we get in the month of August, Tommy will give Elijah a dollar. That's a dollar for every single one over a million. And if we hit a million five, Tommy will sit down with J.D. Vance so they can both talk about their shared favorite show, Emily and Paris.

Emily and Paris, yeah. Also a big Emily and Paris fan, Tommy Vitor. Or maybe Tommy, yeah, maybe Tommy goes on Katie Miller's podcast. We can find out where his head's out on Mayne's. I don't know. What's Tommy like behind the scenes? I don't know. I don't know.

He's got jokes. He's got jokes. He's got jokes. He was the other day time he was telling such a funny story and he was like, so this, this, this family died. And they died on a mountain. They died on a mountain, John. And he said they're dead. It's a dead family.

He's got jokes. But, but he said, it took place in the Middle East. And he said he wasn't sure whether to bring them home from the mountain. or bring the mountain to them the family is dead John got jokes great joke from Tommy that's an Islam thing really funny really good stuff

really cut us up subscribe to Pod Save America on YouTube please thank you