Your church comes to you each week to fill their cup, but when the crowd leaves, who's filling yours? That's exactly what I'm here to do with my new podcast from Focus on the Family. It's called Pastor to Pastor with Dave Stone. I'm so excited to help you navigate the unique challenges that pastors face in their ministry journey, both personally and professionally.
So I invite you to listen and subscribe to Pastor to Pastor wherever you get your podcasts. Certainly, everybody in the media presumes that I'm just going to run for president, right? I'm the vice president; the president's term limited, so that's what you're going to do. You're going for president. When we do make that decision, the first and most important thing is going to be: Can a campaign be consistent with the duties that I owe to my kids and to my family?
That's Vice President J.D. Vance thinking aloud about what's best for his children and family, and you'll hear more of what he had to say today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Today we have a great conversation, Jim, that you had with the vice president just a few days ago in Washington D.C. What was that experience like? It's always interesting when you're interviewing a high government official.
Just the security you have to go through is amazing, and thankfully we were there at the Naval Observatory in his home, in his living room there, and it was a great setting to be able to have this discussion. And you know, I don't really care if it's an R or a D. I want To get to know the person, what makes them tick spiritually, where they're coming from, and and then talking about the policies that help families because that's what I believe we're all about here at Focus on the Family. It was an energizing discussion I felt, and I always enjoy that, especially with someone like JD Vance. He's a very bright person who came from a very difficult background, and we basically talked about some of the book.
It's just Come out called communion, and it really does give an account for his life growing up very difficult, and then falling into atheism as a marine, and then coming out of that and realizing that faith is a central part of what he needed, and he turned to the Catholic faith. And I just really appreciate his openness, his honesty, and what you're about to hear. Yeah, I'm looking forward to this. And by the way, we'd like to remind You to stay informed on all the issues that we're facing in our world today, in our country, and facing the family. You can sign up for a free subscription to our daily citizen newsletter.
It's an email that will keep you informed on things you need to know from a Christian perspective. Sign up for free. The link is in the show notes. Let's go ahead and hear now Jim's conversation with Vice President J.D. Vance on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
Mr. Vice President, it's great to have you on. Focus on the family. Thank you. It's good to be with you.
Appreciate it. Thank you for the many mentions that you've given to Focus in both the Senate time and then as Vice President. Yeah, yeah. James Dobson was—he was very influential to me.
Now you had to be a young man when that when you were listening to him. I was. Yeah, I actually remember talking to one of my my best friend's moms about it because she was kind of surprised. I was fourteen or fifteen, and she was surprised I would listen to him. He would go on like.
Larry King live too, and do things like that, and I just thought, you know, he was a very wise guy. He clearly had a lot of interesting thoughts about the world, and I just always naturally gravitated towards him for for whatever reason, even as a teenager. I think, you know, I have a similar feeling toward him, and you know, I think that father hole may have been part of that for both of us. You know, you and I share similar backgrounds, not exactly the same, but I lost my mom at nine and my dad at eleven, and lived with my brother through high school. That was that was a Roller coaster ride that it was, but for you, what was that early childhood experience?
Where were you at? What what was taking place? Your dad, your mom, etc. Yes, it was pretty chaotic.
So you know, I was born in southwestern Ohio, and like a lot of people in southwestern Ohio, my family had come from eastern Kentucky.
So, sort of coal mines, the deep poverty of Appalachia, and my family moved to southwestern Ohio because that's where the steel mill jobs were. And so, I was raised by my Grandparents mostly because my my mom struggled with addiction and so was sort of in and out of my life. Very sweet person, she's been clean and sober for eleven years. But particularly those first ten or so years of my life was just a lot of chaos. You know, bit of a revolving door of father figures.
You know, step dads, boyfriends, people who would come in and out. And my own dad was was again he was a very good man, but he had actually given me up for adoption when I was five years old, and so he was just not in the picture real. At all from the time I was five until I was twelve, and then you know, amazingly, I think by the grace of God, a lot of things happened. When I was twelve or thirteen, my grandfather unfortunately passed away. My father then reentered my life.
My my grandmother sort of where I'd been bouncing around a little bit. I decided to just go and live with her full time, which gave me some stability.
So even though things were a little chaotic and unconventional, I did have that rock, and that rock was my grandmother. Yeah, and in that context, when you look at your life, look at what has happened, you become vice president. Yeah, and that's crazy. It's amazing, man. I mean, when you look at it, yeah, how?
You know, I don't know. Maybe God just always had a plan. Maybe I was lucky. It's probably a little bit of a combination of both things. But I do think, you know, I was talking to somebody.
Is a friend of mine, and he was fascinated just by my story. And this was before I ever got into politics, but he said that he actually talked to a child psychologist, and that person said the thing that is always common among kids who come from rough backgrounds but are able to make something of themselves, the thing that's always common is that they have one person in their life, whether it's a teacher, an aunt, or an uncle, a grandparent who is their anchor. And for me, that really was my mammal, and she. Was you know in some ways a very devout Christian, and other ways a very unconventional woman. You know she she cursed like a sailor.
You know I've I've to this day never quite gotten rid of my foul mouth because I was raised by a woman who would drop the f bomb all the time. But she also, you know, she she would read the Bible, pray multiple times per day. She was also very tough. You know, I remember when I was twelve or thirteen years old, and I was hanging out in the neighborhood with a kid who was sort of known to be getting into drugs. And she said, "J.D., if you ever hang out with that person again, then I'm going to run him over with my car, and nobody will ever find out about it." And you believed it.
And I believed it. Yeah. And because it was Mamaw. You know, people just believed her, and they recognized that she had this toughness to her, and they were afraid of her. I mean, people were legitimately terrified of my grandmother.
She had nineteen handguns when she died; all of them were loaded and stacked around the house.
So she was a tough old bird. Oh, yeah. And because of that, she was able, I think, to direct my pathway in the right way. And through the high school years, I mean, you were you going in and out of a commitment to the Lord, or I mean, describe what it was like. And then Marine Corps, yeah, build that in because you really walked away from anything faith wise, right?
Yeah, that's right, that's right.
So, you know, the the because Mamal in I realized this in hindsight that Mamal was my attachment to my faith.
So she loved the Lord. We would read the Bible all the time. We would pray a lot, but we didn't go to church very much, and we didn't have a great faith community. And so, to the extent that I went to church, I mentioned my dad had come back into my life, and so he was very often the person who would take me to church if I went at all. But when Mamal died, this was—I was 20 years old.
I was in the Marine Corps. I was about to leave for Iraq just a few months before I left for Iraq, and I. Just felt this emptiness, and again, with the benefit of hindsight, I recognize that she was my attachment to my Christian faith. If I had questions, if I had doubts, she is the person I would call. I didn't have a pastor, I didn't have a friend that I was really close with in the Lord, and and that just kind of disappeared.
And and as it disappeared, I think I slowly lost my faith. And so, you know, I'm a 21 year old kid. I'm in the Marine Corps. I'm interested in what every 21 year old man is, which is you know. Going to the bars, trying to meet somebody, and that kind of followed me through.
I went to Ohio State after I got out of the Marines. I was I just turned twenty three and went to Ohio State, and I just didn't have any need of it. and I and I sort of saw myself as this person. You know, I had come from nothing. I had made something of myself.
I had this real arrogance about myself, but I also Didn't realize the time I was becoming remarkably obsessed with things that didn't matter. I cared about credentials. I cared about what school I went to. I cared about what job I had. What what what amount of money I made, and there was and this is what ultimately led me back to my faith.
I write about this in the book. This recognition that the things that really mattered, like the things that Mamal cared about, those were the things that Christianity had formed in my mind, and the things that really didn't matter. Were the things that the world was forming in my mind, and I slowly developed the sense that while I was arrogant and I didn't need Jesus and I didn't need the Bible, I slowly realized the sense that without them, I was becoming a bad person. I was becoming somebody that Mammo would not be proud of.
So you could you could see that and feel that. I slowly—it's not something that hits you like a ton of bricks, but it's one of these things that just slowly started gnaw at my mind that I was going to be very successful. I knew that I was going to be. I was ambitious. I was doing well in school, but I didn't feel like I was going to be successful in the way that really mattered.
You know, one of the things—it's one of the toughest questions I'll get asked after I speak about a very similar childhood. Yeah, and I want to ask this of you because it's a difficult one for me to answer, which is like not holding resentment for your bad dad. Sure, the tough things that happened to you. How have you so easily? They'll say often.
Given that up, and they don't know. There's those days. It wasn't easy, and there wasn't a prescription that you can follow. Sure, it's just something you have to do. Yeah, you got to let go of people that have hurt.
You. That's right. And let go of those emotions, or it will kill you. Yeah. And look, I I I'm a big believer that that grace is the process by which that happens.
I don't think that I could have done it by myself. I was an incredibly resentful 24 year old kid, and in fact, I remember thinking to myself, "I'm going to go further, and I'm going to achieve more, just despite the people who weren't there for me." Right? There was this real sense of resentment, and I guess the a couple of things helped. Help me, but again, for me, it was very much a process. I think number one is you have to be humble.
And you have to recognize that because we are all fallen creatures, maybe we're fallen in different ways. In the same way that somebody else wronged you, you will wrong somebody else. Like I'm a super present and active father, but I'm sure that in 20 years, my kids will look back on something and say, "Well, Dad screwed that up," or maybe Dad was too tough, or maybe Dad lost his temper that one time. And I think that recognition breeds a certain humility, a recognition. That you know, as Jesus says in the Lord's Prayer.
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And I think you have to do those things simultaneously. You have to be willing to forgive other people, because I think that spirit of forgiveness and grace is something that will be extended to you. How in the world do you do that in politics? I mean, I watch from a distance.
I admire you guys that can actually have those debates, because it's become so visceral. You know, it really has. It has. I know the stories. You know, before us, like the old-time politicians talk about going to dinner together, both Republican and Democrat, and they had.
Some friendship behind the scenes, yeah, doesn't feel like that anymore. You know, there's something C.S. Lewis once said that was that's definitely influenced how I think about this, which is that, you know, sometimes you don't feel the thing in your heart, but you still have to will yourself to do it. Right, you have to try, even though the feelings aren't always there.
So, yeah, sometimes a Democrat or somebody in the media will say something to me, and I'm not going to lie to you and say that I have this like. Christian charity that just wells up inside me.
Sometimes I hate that person, but but what I do try to remember is that that part of the will that even though I may not feel particularly charitable towards that person, I have to constantly remind myself. I have to pray for that person. And again, I think this is the process by which Christ ultimately acts on human beings and transforms us. Is that you may not always feel the right way, but if you try. Even if you try only twenty percent of the time, slowly those seeds of grace blossom into something bigger.
And and man, I am as imperfect on this as anybody. I do not always feel charitable towards my political enemies. I sometimes see them saying things about me that are just obviously lies and obviously dishonest. But you know, I think I am probably better at it than I was three years ago. And maybe that is ultimately the lesson of the Christian gospel: is you walk on the road, you don't always.
Sprint on the road. Maybe sometimes you take two steps backwards and three steps forwards, but you just got to try, man.
Well, you give me hope. Give me hope because you know, in so many people today, it's what's driving us and driving the the separation. And we we've got to find some common ground to work together on some things. Let's finish that part of the story, though. You get out of the Marines, you did well.
You went to Yale Law School. Sure, that's a big achievement. Sure. And where does the Lord connect with you again? How do That happen, yeah.
So, so some of it is, is honestly intellectual. I was, I was very interested in political philosophy and, and sort of how was it that human beings arranged their societies, and so I became increasingly intrigued by the ancient Christian philosophers, and I started thinking, well, if they have something smart to say, then maybe that comes from a deeper well of truth, right? I became obsessed with this ancient Christian thinker Augustine, and who wrote this. Book called the City of God, which I read in a college class, and I was like, "This is way smarter than anything else that I've read about politics or life." But, but more personally, you know, I'm having this like reflection on I'm in law school. I'm going to make more money than anybody in my family has ever made, right?
I'm, I'm, I already know that I'm going to have, you know, a privilege that nobody else in my family has ever had. But like, am I actually good at the things that Mamal cared about? Am I going to be a good husband? Am I going to be a good father? And that.
Sort of came into particularly sharp focus because, you know, I fell in love and I met a girl and I was like three weeks into it. I was like, "This is the girl I'm going to marry. This is the girl that I I want to be with." And at the same time, like I had a temper. I was not a particularly good boyfriend. I had not sort of developed these relationship virtues, and I started thinking to myself, "Well, there is there is an emptiness here.
There is something that's missing here," and I didn't quite know how to articulate. But you know, there were people who would pop into my life who would sort of, hey, come to church with me, and hey, maybe if Augustine's right about you know how to organize human society, maybe he's also right about Jesus, and and those sort of conversations started happening at the same time that I had this void, and you know, eventually it got to the point where it's like, you know what, maybe I want to go to church regularly again, and then and then maybe like. You keep on walking down that path of maybe, and now you know I'm married. I've got four kids, and we go to church every Sunday.
So again, it's it's this to me. The lesson of my life is fundamentally that grace is an imperfect process. Like I would constantly take two steps forward and then five steps backwards. It's it's uneven, but that's often the way that God makes it. It's so good.
And how how long have you been married now?
So we were married in 2014.
So I guess just over 12 years now, and we've got four kids, including a three-month-old. Which you know, it's fun. With so much fun, so many people say to me, "It's awesome to see a vice president with young kids." Yeah, and because we just don't see it that often anymore. People in politics, it's rare that they have young kids because they're typically older. Yeah.
So at least you're you're helping younger families say, "Okay, maybe we should have children." Yeah. Let me ask you. We do try. I mean, like obviously, the balance of our lives is we want to try to protect the kids' privacy as much as possible. Yeah, but we also just try to live in the world with them and try to show people that, like, yeah, sometimes they're going to be misbehaved and sometimes they're going to get off at Air Force Two in their pajamas.
Right. But we we just try as as much as possible to like be parents in the world and show that it's possible. Yeah. And that is something that that we try to do in our own personal way. It's so funny, young parents or actually young couples that don't have kids yet.
Gene and I did this. We'd go. To Walmart grocery shopping, and we'd see the mom with the out of control five year old going. When we have children, we will never be in that spot. And it's like God keeps a scorebook, right?
Yeah, that's absolutely right. Then you have kids, and they're the out of control kid at the grocery store.
So yes, it happens to us all.
Something you said that caught me just the other day, actually. You mentioned, and I'm sure the media has run with this, about contemplating. Your next step, your future potential run as president, yeah, but. Hesitating, it sounded like because you have to think about your wife and kids and the demands of the job. It is probably the most demanding job in the world.
And you said you have these young children. Fill that in for me a little bit because I think it's so important for the listeners, other young men professionals and women too, saying, "Okay, do we need to pay that much attention to our children when we're looking at career opportunity?" Yeah, and I think the answer is, "Of course you do," right? And I think that the The context for that answer is that everybody who I know. Certainly, everybody in the media presumes that I'm just going to run for president, right? I'm the vice president; the president's term limited, so that's what you're going to do.
You're run for president, and I think the honest answer is that yeah, I've given it some thought, but I just haven't thought that much about it, and it's not the sort of decision I'm going to make until I have to make it. And I was just trying to be honest about the fact that when when we do make that decision, the first and most important thing is going to be. Can a campaign be consistent with the duties that I owe to my kids and to my family? And that is the most important question. I think that if you're not thinking about those things, if you're the sort of person who would be willing to sacrifice your family in order for ambition, then you should never be president to begin with.
So, of course, that's going to be the first question I ask. That is excellent, and I think you're right.
So many professionals we don't think of our kids. And we let them suffer for our advancement, and we're suffering the the cost of that. But I think that's absolutely right. And look, nobody is ever sitting on their deathbed thinking, "I wish that I had spent less time with my kids for that promotion," or "I wish I had spent less time with my kids so that I would have, you know, a few more dollars in the bank." I really do. There's this.
He's he's very much a critic of mine, but he once his name's David Brooks, but he once said something about resume virtue. Versus elegy virtues. Like, what is it that you want people to say at your funeral, and what does it say on your resume? And I just really strongly believe that most people ultimately are not going to care what was on their resume. They're going to care what other people say about them at their funeral.
Right. If they have wisdom, that is so true. Yeah. Let me ask you. With young kids, my boys are in their twenties.
Okay.
So I'm kind of through that part of it, but you know what? A different part. Right. Yeah. Small kids, small problems.
Big kids, big problems. Yeah. Somebody once told me that the the first ten years kids are physically exhausting, the next ten years kids are emotionally exhausting, and the ten years after that they're financially exhausting.
So you're in the financially exhausting part. Couldn't be truer than you said it. The but in that context, you know, focus on the family. We are a resource center for parents, for marriage, etc. I'm really proud of the work we do to keep families together.
But should be but in that context. You know the rise right now in social media issues, concerns about loneliness, depression, anxiety. I mean, CDC: fifty percent of fourteen to twenty-four year olds now expressing some level of anxiety or depression. Both, I guess, as a father and as a politician, what do you see as some remedy to help parents cope with this?
Well, I'm a big believer, and we practice this in our own life. That you know, social media now. Our kids are still pretty young. Our oldest is nine, but that that we don't fully appreciate the effects of social media on kids. And I suspect that while there are benefits to any technology, the downsides of social media on kids is very, very powerful.
And I do think that it's very easy to sort of self-segregate and be atomized and lonely when you can just go on the internet and find somebody in some corner of the world, even if it's a bot, who confirms what you think or what you believe. Right. I also believe. I mean, I'm fundamentally a really strong believer that human beings, God created us to be social creatures, and that interaction with one another, the disagreement, sometimes the conflict, the recognizing that I might. Think something, but that it runs against the reality of another person's thoughts or feelings, is like fundamentally the way that we grow as human beings, and certainly that's that's been true in my marriage, but it's been true in any friendship that I've ever had.
And one of the things I'm concerned about in technology is, you know, when you go on a chatbot or you, you know, I have a friend of mine who's who knows somebody who actually used ChatGPT as a marriage counselor.
Well, the problem with that is that's not a real human being, and so the feedback loop is, oh, you're right about this, and your feelings are right about that, and your feelings are right about that, and that's the way to turn yourself into just, I think, a fundamentally distorted person.
So, but I do think that we probably need to do more, and we need to go further as a society because there's something about this digital technology that I think does create atomized human beings, and I don't think we fully appreciate the effects yet. Definitely, the increase of loneliness—the most connected generation, the loneliest generation. We're near the end here, and I—I wanted to ask about your friendship with Charlie Kirk as well. I really appreciated the way he grew in the role that he had. Me too.
I think some of the most compassionate answers he gave on campuses to people that were questioning their gender. I mean, loving and kind responses, saying, "Get help for your mind. Find a way to." Love your body that God gave you. Yeah, I thought that was brilliant. It was, and but he was your friend.
He was, and he was assassinated. And you think about that again—the violence in this country, the direction it's going—that if you speak your mind peacefully on a college campus, you could end up being shot. Sure. That's crazy. It is crazy, and you know the basic and fundamental and most important thing that we can do as leaders is to call it out when we see it.
And my view, whatever your politics, whether you voted for me or not, is that the way to win a debate in the United States of America is to put your ideas forward and try to win the argument. It is not to try to destroy the life of somebody because you disagree with them. That principle, the idea that we win arguments through open Free debate and not through violence is, in some ways, the foundational principle of our entire society. We don't force people to adopt our religion. We try to persuade them that Jesus is the Son of God.
We don't shoot somebody because they disagree with us. We try to persuade them that they should adopt our point of view, and at the very least, we vote against their candidates when they put them forward. That principle. By the way, I think is the most important. I should say the most important, but it is an important Christian principle, because if you understand your fellow man as made in the image of God, you don't murder them, you don't commit violence against them, you respect them enough to try to persuade them.
You know, there's a number that's been floated that about 30 million Christians don't show up at the polls. Yeah. That's a big number. That's a big number. If we want to change the country, if we want to preserve those things that have made America a great place to live, the greatest place to live, what would be your best pitch to say, "Don't hold back." I mean, now is the time to fight for our country, and the best way to do that is through the polls.
You know, I my my pitch and I my suspicion is that many of those thirty million Christians are people like my grandmother, who were people of devout faith, but maybe felt like they just didn't have a political home. You know, maybe they agreed with the Democratic Party on this issue, but they agreed with the Republican Party on that issue, or maybe they just didn't think it mattered. Yeah. And and what I would say to those Christians is the way to make it matter, but also the way to make our politics. More like you is to participate in the process, and I would love it.
I think that our our politics would be so much more humane. It would be so much more charitable, but it would also be much wiser if those thirty million Christians got involved. By the way, it would change things. It would meaningfully transform the way that both Democrats and Republicans interacted with the process, and that's a good thing. But you can't do that if you sit at home.
And those thirty million Christians that. Block, you take half of those people and make them a block of voters. American politics would never be the same. We would transform our country for the better.
So get out there and vote. The country needs it, but I think most importantly, if you want America to be more like the faith that you know is true, the only way to do that is to get out there and vote. And that 30 million is on top of the the 60 million that do vote. Yes, so that's a big block. A big block, Mr.
Vice President. Thank you for being with us. This has been really great, and we'll pray for you, and certainly President Trump and the administration, and everyone in Congress, both Democrat and Republican. We appreciate that. You'll be in my prayers as well.
God bless you guys. Thank you. Well, today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, it was great to hear a little bit about the Vice President JD Vance, his life, his thoughts about things that families care about. Yeah, John, it was a great discussion. Like you said, and JD said it, we're not going to agree on every policy issue or platform, but as Americans, I hope we can do better at having civil dialogue with our friends and family on the issues that matter to us most, while understanding that.
We're all created in the image of God. Start with a position of humility. You know, we have an incredible privilege to vote and try to shape policy that lifts up traditional marriage and supports families while protecting preborn babies and defending religious freedom. Those are the things that we care about. It focus on the family.
So be sure and vote. Don't be part of the thirty million that haven't shown up. Be part of it. If you're not registered yet, there are some states that still allow voter registration between.
Now and election day, so check your state laws. Then remember to pray over the issues and for our leaders, regardless of the letter behind their name or what office they're holding. It's just good to pray for everyone. First Corinthians seven fourteen says, "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land." So let's stay on our knees. In prayer, yes, absolutely, and of course, stay informed as well through the year by subscribing to our free e-newsletter called Daily Citizen.
You'll get an update every day, Monday through Friday, on issues from a Christian perspective. The link is in the program notes. Also, if you can support the ministry with a gift, whether that's a one-time gift or a monthly gift, it really helps us to continue offering hope and encouragement to families, to marriages, saving pre. Babies, and sharing the gospel, millions of families are counting on us every day, and your gifts make it possible.
So thank you for your support. Our number is eight hundred, the letter A, and the word family, or look for the contact information in the show notes. And thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller, inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Your church comes to you each week to fill their cup, but when the crowd leaves, who's filling yours?
That's exactly what I'm here to do with my new podcast from Focus on the Family. It's called Pastor to Pastor with Dave Stone. I'm so excited to help you navigate the unique challenges that pastors face in their ministry journey, both personally and professionally.
So, I invite you to listen and subscribe to Pastor to Pastor wherever you get your podcasts.
