MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
U.S. Senator J.D. Vance from Ohio gave his first address as Donald Trump's pick for vice president last night at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
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J D VANCE: Together, we will make sure our allies share in the burden of securing world peace. No more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer.
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MARTIN: Some conservatives - let's say, more traditional conservatives - have balked at Vance's positions on foreign policy, which was a focus of the convention last night. So did his remarks alleviate any of those fears? And apart from that, how did his introduction to the voters go? We've called Sarah Isgur to get her take. She is a former spokesperson for the Justice Department during the Trump administration, and she is an editor at The Dispatch. That's a news and opinion outlet which is, in their words, informed by conservative principles. Good morning, Sarah.
SARAH ISGUR: Good morning.
MARTIN: So let me just get your take on how Senator Vance did. What impression did he make on people who aren't familiar with him?
ISGUR: Well, I mean, certainly, when you have two people nearly octogenarians running for president, having a 39-year-old on the stage was a break from our politics of boomerism of late. I think that J.D. Vance - you know, he is a bestselling author. There's a movie about his life. I think that voters were expecting a populist, firebrand senator, and that's what they saw.
MARTIN: So the theme of the convention last night was foreign policy. I mean, you know, conventions usually do that - they pick something to focus on each night - and Vance takes the view that, overall, the U.S. should be less engaged on the world stage. You know, that's a position conservatives have taken, off and on, throughout history, but Vance has been one of the most vocal opponents of aid to Ukraine in the Senate, and this is aid to help a democracy - even a flawed one - invaded by a dictatorship. Is there still a constituency in the GOP that cares about that?
ISGUR: Yes and no. I think it's more helpful to think of two different political parties at this point. They're both going by the name Republican, but the Republican Party of, let's call it, you know, Barry Goldwater up until 2012, has this three legs of the stool - an American, you know, strength projected abroad as one leg, social conservatism around abortion and guns as a second leg, and a third leg around government and individual responsibility.
This thing that we're also calling the Republican Party that is under Donald Trump is something totally different. On all three legs of that stool, they have rejected conservatism, and they're moving into something else. When Donald Trump picked J.D. Vance, he was cementing, you know, not only his own sway over the party but the end of that previous Republican Party - Barry Goldwater to Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney. This is now a new Republican Party, and J.D. Vance's foreign policy is now the foreign policy of that Republican Party.
MARTIN: So, you know, you mentioned that his memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy" - he kind of - that was kind of his first foray, sort of, into public attention. And he's really leaned into this hardscrabble upbringing, and he kind of tied that to his economic policies - those protectionist economic policies that he shares with former President Trump. I mean, this is one of the statements he made. Let's - I'll just play that clip.
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VANCE: We will protect the wages of American workers and stop the Chinese Communist Party from building their middle class on the backs of American citizens.
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MARTIN: Is this an appealing message to the Republican Party that you've just described to us?
ISGUR: Clearly so. I mean, not only is Donald Trump ahead in the polls, but you're witnessing a political realignment faster and more dramatic than any that we've seen in my lifetime. You now have the Republican Party being a more blue-collar, less college-educated, less wealthy, more racially diverse party as the Democratic Party becomes whiter and wealthier. And that is working very well for the Republican Party because there's a lot more voters that fit the non-college-educated, blue-collar bucket than the other. So yes, J.D. Vance being able to reach into that crowd will work very well for the Republican Party, if he can continue it.
MARTIN: But how does that square with the last cabinet that President Trump put together, which was the richest in history, not terribly diverse, certainly not economically diverse? I mean, do people still remember that? And how does that...
ISGUR: (Laughter).
MARTIN: ...Square with this message?
ISGUR: Oh, 2016 was so long ago. Can we even remember so far?
MARTIN: (Laughter).
ISGUR: But, look, Donald Trump has become popular being an elite who rejects the elites and who's been rejected by the elites. In some ways, that's exactly J.D. Vance's story. Remember, he is a Yale Law School graduate who is rejecting the elites. This is also rejecting the limited government idea. This is the idea that, nope, we're going to build government, have big government, but for our purposes.
MARTIN: That is Sarah Isgur. She's an editor at The Dispatch. Sarah, thanks so much.
ISGUR: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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