CLAY: We’re joined by Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance. He’s also the author of the best-selling book, Hillbilly Elegy. It’s turned into a movie as well. JD, we’ve got new restrictions. First of all, thanks for coming on. We’ve got new restrictions on covid. I know you’re in Ohio; you’ve got a Republican governor there. When you’re traveling around the state campaigning for the Senate, are people in your state of Ohio effectively over being afraid of covid and living their normal lives based on your experience?

VANCE: Oh, absolutely. I think we’re just over it. Obviously, I’m talking to a lot of Republican audiences, but it’s true even of nonpartisan audiences where people recognize maybe it’s a serious illness, but they’re just totally sick of living their lives in fear because of it. But I think frankly they’ve got a lot more wisdom than some of our public health experts.

Because the honest takeaway from what we’ve seen in the data and we’ve seen from just life experience, is there’s no getting rid of this thing. There’s no way that we can shut ourselves in our home or wear a mask and prevent this thing from spreading, and it sucks. I wish the coronavirus didn’t exist and it wasn’t all across our country. But it is, and we have to live with it.

BUCK: What do you think…? JD, it’s Buck. What do you think the Democrats play is here politically going into 2022? Obviously, you’re running for Senate, so you’re very attuned to this. But it was clear to me for a while that they like the additional control, the ability to change the voting processes because of the covid emergency in a whole lot of states for 2020.

But going into this midterm do you think they position themselves — even after this winter season is over — as the Fauciites who do everything they’re told, or do you think they start to promise a lessening of all this? I feel like it could go in either direction.

VANCE: I think what they’re going to do is say, “Well, if we just stick through one more election where we relax all the rules on mail-in balloting and you guys elect Democrats, then we can finally go back to normal.”

BUCK: (laughing)

VANCE: (chuckling) I think that’s what’s going on here. I think they know that, first of all, their voter base is still so spun off about coronavirus. But if they start to retract, then what is like the reason for the Democrats’ public health policy the last two years? It’s very hard when you get this far deep down the rabbit hole to admit that you were wrong, to change course. I think we’re going to keep on, whether it’s Omicron or whatever the new variant of the day is going to be. It’s going to be a lot of fear. A lot of promises, though, that if you just elect Democrats one more time then they’re going to let you have a normal life.

CLAY: JD, I know you’re a lawyer, too. I’m really encouraged by the federal courts stepping forcing the Biden’s unconstitutional, in my opinion, vaccine mandates, health care mandates, all these other apparatus. What do you think of those court decisions and are you similarly encouraged by what you’ve seen in terms of judicial independence?

VANCE: I’m encouraged. I think it’s the right decision. It does suggest there’s some pushback to the unconstitutional overreach of the Biden administration. One of the things I do worry about, though, is that our economy has become so controlled by the government that it’s hard for me to tell sometimes where the government ends and where some of these multinational corporations begin.

So I think even if the OSHA regulations that the Biden mandate goes away, I worry a lot of our biggest corporations are going to try to do something through the backdoor that maybe the Biden administration could not have done through the front door, and create what is effectively a private sector vaccine mandate. Which I know puts us Republicans on uncomfortable territory.

We love the free market. We love businesses. But at the end of the day, I think we have to be willing to protect our own voters, and when you talk about 20 or 30% of truck drivers threatening to quit because they don’t want to get the shot — which should be their right — I think it’s time for us to step up like Ron DeSantis has done, and say, “Look, if people don’t want to get the shot, it’s our job as representatives in a constitutional republic to push back against this stuff, wherever the mandates are coming from.”

BUCK: We’re speaking to JD Vance, Senate candidate in Ohio, and author of Hillbilly Elegy. JD, Biden right now is addressing the nation on his plan to deal with Omicron. It’s amazing to me that in just the last few days, we have seen Fauci come out to say — essentially, I am paraphrasing — “Oh, my God everybody panic,” and then, “Actually, wait. We won’t know for a couple of weeks. Maybe it’s not that bad,” and then, “Well, we don’t really know but maybe panic anyway because that’s going to make you safer.”

And now Biden’s telling everybody that there needs to be additional restrictions put in place — and also, by the way, his Build Back Better plan is useful in dealing with the virus. I mean, I sit here and I wonder. At what point do you think they have to change course on the Build Back Better plan the way they have on, say, Remain in Mexico, where just the reality overtook the talking points?

VANCE: Yeah, I hope soon. It’s all detached from reality. I heard the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. We’ve been through this so many times, right? I mean the states that had mask mandates didn’t do any better or worse than the states that didn’t have mask mandates. The states that had more stringent lockdowns didn’t have better outcomes than those who had less-stringent outcomes.

And of course, then they destroyed the economy in the process. We’ve got to stop repeating the mistakes of the past. This was wrong but understandable last summer. We’re now 18 months into this thing. We’ve got to accept that we can’t control this thing, and when we tried to intervene, we end up destroying the economy in the process. But this is a little bit different than the immigration stuff.

The immigration stuff, it’s so clear that Biden’s policies were failing, and I think a lot of Democrat voters are just so passionately attached to this covid narrative that it’s going to be harder — even compared to immigration, it’s going to be harder — for the Biden folks to sort of step back and say, “Hey, we were wrong.”

CLAY: JD, what are you hearing from voters most? I’m kind of curious. In 2021, it seemed to catch everybody, many in the East and West Coast by surprise. Didn’t catch me by surprise at all because I’ve been on this bus tour talking to people all over the Southeast for college football season. What are you hearing from voters that you think might surprise people in California and New York on the ground talking to people on a day-to-day basis?

VANCE: I’m sure some of it is state specific, some of it’s not. I hear concerns about election integrity. People are worried. How do we make sure that our process actually works and when we vote for the right people, those people take power? A lot of concerns about immigration. I think people don’t realize, in Ohio the immigration issue is really closely connected to the drug issue.

The thing I hear the most about lately — it’s early December here — is Ohio is a cold state, and people are really worried about energy prices. It’s not just like, okay, it’s crazy, gas is $3.40 at the pump, but people, they heat their homes with propane or with home heating oil and that stuff is getting crazy expensive right now.

If you live in San Diego, you don’t care if energy is going through the roof. You’ve always paid for a lot for gas out there in California. But when you’re talking about doubling the cost of heating your home in the winter, keeping your kids and grandkids warm? It’s like a real, real thing that I don’t think the national press has picked up on, and I think a lot of folks in the industrial Midwest are just really concerned about it.

BUCK: JD Vance running for Senate in Ohio. Check out Hillbilly Elegy of course, smash hit, bestseller. JD, thanks for being with us.

VANCE: Thanks, guys. Take care.