BUCK: We’re joined now by Senate candidate for Ohio and author of Hillbilly Elegy, a great book, JD Vance. JD, thanks for being here on Clay and Buck. And I saw a big portion of your debate with Tim Ryan. It seems there’s a fascinating strategy that Mr. Ryan is unveiling against you, which is to pretend that he doesn’t believe things that he does and that you do believe things that you don’t.

VANCE: Well, that’s right. That’s pretty much his only strategy because he knows that Ohioans are just not nearly as left wing as Tim Ryan wishes that we were. And so he has to sort of run as far away as he can, not just from what he believes, but from what he’s actually voted on. I will say, you know, the debate was very fun because it’s you know, you listen to the guy’s lies for four months and you finally get an opportunity to stand face to face with him. And I wasn’t honestly as impressed as I expected to be with him.

I thought he was a little evasive. I thought he was clearly very uncomfortable. I don’t know if he had to, like, go to the bathroom the entire time we were all in there. But he was clearly really unhappy the entire time. And I think the television audience recognized that. So it was a good debate. We have another one on Monday. But yeah, my basic view on the on our race is I just have to not make any major mistakes and we have to run through the finish line. And if I do that, I think we’ll win and will do so comfortably.

CLAY: JD, I’m curious what you think about Tim Ryan running as far from Joe Biden as he can in this race. I think he said he didn’t want to campaign with him anywhere in Ohio, yet he’s voted for him on almost every issue lockstep. So that’s a disconnect, to me, it seems pretty easy. Tell me if I’m wrong. You go all over Ohio in these last 27 days and say, “Hey, if you think Joe Biden has done a good job, you should vote for Tim Ryan because he’s a rubberstamp for Joe Biden. If you disagree and think that Joe Biden needs to be held accountable and there needs to be a check on his power, you got to vote for me.” Is that too simple or do you think that resonates in the final 27 days?

VANCE: No, I don’t think it’s too simple at all. That’s exactly right. I mean, not just almost every time, he actually has a 100% voting record with Joe Biden since Biden was sworn in.

CLAY: That’s amazing.

VANCE: It is.

CLAY: That is utterly amazing.

VANCE: You know, he’s running this TV advertising, actually, which is pretty funny right now, you know, because he’s trying to appeal to the middle and say that we’ve got to agree and set aside our differences and you know, in it he says he only agrees with his wife on 70% of issues. And then you look at his voting record and you realize he votes with Nancy Pelosi 100% of the time and you wonder. It must be pretty awkward at home.

BUCK: We’re speaking to JD Vance. He’s running for Senate in Ohio. JD, the Democrats on energy, I think, that ties very much into the economy, which is the number-one issue all across the board. All the polls show it, and the economy is not good right now, as we all know. You know, you’ve had Fetterman try to run from his anti-fracking position. For people in Ohio, what’s Tim Ryan think about fossil fuel usage and would he be signing up for AOC’s Green New Deal?

VANCE: He would be. He, in fact, said that we needed to ban gas-powered cars, not by 2050, as Bernie Sanders said, that would be too soon… Sorry, it wouldn’t be soon enough. We need to do it by 2040. So, he took an even further left view than Bernie Sanders. He has proposed a national ban on fracking. He has voted for every single anti-fossil fuel energy policy, basically, that comes up. It’s really insane, actually. If you look at his voting record, if you look at his record of accomplishment, he really is on the pretty far left of the Democratic Party caucus. And it’s like he ran for Senate, and they devised this amazing strategy of just lying about every single position he’s ever held. And I think that if he was running unopposed — or maybe if our campaign had $0 to put to work to actually define him — it may have been a winning strategy. But the record is the record and it’s not something you can hide from.

CLAY: JD, I thought you did a really good job. We played some of the cuts from the debate where he was trying to attack you on abortion and you basically pivoted to him and said, one, this ten-year-old story that got so much attention in Ohio, the reason why that rape happened is because an illegal immigrant was able to enter into this country. But also, Tim Ryan’s perspective on abortion is the radical one, right, that there are no restrictions whatsoever. Republicans have a wide variety of perspectives on exactly what the law should be. I thought you really kind of waylaid him there. And I would imagine that that resonates also to a large extent with huge majorities of Ohio voters.

VANCE: Yeah, I think it does. I mean, I’m very pro-life and I fessed up to that. For those who disagree with me, of course, for those who agree with me, I just say it. And I also point out the fact, like you guys said, that he’s voted for taxpayer-funded elective abortions all the way up to the moment of birth. He voted against this… I mean, it’s ridiculous that we even need a law like this, but voted against a law that would force doctors to provide health care to babies who survive botched abortions. I mean, this is like really extreme and really morally disgusting stuff.

But he’s voted for it, and I think the reason he’s voted for it is not because he actually believes it, but because he knows he has to toe the line with the Democratic Party activists. I don’t think that anybody, if they’re really examining their conscience, believes that you should be able to abort a baby at 38 weeks gestation. It’s just completely crazy. But this is where these guys feel they have to go. And I think Republicans, you know, we allow ourselves to be put on the defensive on this.

Like you guys said, there’s a wide variety of opinion in our party in the state of Ohio. You can defend your views so long as you don’t sound like a crazy person, so long as you’re respectful, while at the same time pointing out how far off the deep end the Democrats have really gotten. I think we should stop playing defense on this and actually point out how crazy their policies are.

BUCK: Right. They won’t even say what they think, and then they lie about what the Republican — and in this case you — think on the issue, which I think is very telling in and in and of itself. But one part of this I was not expecting, JD — and we’re speaking to JD Vance, running for Senate in Ohio for all of our Ohio listeners. JD, I had never heard somebody tell a veteran of the United States Marine Corps (summarized), “Let me tell you something about service, buddy. I put on my football jersey in high school and showed up and, like, gave sandwiches out one day,” or whatever that was. That was bizarre.

VANCE: (laughing) Yeah. He showed up at the PTO car wash. That’s Tim Ryan’s understanding of service. That was that was such a bizarre line that I honestly — you know, I thought I performed very well. I was caught off guard by how ridiculous it was. It’s like, is this this guy really comparing his record of service in high school serving out sandwiches to my record of serving in the (crosstalk) Marine Corps?

BUCK: I don’t know. There’s the Marine Corps, JD, but then there’s the local bake sale, so we got to be fair.

CLAY: (laughing)

VANCE: (laughing) Yeah, man. I just I didn’t quite know what to say, but look, I mean, one of the great arguments we’re making about Tim Ryan is it’s not just that he’s substantively wrong. It’s that he’s been in Washington for 20 years and hasn’t done anything. The people of Youngstown have lost 50,000 jobs during his time serving in Congress. The poverty rate has gone up. The crime rate has gone up. His record of service is that he’s failed. And, you know, he talks… He actually says we need a new generation of leadership, and I’m looking over the 20-year career politician saying, “Yeah, brother, I agree.”

CLAY: JD, how much do you think your race is unique to Ohio perspectives and how much nationalization do you think we’re going to see of these races? Because in some way, it’s a referendum on Joe Biden as much as it might be a referendum on the Ohio Senate race itself. To what degree in the final 27 days is there going to be sort of a nationalization of this race, particularly in the Senate, where we’re fighting to see who is going to have control?

VANCE: Sure. A lot of it, I think, is nationalized issues. I mean, if you think about the three things I hear most about– the border and the fentanyl crisis, crime, and especially inflation — these are all issues that have heavy, heavy influence from the national government. So, I think that this stuff does tend to get nationalized. Obviously, there are very state-specific issues. And importantly in Ohio, the way Ryan is running his campaign is in some ways a reflection of how nationalized things have gotten.

I mean, you would not be running as a Democrat pretending to be a Republican unless you feel like the national Democratic Party is just damaged goods which, of course, it is. And this is you know, there’s a very simple argument for me to make. You know, like you guys said, just look. His record is rubberstamp for Joe Biden. Do you want a rubberstamp for Joe Biden or not? Another spin on that is, is your life better than it was two years ago? And I think for most Ohioans, the answer is, “No,” and for those folks, I think that we’re in their support.

BUCK: JD, where can people go in Ohio? I mean, right now we’ve got people listening WTVN in Columbus, WKRC Cincinnati, WHLO Akron. Okay, we gotta…

CLAY: (laughs)

BUCK: I can’t go through all of them.

CLAY: We’re number one, Buck, I believe in Columbus, in Cincinnati, and in Cleveland.

BUCK: WTAM Cleveland, yes, sir. Number one.

CLAY: So, if people listening there get out and do the work for JD, it’s not going to be remotely close.

BUCK: JD, where should they go?

VANCE: Best place to go is JDVance.com. If you want to see more commercials, we’ve got ‘em running through Election Day, but we could always use more. JDVance.com. Contribute to us if you can, because that’s how we get the message out there. People can also volunteer for us, phone bank for us. We have a great presence all across the state, so we’d love to have people’s help.

BUCK: JD Vance, everybody. JD, Bring it home, man. Thank you so much.

VANCE: Thank you, guys. Take care.