Vice President JD Vance details his transition into the historic 150-year-old Vice President's Residence, contrasting its 30-acre privacy with the White House while managing a household of twelve thousand square feet and constant Secret Service presence. He balances strict parenting to avoid viral tantrums with open marital communication, shares anecdotes from international trips including a Vatican Mass where his daughter met the late Pope, and reveals personal tastes ranging from Mazzy Star to reality TV. Ultimately, Vance humanizes the role by prioritizing family normalcy amidst political scrutiny, suggesting that authentic domestic life remains central even at the highest levels of power. [Automatically generated summary]
I'm joined here by the Vice President of the United States, JD Vance.
Good to see you.
Thanks for doing this.
Of course, I'm excited.
One full circle moment here is being the communications director to a vice president, now sitting here interviewing the current vice president.
So you know what all these guys had to deal with earlier.
It is quite a time.
It's been a busy day.
Those who are watching at home will not realize that we were originally supposed to do this like hours ago at my house.
We had to cancel that.
I had a call with the president.
Other things happened.
And now here we are.
But we did it.
We actually made it and not that far off, right?
Five hours later.
Really good.
Okay.
10 out of 10.
So we'll go back.
So when you moved into the vice president's residence, had you seen it before?
No, I had never seen it before.
And there was a bit of a controversy.
I don't remember exactly what had happened, but I think that normally it's customary for the outgoing vice president to show the incoming vice president's family the house.
And we have three little kids, so I guess at the time our kids were like seven, five, and you know, two, I guess Mirabel turned three right before the inauguration.
And so now they're a little bit older, but you know, they had never seen this house, and Usha really wanted to show them.
And so what we actually proposed is, recognizing the weirdness of the politics, can Usha take the kids over and just show them where they're going to be living for the next four years?
And they were rebuffed.
So we took some like old diagrams and some old photos and tried to show the kids.
Actually, a friend of ours in Cincinnati had a book about the vice president's residence.
And so we would show the kids what it would look like.
But that's as close as they ever got to it.
But it's a really beautiful house.
So President Trump always jokes with me that I actually have the nicest house because the White House is a bit of a fishbowl, as you know very well.
The VPR is this beautiful sort of 150-year-old mansion, but it's got 30 acres of private property, private space.
So it actually feels like a real family home for us, which is really nice.
Out of the public eye.
Out of the public eye.
That's right.
Did she leave any furniture behind?
A note?
What was it like when you moved in?
So she left a note.
It's a very nice note, actually, in the West Wing office that we use.
And it was just like boilerplate.
There wasn't anything particularly profound, but it was just a very nice note that she was supporting us and hoping that everything went well and blah, blah, blah.
That was very polite.
But I guess there was some furniture left over.
So my wife has done most of the furniture-related stuff here.
But I guess there's like a furniture archive for the vice president's residence where you can take stuff out of it.
And so we had some stuff, but then we've had to, you know, we've had to purchase a lot of stuff.
We've had people donate things.
So it's been a weird combination of, you know, basically, I think the house is like 12,000 square feet, which is a very large house.
And so we've had to do a combination of stuff to actually furnish it, but you should see it.
It actually feels like a real home now.
You know, the kids have their little desks for school, and I have a golf simulator, which I'm very excited about.
I'm not nearly as good as the president, but I'm trying to practice a little bit.
So it really does feel like our place now, and that's very nice.
What's one surprising thing about being vice president that nobody warns you about, but you deal with every day?
That's a very good question.
I would say the most surprising thing about it is just how much you are never alone.
And I like people.
I like to talk to people.
But just basic things like driving to the grocery store and listening to a podcast, that just doesn't happen anymore.
I don't go to the grocery store, but most importantly, I don't drive a car at all anymore.
And so just little things like that where even I take my dog out at 6.30 in the morning when we wake up and the dog has to go to the bathroom and you walk outside and there are just people there.
And you just kind of get used to the fact that there are always people there.
And that was not something I was totally prepared for, but I've gotten used to it.
So, who's buying your groceries?
So, Usha still likes to go to the grocery store.
She's obviously, you know, she comes with the Secret Service detail, and most people know who she is at this point.
But she still likes to go grocery shopping.
I've actually gone grocery shopping a couple times, but just for like, you know, return to normalcy, I miss those little things.
But a lot of times, it's because at the vice president's residence, we have a staff of people who help us manage the house, who help us prepare meals, especially if we're having official visits and so forth.
And so, a lot of the grocery shopping is done by the staff.
It's kind of a crazy new world that we live in, but there are definitely some perks to it.
Who's making breakfast in the morning for the kids?
Still me.
What are you cooking?
So, this morning I made a Dutch baby.
Do you know what a Dutch baby is?
In a blender and warming it in the oven.
In a blender and a cast iron.
Yeah, that's right.
So, very easy.
The kids love it.
I try to make that once a week because the kids actually eat it, which, as you know, with little kids.
It's difficult.
Anything they actually eat is always good.
Sometimes staff will make breakfast, but I actually like to make stuff as much as I can because, again, when you're vice president, you live in a bubble.
I try to have as many of these rituals as possible that just remind the kids, I'm still your dad.
We still have a mostly normal family life, even though there are constantly cameras around.
What do the kids think you do all day?
They don't really know.
They only know.
So I joked with the kids right after the inauguration.
My, I guess he was then seven, now he's eight, noticed that everybody called me Mr. Vice President.
And I said, Yeah, now that I'm inaugurated, that's what everybody has to call me.
And he says, Is that what I have to call you?
And I was like joking with him.
I was like, Yeah, absolutely.
You have to call me Mr. Vice President now, and you have to be more polite.
You have to listen to me now that I'm the vice president.
Totally didn't work.
But they will like mockingly, especially if there are other people around, they'll be like, Mr. Vice President.
Just like, especially when they're about to misbehave.
And so the kids, I think that what they believe I do is I'm on the phone all day, which is actually not totally wrong.
No.
It's a lot of time on the phone, as you would know.
But it's, and I think they think that I order people around a lot.
And do they watch your TV interviews or watch you on TV at all?
Sometimes they do.
They get really excited, but they're also, because of the subject matter, they get instantaneously bored.
They think everyone's parent is on TV every day.
I've asked my kids this question.
They're like, they go, mommy, everybody's daddy's on TV.
And you're like, no, honey.
They're like, no, everybody's daddy.
Yeah.
Well, so I don't think they believe that, but they also don't really fully appreciate what a TV even is, right?
That's the thing that's kind of weird about, I think, our generation of kids is they don't really know what commercials are because most of the TV they watch is like Disney Plus or something like that, right?
It's Moana where there aren't commercials.
And when they see me on TV, they just think it's like very unusual.
But I've actually had a conversation with one of my kids about like, well, what are you doing?
Like, why are you there talking?
And what is this thing?
Is this on Netflix or is this on?
No, no, no, it's a totally separate thing.
So we've actually had like a conversation about the different media because they were so shocked that I was involved in one of these shows.
So when they travel with you now on Air Force 2, which you've done a great job normalizing kids in public places.
We try to.
I'm sure it's not easy.
What's one moment that sticks out to you where you're like your heart is racing as you're in a very public setting and the kids are just like melting on the floor as kids do?
Yes, yeah.
So the very first international trip that we took, we did an AI summit in Paris that the president asked me to go to.
And then I went to the Munich Security Conference, which is sort of customary for the vice president who has just become the vice president to go to the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
And so we took the kids on this trip.
And, you know, it's a red-eye flight.
So you eat on the plane, you go to sleep, and then you wake up.
And it's eight o'clock in the morning France time.
But it's like two o'clock in the morning in the brains of my kids.
And so we're like trying to, you know, they're going to be international cameras and the French foreign minister is meeting us at the bottom of the runway.
So like the plane lands and we're like, oh my God, we have to get the kids ready.
And we realized there was no way that we could actually get the kids to move.
And so there's a point at which I have my, you know, three-year-old and I like pick her up by her ankle and she just doesn't even like move.
She just totally and I lay her back down completely lifeless.
Like we gave her a rhinoceros tranquilizer.
And so we just kind of decided, you know what?
We don't try to bring the kids into the public eye.
We also don't avoid.
We just try to have a normal life as much as we possibly can.
And Usha and I had this moment of like, all right, well, the normal thing would be to get them off the plane in their pajamas.
And so there's this like photo of them that we love and we have up in our house where the door opens and the three of them are standing there in their pajamas.
And they were like, whoa, this is different from our normal travel experience.
But that was very fun.
It was a little nerve-wracking because I assumed that the entire American media would judge us for not putting our kids in a suit and tie when we arrived in France, but it actually worked out and a lot of people liked it.
It was the exact opposite.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What about at the Vatican?
How was that with your kids?
That was very interesting.
So, you know, we arrive at the Vatican again.
The kids are kind of jet lagged.
And we're there on Good Friday.
So we go to Good Friday Mass at St. Peter's Basilica, which I'm a devout Catholic.
That was a very, very big deal.
But our youngest, she fell asleep on the way from where we were staying to St. Peter's Basilica.
And so I get her out of the car.
She's, again, rhinoceros tranquilizer.
She sleeps like a baby, as the expression goes.
And so I bring her into this Mass.
It's a two and a half hour, three hour Mass.
The kids actually behave pretty well amazingly.
The boys behave pretty well.
But there's a point like an hour and a half into it where Mirabelle like wakes up and she looks around.
And you know those Swiss guards at the Vatican.
They have like, you know, crazy colors on and they have these giant pikes and they're all like very big guys.
And she looks over at the Swiss guard and we're in St. Peter's Basilica and her eyes get so big.
And she's like, I could just tell in her mind, she's like, what the hell is going on?
Like Alice in Wonderland.
Where am I?
It's Alice in Wonderland, absolutely.
So she kind of looks around and then she just puts her head back on my shoulder and closes her eyes like this is a bad dream.
But that was a very cool moment.
And the Pope, who actually died the day after we met, he gave the kids like these very sweet Easter gifts and these, you know, he gave them rosaries and it was just a very cool thing.
And there, you know, there are a lot of cool things about this job that I didn't fully appreciate, but having the Pope give your kids an Easter present, that's my lowest.
Yeah.
So what's your dad ick?
Sweet Easter Gifts00:12:36
Something you swore you would never do, but now totally do as a dad?
I mean, like all of the diaper changing related stuff is just stuff you have to do and it's disgusting, but you get used to it.
I mean, I would say I think that I've really gotten into cooking since the kids were, since the kids were born.
And I always, you know, I didn't hate cooking, but I wasn't really into it.
But I think just for some reason, having that thing that me and U should do together that the kids now participate in.
I'm a really big baker, so I like to make cookies and cakes and cheesecakes and all that stuff.
What's the best thing you bake?
I make a very good peanut butter, peanut butter and chocolate cheesecake.
It's very solid.
I use mascarpone instead of cream cheese.
I think it's a little bit less tangy.
So, you know, I just, but, but it's really fun.
The kids really get into it because they get to participate.
I bake way less these days, but I still try to do it.
When we get free time, I always try to do this stuff because the kids really like it.
It's something for us to do together.
And again, when you have a crazy job, sometimes you just kind of want to zone out and like do something that feels comfortable and familiar.
And for me, a lot of times that's baking with the kids.
So that's definitely something that I do that I didn't think I would be doing 10 years ago.
What's your superpower as a dad?
Oh, I don't know.
Is it like finding lost remotes, making the best eggs?
Yeah, that's a good question.
I mean, I actually, so Usha's a super heavy sleeper, and I'm a very light sleeper, and I also sleep way less than she does.
And so, like, if we go to bed at midnight, I'll wake up at like 5 or 6 a.m. just kind of naturally, and I feel like I'm on top of the world.
And so, I guess my dad's superpower is probably 90% of like the nightmares or the things that kids just do that wake you up in the middle of the night, like a stuffed animal on the top bunk that falls off and you wake up.
I'm like, what the hell was that crashing?
Do they sleep in bed with you or do you keep them in their beds?
They stay in their beds.
Yeah, Usha was like very hardcore drill instructor about sleep training.
And so the two youngest kids, bottom bunk, top bunk.
And then that was actually when we moved in the VPR, our oldest kid got his own room.
That was a big deal for him.
And so, but, you know, they're at the age where they still, once a week at least, one of them will wake up.
And it's one of those things I kind of like.
Even though I don't want to be woken up at three in the morning, it's kind of nice that they still like need that, need that affection and need that attention.
It reminds you they're still babies.
So what's your house vibe?
Are you guys like eating on the couch?
Are you no shoes inside?
Are you like pizza tonight?
Like, what are we doing here?
Yeah, definitely.
We try to eat at the dining room table and try to be sort of, it's like the one chance where I try to zone out.
I try to leave my phone.
I figure if somebody really needs me, one of my staff members can come and grab me.
So we try to eat at the table.
No shoes inside.
That's my wife's rule, but all of us violate it.
It kind of drives her crazy.
And I definitely grew up in a house where you just wore your shoes everywhere.
She was a no-shoes inside person.
Those two people always find each other and get married.
Exactly.
What's your situation?
Are you no shoes inside?
Oh, we're no shoes inside, but Stephen wears shoes up and down the stairs.
Everywhere the kids eat off the floor is like his shoes.
And it drives me like insane.
Yeah, so it's exactly the same with me and my wife.
But we're pretty chill about most things.
And so, you know, the kids, they go to bed somewhere around eight o'clock, but if it's a little bit later, if they're really exhausted, that's fine.
We definitely try to make them eat pretty healthy, but we're not super intense about their diet.
Do you like the 80-20 rule?
Basically, yeah, I mean, we try to sort of do things as well as we can, but there's a lot of flexibility.
So how do you handle a toddler tantrum in a public place?
Usha 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 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 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 this 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 and wife book club and we try to do it once a month.
And so we've fallen a little bit behind just because I don't have enough time to read.
But 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.
We always try to have a drink once a week, like put the kids to bed.
I mean, it used to be, you know, go to a local bar and sits in an attdi and hang out.
Now it's like make a cocktail at home and sit outside on the porch.
I do.
I do.
I just, I miss being able to go to a place and have nobody know who I am.
That's the thing that I probably most miss about not being the vice president of the United States.
Do you miss like when you get in the car after like a date night and you have just three guys sitting in the car with you, like getting to enjoy your conversation?
Yeah, that's sometimes unusual.
Yeah, you know, you have these moments where you're talking and you kind of forget that they're there and then you realize, oh shit, somebody's actually paying attention to this like very intimate personal conversation that we're having.
But no, I mean, again, you kind of just get used to it, but it is odd and it's definitely something I miss.
What's something men your age do that they're getting wrong about marriage and fatherhood today?
Oh, that's such a tough question.
I think that's wrong about marriage and fatherhood.
I mean, I guess two very different things.
But I think that in an era of social media, it's very easy to allow yourself to be influenced.
And sometimes you just got to do it your way and you got to be natural.
Like I know some dads who would sort of be super affectionate with their kids, but they assume that that's not something dads do.
Or maybe they would be like not that affectionate, but they try to sort of calibrate it or correct it because they know that everything's going to be put on Facebook or Instagram.
And basically, even though they're not famous, they try to perform the act of being a husband or father to Instagram or to Facebook or to Twitter or X, whatever the case may be.
And I think that the best advice I can give is just try as much as you can just to be the kind of husband and father that you want to be.
And that's a decent bit of advice.
I'm trying to think.
I mean, my, it's funny.
In our marriage, like the stereotypical thing is that women are more emotional and men are less emotional.
That's probably the opposite in our marriage.
Usha's definitely like super stoic and I'm the one who gets fired up about things.
And so, you know, sometimes there's this attitude of, well, I'm not going to be who I am because that doesn't fit into the right mold.
And I think, again, you just got to be who you are.
And the last thing I'd say is, look, I've been married for 11 years, going on 12.
We have a very happy marriage.
I've been very lucky in the person that God put me with.
But we just try to talk about everything.
Like we are super brutally honest about things.
Like I see friends of mine and they've been like in a slow-burning Cold War with their spouse because they're pissed off about something they haven't talked about it in four days.
If Usha and I are mad about something, we talk about it like three minutes later.
And that communication has been very good for us.
Who's the better debater?
Her, big time.
She was a very good and very accomplished corporate lawyer.
And so the way that I put it, I've actually put this to the president because he's asked for her help with certain things.
And he once asked me, what is it that makes her so smart?
Usha has this ability to take like, she can read 5,000 words faster than anybody can read it, but then she somehow synthesizes it and can summarize it so quickly and so clearly.
And she has perfect attention to detail for these things.
So it makes her a very good debater.
I actually hate getting in arguments with her because she always remembers details or remembers facts way better than I do.
So who's harder to negotiate with?
Your kids at bedtime or the Senate Democratic Conference?
The Senate Democratic Conference, absolutely.
I love my kids and they can be very, very rebellious.
But it's something, again, the way that Usha trained them for bedtime, they are very, like when it's time to go to bed, they don't really put up much of a fight.
So who takes after you and who takes after your wife?
So it's interesting.
It's the opposite of, I think, what they look like.
So our five-year-old, everybody says, looks like Usha, but everybody says his personality is like a carbon copy of what I was when I was five.
Really high energy, really gregarious, hard to focus on certain things, like sometimes just goes deaf randomly because you're talking to him and it's like he doesn't hear you.
And then the other two, they look more like me, but they take after Usha.
What's easier on your kids, the White House schedule or the Senate schedule?
Which did you see your kids more with?
That's a good question.
Honestly, we've been able to make it work in both ways.
So with the Senate schedule, it's less, what I should say, it's more predictable, but it's also you have less control.
In the White House, unless the president needs me to do something, I have complete control over my schedule.
But it's also there's a lot more going on and you're more reactive to world events.
The thing that I try to do, and maybe this is like a good advice for, you know, husbands and fathers, is I try to take a couple of hours every day and make them as sacred as possible.
And yes, if like a war breaks out, then sometimes you have to cancel even the sacred time.
But we've been pretty good about making sure that I have at least a couple of hours with my family every single day.
And sometimes that means, you know, I'm on the phone until 3 a.m. or sometimes that means I'm back in the White House after I put the kids to bed.
But just have that sacred time that you protect, that you turn out the phone, you tune out work, and you just focus on your wife and your kids.
And that's worked very well for us.
And even this job, it's possible.
So what's your daily routine?
Are you working out?
What time are you getting home?
Are you putting the kids to bed?
Who gets the bedtime?
Yeah, so I normally wake up before Usha and the kids.
And if I wake up early enough, I'll work out then.
If not, then I'll take the dog out, start getting stuff ready for the kids.
And then usually we'll come into work around eight or nine.
And then we'll typically, you know, again, I try to have six to eight be that time where we have dinner together and just hang out with the kids.
But then usually there's something going on from eight to midnight.
And if it's an easy night, you're done by 10.
And if it's a tough night, you're done at two.
And so what's the gym routine?
The gym routine is, yeah, so I'll work out after the kids go to bed most nights that I work out.
It's after the kids go to bed.
And I try to do, I've been pretty good about this even as VP.
I try to do two to three days of weightlifting and a day or two of cardio.
So a good week is I'll work out five days.
A bad week, I'll work out three, but it's that same basic mix.
And what are you eating?
You know, I got really into, after the Senate campaign, so a few years ago, I got really into intermittent fasting.
And so I try to eat two meals a day.
I'll usually eat lunch and dinner.
And I try to be as healthy as I can, right?
A lot of green vegetables, a lot of lean protein, but I also have a terrible sweet tooth.
So like when I, if I eat.
So are you putting like the sugar in your coffee?
Like what's the Starbucks order?
Gym Routine After Kids Sleep00:14:13
Yeah, yeah.
So yeah.
So if I eat terribly, it's usually like I'll have, you know, a few scoops of ice cream at some point in the day or multiple points of the day.
Like that's, that's my poison is ice cream.
And I actually, I used to do sugar and cream and coffee.
I mostly just drink it black now because I try to, again, I'm trying to be good and it's hard to be good with those liquid calories.
So I do what I can.
So which fictional vice president do you most relate to?
If you'd like, I can present you some options.
Yeah, the only fictional.
Laurita Meyer and Veep.
Frank Underwood from House of Cards.
Alan Trimble from Olympus Has Fallen.
Catherine Bennett from Air Force One.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
That's good.
Thank you.
Catherine Bennett from Air Force One.
She was a real badass.
She was awesome.
Give you some options.
The one from Veep is, man, we watched Veep.
I'd never seen Veep until I was elected vice president.
We watched some during the transition.
And I just thought to myself, I hope to God that that's not me and that that's not my job.
And so far, I think we've avoided both.
There's definitely some moments, though.
Come on.
I'm sure you can pull out one where you're like, man, this could be an episode of Veep.
No, there are definitely some moments where it could be an episode of Veep.
In fact, we had a call today.
I won't say with who, but it was one of those moments where every single person on the call was very important.
You could probably guess.
But every two or three minutes, a new person would join the call and be like, oh, hey, what's going on?
And then you would have to summarize it.
It felt like an episode of the office because by the sixth or seventh person who joined the call, one of us had summarized the previous events for the sixth or seventh time.
And I was like, what the hell is going on?
Get me out of this.
And Marco was actually on the call and just started laughing hysterically because it really was like an episode of Veep.
So it's a good transition to say, 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?
Ooh, 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.
That's a good one.
Who would you pick in a chess tournament?
Doug Bergham.
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.
Okay.
Very good guy.
Who would you trust most to babysit your kids?
Kelly Loeffler.
Which cabinet secretary would totally get rolled by your kids?
Maybe also Kelly Loffler.
She's got a good heart.
She would take very good care of them.
I feel like Linda would be giving out all the candy.
Yeah, Linda McMahon would be giving out all the candy.
You know, maybe actually, maybe the person who would get rolled by the kids is Sean Duffy because he's a great dad, but he's kind of in granddad mode now.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
Any kid, anything they do is just the cutest thing in the world.
When you have that many, I feel like you're just like letting the small things just go.
Exactly.
Exactly.
President Trump said that you would likely be the heir apparent to MAGA.
I saw that, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
And he said Marco would be involved some way, somehow.
So we'll go down to some Marco questions.
What's the most surprising thing you've learned about Marco?
He also has a sweet tooth, which, you know, he's in great shape.
He works out, but he can, I mean, howls ice cream.
To the point where half the time that I see Marco in the hallway, it's because he's just been down to the Navy mess in the White House and he's gotten a bunch of ice cream.
What's your favorite topping in the mess?
Did you know they had toppings?
I didn't even know they had toppings.
I mean, I guess sometimes they'll bring me M ⁇ Ms to put on them, but I've actually never gone down there and got ice cream myself.
Okay, sure.
The life of the VP.
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.
So this is, we were talking about something very serious related to the Middle East.
And he starts this joke totally deadpan.
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, 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 a totally bullshit joke.
I was like on the edge of my seat, like, what happened with this poor woman, her husband?
He's got jokes.
He's got a lot of Florida man jokes.
Yeah, he does.
Because, you know, you'll take some crazy story from the Jacksonville Times, and then it ends up, you think it's a joke, but it's actually something that actually happened in the Florida Panhandle.
Next, we'll go to a game of Would You Rather?
Okay.
Would you rather have your daughter paint your nails pink before a televised Oval Office meeting or Ohio State never win another national championship?
Pink.
Yeah, I'm going with the pink fingernails.
Absolutely.
Would you rather be stuck in a Secret Service-driven vehicle for 12 hours with your kids where you are not the driver or be stuck in an elevator with Stephen Colbert?
Oh, that's really tough.
I would try very hard to avoid both of those situations, but I'll take my kids for 12 hours over Stephen Colbert.
Well, Stephen Colbert of like the past couple of years or Stephen Colbert 15 years ago?
The past couple years.
Okay, no, I'll take my kids.
Would you rather try to explain the latest TikTok trend to President Trump or explain the Electoral College to your kids every night before bed?
Explain the latest TikTok trend to President Trump.
He loves TikTok.
He's very interested in it.
So that would be an easy conversation.
Would you rather read excerpts of Hillbilly Elegy to a Gen Z influencer or to a group of coastal elites from Brooklyn?
Oh, that's a tough one, too.
I would say Gen Z influencers.
Which passage would they find most interesting?
Probably all the stuff about my grandma and grandpa when they were young because they were just, they were great people, but they also, they were kind of wild.
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.
No, 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, Papa Tomato, and Baby Tomato were taking a walk one day, and Baby Tomato started lagging behind.
So Papa Tomato got kind of angry, went back and squished him and said, catch up.
Not bad, right?
That was bad.
There's a lot of memes of JD Vance on the internet.
There are.
What's your favorite meme?
Or like funny joke about yourself, like after the Pope, or, you know, there's a lot of options to pick from these days.
So my favorite meme was, and this is very inappropriate, but maybe it's not too soon.
But, you know, there was the whole thing about how I was into couches.
Yep.
And right after the Pope died, there was, did you see this one?
There was just a meme of the Pope, Usha, and a couch.
And it like took me a second to get it.
And then when I got it, I was like, man, that's pretty good.
That's pretty good.
In fact, I like to think the left isn't very good at meming.
So my hope is that a right-winger came up with that because that was a very funny meme.
What's one thing you do that would be 100% like a political scandal if people knew?
I used to be really into, and I still have the cards, and I'm trying to get my eight-year-old to play with me.
I used to be really into Magic the Gathering.
So, like, really nerdy, really nerdy.
In fact, the last podcast I did, the podcaster had me sign a Magic the Gathering card, and I knew the card that he had.
And I felt really embarrassed about it, like more embarrassed than anything in like the past six months.
What age would you let your kids watch Lord of the Rings?
Oh, the Peter Jackson ones?
Like seven or eight.
Our oldest has seen at least The Hobbit and the first Lord of the Rings.
We're not super, like I said, we're pretty flexible about stuff.
We're not super strict about like violence in their media.
Maybe we should be.
But, you know, so long as it doesn't have like a really deranged message, we're pretty open with what the kids consume.
You know what's funny?
We tried to show our eight-year-old Harry Potter 4 recently, and it was like way too scary for him.
So I'm not trying that for a while.
On Disney Plus, do you let them watch whatever they want, or do you still meter what they're watching on Disneyland?
Yeah, we still meter.
I mean, we only do TV through like family movie time.
And so, you know, we might like put a show on if I have a phone call that I have to do and I'm the only one home.
But otherwise, I'm only watching TV with them.
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 answer.
Like the dad run.
The dad run.
No, the actual answer is, so we had the island ourselves, which was 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 are Disneyland for the longer lines, but we had a very good time.
But I was actually, my kids really like this game called Ogre, where I like chase after them, but I don't run full speed.
And so I was playing Ogre, and that was what caused the great scandal of how I ran it.
What's the best ride?
Okay, so I don't know.
Do you like roller coasters?
Okay, so I used to love roller coasters.
Now that I'm 41, I get like a little nauseous after them.
Space Mountain, did you get nauseous?
Terribly.
I did too.
I went like in December.
It got so sick.
So it's awful.
So sick.
And I used to love roller coasters.
So not Space Mountain.
I guess the one that is called, well, is not called Splash Mountain anymore, but used to be called Splash Mountain.
Tiana Road.
That one was really awesome.
I like that one.
What's your least favorite ride?
Space Mountain.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because it made me sick.
All right.
So you're a known watcher of Emily and Paris.
Am I?
Did I put that on social media one?
Yeah, no, I'm not sure.
What shows are you watching right now?
So we're watching Gilded Age.
Okay.
So that's on HBO.
You don't think it's gone woke too?
Has it gone woke?
It's really bad.
Really?
Steven and I are watching it right now.
Oh, interesting.
Okay.
I guess I haven't noticed.
Cynthia Dixon 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.
So we're watching Gilded Age.
I'm actually, we're watching The Crown right now.
Okay.
But we already watched most of it, but we're sort of watching towards the tail end.
And we're watching, there's something else that we just started that I really like.
All tires.
The Shane Gillis show.
Oh, it's so good.
So it's more, it's interesting.
Normally, Usha and I really agree on shows.
I think that it's like the funniest thing I've seen since The Office.
She just kind of likes it, but I love it.
Who's picking your book club up then?
It's an intrigue.
We alternate.
We alternate.
So the current book that we're reading is actually, it's a Ross Douthett, the New York Times columnist.
He has like a fantasy novel that he's releasing in serial form.
She already read the first one.
I'm in the process.
It's pretty good.
What else have you read?
The one before that was All the Pretty Horses, and the one before that was non-fiction.
I don't remember what it was.
It may have been the Abigail Schreier book about therapy.
Or it may have been a book about, I don't remember.
It was a non-fiction book, but that was six months ago at this point.
Do you have a guilty pleasure show that's embarrassing to admit?
Other than Emily and Paris?
Love Island, redoing like The Hunting Wives, The Summer I Turn Pretty.
I mean, I really like the show Outer Banks.
Okay.
But I don't know if that's really embarrassing.
You know, it's not.
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 commentary 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 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.
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, you know, some of the 90s songs, like talk about embarrassing shows, there are some embarrassing 90s songs that I'm really into, like Stay by Lisa Lowe by the Barbie.
I'm a couple days ago.
No, that's not.
Don't like that one.
Or Fade into You by Mazzy Star is probably like my favorite song of the entire 90s rock era.
But yeah, that's pretty much it.
90s Rock Playlist Favorites00:03:35
And there's some weird kid songs.
You know, We Are a Dinosaur is a song.
Our kids are.
Okay, so our kids' secret service names are they had to start with a B.
Okay.
And Mirabelle is.
They all chose them.
Okay.
Viveka's blasted off because he's very high energy.
And Ewan is which is a kind of dinosaur, which I didn't even realize.
And so each of them have a theme song.
So there's like this one artist that has a song about bees.
She has a song called We Are the Dinosaurs Marching, Marching.
You know, oh, yeah.
Okay.
And then she also has a song called like Blast Off Another Rocket Ship Run.
So it's their Secret Service code names actually have their own theme song, which they're really excited about.
Have you seen The Land Before Time recently?
Because that's like on theme and on-brand films.
I did see it a few years ago.
I mean, recently, but I watched it with our oldest a few years ago, and it's really like, it's a really good movie.
Yeah, it's a good one.
Is a hot dog a sandwich?
No.
Is that a question?
It is a question.
Definitely not.
Does pineapple belong on pizza?
Of course not.
No.
If you could only eat one continent for the rest of your life, what would it be?
One condiment?
Does barbecue sauce count?
Yeah.
Okay, barbecue sauce.
Not mayonnaise?
No.
No, mayonnaise is like in low doses is 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 my husband eats.
With french fries or like period?
Period.
Okay.
Wow.
I didn't realize.
He's only a mayonnaise guy.
Okay.
I learned something about Steven.
I didn't know.
Yeah.
Whatever.
Are cargo shorts a rite of passage for dads or a cry for help?
Both.
Both.
I mean, look, I wear cargo shorts, especially when the kids were younger because you're always carrying stuff.
But they look hideous, and I recognize that.
So I don't wear cargo shorts anymore.
I don't really wear shorts anymore because I'm constantly being photographed.
And I just, you know, I always try to look like reasonably well put together.
And a buddy of mine once sent me a line from The Sopranos, A Don never wears shorts.
So I try.
Are you a swim shirt now in the pool kind of guy at the beach?
So that's been true for a while though, because so Usha's, I mean, she's born America, but her parents are from South India, so she doesn't really get sunburnt.
I do.
So she always makes me wear sunscreen, but I think sunscreen is disgusting and it stings my eyes.
And so the compromise that we came to was I could just wear a sunshirt.
Do you usually read the instructions or do you just wing it?
Wing it, totally.
Sometimes with a YouTube video.
What's the last thing you searched with on AI?
I'm actually not a big AI guy.
The last thing that I did on AI is we wrote a book, my kids and I did, about various, do you guys have the Who Would Win books?
No.
Okay.
So my kids are really into like who would win Lion versus Tiger or Cheetah versus Jaguar.
So we actually made a big cats version where we wrote it ourselves, but I used Grok to make the actual images.
And some of them are completely deranged.
It's like a jaguar with its fang through the skull of a tiger.
And it's like, this is really gruesome shit.
But here we are.
The kids loved it.
What's a hill you would literally die on that nobody else cares?
That Fade Into You by Mazzie Starr is the best song of 1990s rock.
That's probably one where I would die on that nobody else cares.
That I have a lot of weird things like this that I really care about that probably not that many care about.
Hawaii Vacation Plans00:03:26
I mean, I think that like most ice creams, okay, if you're not, you can't say you have a favorite ice cream unless you're judging consistency of flavor.
So if you have the vanilla at Ginny's and then you have the coffee ice cream at Grators and then you come and tell me you like Ginny's more than Grators, that's bullshit because you didn't actually care like to like.
And there's a lot of that in the ice cream world.
So you got to compare apples to apples if you're going to actually make a judgment about who has the best ice cream.
The answer is Graters, by the way.
Okay.
I've never had that ice cream.
Okay.
Do you like ice cream?
Yeah.
Okay.
We'll get you some Graters.
Guys, remember that?
Graters ice cream is incredible.
It's actually the best ice cream.
The crazy thing about it is if you hold a pint of Grators ice cream.
Have you done like the blind taste test though to just make sure?
Like you've seen those things presumably on the internet where like there's behind the box of like all the different Cokes?
Not only did we do that, but we actually administered a blind taste test to me and our three kids.
Oh, wow.
Three different Ohio ice creams.
Yeah, and the Graters was clearly the best and also clearly my favorite.
But the crazy thing about Graters is if you hold a pint of Graters in your hand and then you hold a pint of like briars at a grocery store, the Graters is literally like twice as heavy because it's so calorie dense.
So that's one of the reasons why it tastes better.
Is there a vacation spot that you and your kids are dying to go to that you have not been?
I really, yeah, I really want to go to Hawaii.
So Usha's been to 49 states.
I've been to 48.
The 50th for both of us will be Alaska.
The one that she's been to, I haven't.
It's Hawaii.
And we all really want to go to Hawaii at some point in the next couple of years.
Hopefully we can find some excuses, vice president of the United States, to go to Hawaii.
Kamala Harris went to Hawaii, so we should be able to find some excuse to go to Hawaii, but it just seems so beautiful.
I love mountains and just like, you know, like West Virginia is my perfect vacation spot because the streams, the beautiful greenery, the mountains.
I'm not much of a beach guy, but like Hawaii, you get the beautiful mountains.
You also get the beach.
So, you know, each of us gets something we like between my kids, some of whom like the beach, and then one of our kids and me who likes the mountains.
So are you a sauna or a cold plunge kind of guy?
I'm a sauna guy, but I have done cold plunge.
It is very painful and I don't like it.
And so, yeah, that's not going to be for me.
What does your perfect day look like to you from sunrise to sunset?
So I just had my birthday and it's basically my birthday.
Are you a big birthday guy?
Not really, but you know, Usha makes a big deal out of it.
And I had a really good day.
We woke up, we took the kids canoeing down the little Miami River in southwestern Ohio.
And then I played golf and then I had a really delicious meal and ice cream for dessert.
That's my perfect day.
And if you had, if you could have dinner with three people, living, dead, alive, what do you got?
Who are the three people you're inviting to dinner?
Okay.
Three people I'd invite to dinner: let's say Isaac Newton, Donald Trump, and Abraham Lincoln.
Who's monopolizing the conversation?
I'm not going to answer that.
And with that, we will say thank you for joining the Katie Miller podcast.
Thank you so much, Mr. Vice President, for doing this with me.