Josh McLaurin: Inside the Mind of JD Vance

Ken Harbaugh:

If you're a fan of Burn the Boats, hit the follow button to stay up to date with all our newest releases. Thanks, and enjoy the show.

Josh McLaurin:

If you are a woman and you hear the rhetoric coming out of not just Vance and Trump, some of the men who are pushing these bills, you can't come away in these situations without a conclusion that some of these people have personal animus towards women.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm Ken Harbaugh, and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast where experts and changemakers share their thoughts on the most pressing issues of the day.

My guest today is Josh McLaurin, a state rep in Georgia, who was JD Vance's roommate at Yale Law School, and who was the recipient of that infamous text message from JD describing Donald Trump as America's Hitler.

Josh, welcome to Burn the Boats.

Josh McLaurin:

Hey, Ken, glad to be here.

Ken Harbaugh:

I definitely wanted to get into your assessment of JD Vance's character and his hard pivot towards MAGA. But let's start on a more positive note. If I'm not mistaken, you are at that Pact rally in Atlanta with Vice President Harris. Can you give me a sense of the energy in the stadium that night?

Josh McLaurin:

Sure was. Ken, this is a weird time. I know I don't have to tell anybody that, but everything's changing so fast. And I mean, even just a couple weeks ago, people on the ground in Georgia were sort of resigned to the idea, hey, it may just not be the year for Georgia. We might still have a shot at the whole presidential, but Georgia's going to be tough. It's going to be tough to replicate the conditions we had in 2020.

That narrative is basically completely out the window now. There were some lines that Vice President Harris delivered last night that delivered not just a standing ovation, but like you got to grab your earplugs, and it's going to be sustained for a handful of seconds.

The biggest one, I think, had to be when she said, “Donald, I hope you reconsider joining me on the debate stage. But like the saying goes, you got something to say, say it to my face.”

Oh my God. I mean, people were on their feet. I mean, even just her walking in before she said a word.

Ken Harbaugh:

And she delivered that line with a smile, with an optimism and a cheeriness. She has every right, as do we all to be angry about things, but that's not the sensibility she brings to politics, and it's fantastic.

Josh McLaurin:

Totally, I think she's calm, she's relaxed. I think she knows that she's in the driver's seat at this point, and you look at these poll numbers where they're in a dead heat, I think we all have the instinct that for Trump, that's a ceiling and for Kamala Harris, that's a floor.

So, I'm looking forward to seeing what she can do over the next 98 days. And if we do talk about fascism and authoritarianism and political theory, one thing we might get into is the role that humor plays.

We're hearing voices saying we're afraid of these guys, or that they're going to be big, scary authoritarians is not really the ticket right now. The more effective strategies to be like, “Hey, maybe these guys are weird.” Or maybe deserving of a couple laughs. And I think that she's already settling into that approach.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, it suits her, it fits her because the architects of Project 2025 are frightening. Their vision for America is scary and dangerous. But I put myself in the shoes of a prosecutor like Vice President Harris, prosecuting a case against a would-be criminal or a criminal, in the case of Donald Trump.

And you're not afraid. You're not afraid in the courtroom when you're making that argument to the jury (the jury in this case being the American people). You're confident, you're bold, and the facts speak for themselves when you deliver them the way vice President Harris can.

Josh McLaurin:

Totally. I mean, I think that's certainly true of when you have some sort of power or the rule of laws intact and you can apply it to bring people to justice. But I think it's also true if we're the scrappy underdogs who are not guaranteed to win.

I mean, one of my favorite movies is Gladiator, and when Maximus is being taunted by Commodus: “Did death smile at your friend there? Did your friend smile at death?” Talking about Aurelius, and he's like, “All a man can do is smile back in the face of death.”

And so, I think not to get too dramatic or Roman Empire about it too quickly, but I think that's the general vibe. Is like look, we've been through Trump as a round one. We know Trump as a round two is going to be worse if it happens, but at this point, we're not going to let ourselves be the victim of Steve Bannon's “flood the zone with shit strategy.”

We are going to find our sense of humor. We're going to find our source of energy to fight the threat without cowering.

Ken Harbaugh:

Trump round two, if it happens, will undoubtedly be worse. And we have proof of that in things like Project 2025, which I'm sure we'll get into. And in the selection of JD Vance as his running mate, the most extreme of the sycophants auditioning for that role. You knew him when he seemed like a different person, though.

Josh McLaurin:

At this point, I might even be willing to say was a different person, not even just seem like. Because there are a couple through lines that I think make sense in terms of his personality, but the old JD is gone.

I mean, I saw somebody making like that Kanye song joke in the comments of one Instagram post, like, “I miss the old JD, straight to the go JD.” Like he was just a completely different person in terms of his principles.

And that's why in 2016 when I reached out to him, I had confidence that he would be an ally when it came to Trump, even though he had already identified as conservative, and I was a liberal.

So, he started in 2010 is when we were roommates, 2010, 2011. And he graduated in ‘13, I took one more year, graduated in 2014. But we maintained a friendly interaction or connection after that time.

And so, when Trump was on his rise and I reached out, he was honest with me. He told me a lot of really insightful, detailed analysis. I mean, it's kind of crazy in retrospect to go back and look at how on point he was.

And I think when I see comments on the internet, they generally agree. It's like wow, this guy had … he wasn't just anti-Trump. It's one thing to be anti-Trump and think the guy has got like a disgusting affect in terms of the way he talks about immigrants or women, or you name it. It's another thing to be able to explain in political theoretical terms what kind of phenomenon Trump represents.

And so, in the DM to me in 2016, he said that the Republican Party had basically been ignoring working people and not really offering them something. And he said that if the Republican Party failed to offer working people something that a demagogue would come along and replace that function and offer them something instead.

And he said, we are at that point, Trump is the fruit of the party's collective neglect. I mean, that is a sophisticated way of describing this, and it's a really searing indictment of his own political coalition. So, I think what a principled person would've done in Vance's shoes is lament the rise of Trump, recognize that he didn't really have an opportunity to plug in during that political moment.

And then look, maybe it sucks, he's got that window with his book, but wait 5 to 10 years and see if the moment passes or see if he can raise his voice like somebody like Jeff Duncan is doing now in Georgia to oppose the Trumpism moment with credentials as a Republican or a Conservative, even if you're going to get laughed at or mocked by some of your own team.

Do something like that. It's consistent with your principles but doesn't give you a U.S. Senate seat or a VP not, unfortunately, obviously he picked the other road.

Ken Harbaugh:

You say that he is a different person, suggesting that he has somehow rationalized that change. That he in fact, believes what he's saying now that there's some psychological trick that you have to employ to live with yourself going through a transformation like that.

Josh McLaurin:

I think that's right. One neat trick to become a fascist weirdo which I think he did. I mean, again, I'm not a licensed psychiatrist and I haven't spoken to the guy in years. But what appears to have happened is that he locked into a certain type of anger that he's been carrying around and made it the focus of his political identity. And then made some choices about how to channel that anger and what that means about his ultimate political coalition that he ends up with.

Because back in the day, look, I'm sure he was carrying around anger relevant to his life circumstances, you name it. Again, it's not that important where that anger comes from. But we all have stuff we work through. Like that's not that weird.

A lot of people go to therapy. A lot of people are processing trauma day in, day out in their lives. But we don't all channel that into a political philosophy that imposes restraints on other people's rights, that characterizes millions of people as childless cat ladies that must … he's used language like we need to destroy the political opposition in these private talks.

So, that's a choice. You don't wake up angry about something and then turn to that automatically. I mean, anger can be righteous. There's a difference between anger and contempt. And voters are angry. One thing that Democrats have to be careful about is we can't just say that political anger, that there's no place for anger.

People are angry about the material circumstances of their lives and should be, in many cases. Women are angry about the encroachment on reproductive rights. The elimination of those rights in some states, Project 2025 plan to restrict access not just to abortion, but the things like birth control, showing that this is an obvious culture war and born out of anger towards women. So, women have the right to be angry about that.

Voters who are on the wrong side of the economy, notwithstanding the sort of global success of the economy at this juncture, they have a right to be angry about unequal access to opportunity. But then there's a choice. Do you then say, “Well, I'm angry, therefore, my political opposition, I want to demonize them. I want to create this evil caricature of them to try to beat them in elections. I want to make the argument that they don't deserve to be part of the community. That they're not really part of American political life because they're less than somehow.”

That is what I would consider a choice of contempt. And what seems to be the case is that Trump and Vance – I mean, certainly Trump has created a political identity that revolves around contempt. As he came down the golden escalator, some of the first words out of his mouth were to define an ingroup and an outgroup, and to have contempt for the outgroup.

And so, in a nutshell, I feel like there's no policy other than maybe tax cuts for the rich and Supreme Court Justice, that really sum up the Trump administration. I think what really sums up Trumpism as a whole is this contempt. And so, it makes sense that Vance had this anger, he was carrying around. He was lamenting the fact that he wasn't going to be able to have political power, pre-2016, according to his own principles.

It makes sense that the one neat trick that he would change to ascend the way he has, is to take whatever anger he has and say, “Okay, I'm just going to give into the Trump moment. I'm going to develop and nurture a lot of contempt for the people I consider to be my political opponents. And I'm going to let that make me this true believer attack dog.”

Because you look at like the Rubios and the Burgums of the world, they just don't put on as convincing of a show. Like a lot of these empty suits who play MAGA on TV, you can tell they don't mean it.

And so, Vance I think is different for that reason. I did expect him to get picked because he has been playing it convincingly. And I think that's why.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, I wanted to ask you about that, about the thought process within the Trump campaign that led to JD Vance who has become an enormous liability. Was it partly resolved to go with JD Vance because he did that about face, because he was once so anti-Trump, and had to bend the knee the most? I mean, is there an appeal to that kind of humiliation when you're the Trump family making this decision?

Josh McLaurin:

I think that's a hundred percent right on. I think that Trump – I don’t know if the phrase gets off is appropriate for the network, but really finds joy. Or not really joy because I associate joy with something positive and grounded. But like he finds satisfaction in this idea that somebody would make such a complete about face.

JD’s somebody who is very talented, who has had mainstream commercial success in books, in business, at least with regard to his Peter Thiel relationship. He's cozy with billionaires, he's got what mainstream elites would consider power, but he chooses to spin that on vindicating Trump's sense of narcissism and ego. That's got to be potent for them.

And in fact, when I released the America's Hitler text a couple years ago, because I released it right around the time Trump endorsed Vance in April, I think of 2022, I had some friends who were concerned about me doing that, thought that I was going to somehow make Vance stronger.

And this was their exact logic, was, look, all the never-Trump stuff he said that he is noxious, reprehensible, cultural heroine, all that stuff is already out there. People know that he was against Trump. It's already been established he's a flip-flopper, and a hypocrite.

All you're doing by showing the magnitude of the flip-flop is you're juicing this aspect of the loyalty to Trump, that you're showing that he actually is one of the biggest Trump disciples and deserving of more attention.

So, I hear that, and I think at the end of the day, the public just deserves to know the magnitude of the truth. And so, that was why I made the decision to try to aid public deliberation in that respect. But I understand the other perspective.

Ken Harbaugh:

You saw glimpses of this inherent anger in JD Vance years ago when you were his roommate at Yale Law School. I have to believe that Yale was a kind of trigger for someone like JD Vance, as elite as it is, and as resentful of elites as JD Vance says he is. You wrote that the bigger deal is that he's angry and vindictive, he's the perfect fit for Trump's revenge.

Josh McLaurin:

So, this is a little awkward to think about or talk about because as a preface to my answer here, the natural human inclination, the correct inclination is to give people grace, to not harp on people's weaknesses or sources of struggle.

Like I can think of 20 friends that have anger issues or frustration issues that I would not go on a podcast to try to pick apart and needle. But I think it changes when, as we've been discussing, you are consciously deploying that anger in service of a vindictive political agenda.

So, what I would say is, I didn't have a glimpse into the depths of his life or childhood really, when I was his roommate, at least not directly. We didn't really talk about his childhood much at all. And I sort of learned along with everybody else when the book came out what the magnitude of that struggle had been like.

What I did notice is – we were in together because we were both from state schools. There were three of us in the apartment, I went to UGA, JD went to Ohio State, and there's a third roommate who went to another public school.

And so, we fancied ourselves somewhat outsiders to the Ivy League environment, we probably had similar perspectives about a number of things. There are good stories about like people drinking alcohol the first year where somebody passed out drinking alcohol too much the first year.

And there's a joke, you could tell the state school kids versus the Ivy League kids. Because the Ivy League kids are like, “Do we call an ambulance? They're freaking out.” And the state school kids are just like putting the person's feet up, putting the glass of water next to them on the night sink. Certainly, we had similar perspectives coming in.

I think one big difference between me and him is that I really embraced the law school environment at Yale and wanted to get to know it better, to make a lot of friends, to really find myself immersed in that environment.

And I ended up running the comedy show at the school, the Law Revue, not the law journal. A professor got that mistaken one time and got really mad when they figured it out that I said I was skipping their exam for the law review, that didn't play well with the academic affairs office.

But yeah, so I sort of found my footing with the law school. And look, you can critique the law school, you can parody it, you can make fun of some of those excesses. The fact that people act like elites without sort of hating it, without being so acidic, caustic in your critique of the law school that you are saying, I fundamentally don't want to be part of that community.

And so, my approach was, sure, find a way to critique it sort of inside the system, I guess you could say. And I think his approach was much more, didn't want to consider himself really a part of the community, thought of himself as external to the community and separate from it. And he did make use of the community's resources. That's one big allegation of his hypocrisy.

Now, looking back is that, well, you say that environments like Yale need to be destroyed or limited somehow, but if it weren't for that environment, you wouldn't have gotten your book deal with the connection to the professor. Maybe the clerkships in your family might have gone differently, or not at all. And so, it's a little bit – it's actually a lot a bit hypocritical to say that that environment somehow needs to be rejected when it's the source of a lot of your power.

In detail, I would say, I've tried to remember if there were particular stories or jokes that stand out. I mean, I would just sound petty, and it wouldn't be that persuasive to try to pick like one sarcastic joke that I heard every now and then.

But what I would say is, when you're in a group and the humor feels good versus the humor feeling bad and disempowering. I mean, if all somebody wants to do is sort of be a hater, that's not necessarily a fun object of humor for a group to focus on.

And I kind of got the sense early in our first year at law school that, okay, this style of humor that he and some other folks are engaging in is not going to sustain me. That's not the type of comedy that I'm interested in.

Sure, did that one kid from Yale undergrad say something ridiculous on the schoolwide listserv because he's had a silver spoon in his mouth his whole life? Sure, that certainly happens right from time to time, but that doesn't mean that you need to think of yourself as perpetually an outsider to that community. It just means sort of negotiating the tension.

And so, I don't know if I can be more specific than that, but I guess I would just say, at the end of the day, Republicans make fun of Democrats for being like snowflakes or weak or soft or whatever the allegation is, and I would argue that the real strength is being able to exist in diverse spaces and not feel so insecure about it that you feel like you have to go befriend Peter Thiel and spend millions or billions of dollars reshaping American society.

Ken Harbaugh:

Yeah. Well, my takeaway – and I was a couple of years before JD Vance, but we knew a lot of the same people, is that his anger is authentic. And I think that has enormous appeal for Trump world. You feel the anger when he's lashing out at childless cat ladies. And strangely, I think one of the best interviews that gets at this was on Fox News. I'm going to play the clip right here.

[Clip Playing]

Fox Anchor:

When I finished the book, I felt a little worried about you. I wondered if you had really dealt with everything.

JD:

That's interesting.

Fox Anchor:

What do you think?

JD:

That's a really good question, I've never been asked this. I think that the honest answer is that I probably haven't dealt with everything, but that's part of growing up and living your life, is you're constantly dealing with this stuff and you're constantly working through it.

The book is not an effort to sort of finally work through all of these things that happened when I was a kid. It's the beginning of an effort that will probably take me for the rest of my life.

[End of Clip]

Ken Harbaugh:

So, I think there's something to that, Josh. This idea that we have a vice-presidential candidate now who has deep and serious unresolved anger issues that he is now directing towards Americans, towards his fellow citizens, towards women in particular. And people need to know that.

Josh McLaurin:

Yeah. And again, it gets risky because nobody can sit here and like diagnose from a distance. Although I know George Conway has that like his crazy pack or something that he’s trying to like level a bunch of psychiatric diagnoses at Trump from a distance.

But I got to be honest, I mean look, I'm a state senator, I've got 191,000 constituents. I've got some sense of what voters like and don't like, I guess from doing this job for a few years. People don't like trying to take too many pot shots, I think, on somebody's personal psychology, acting like you know them when you don't.

I mean, you do have to be careful about that. But what I will say is if you are a woman and your right to choose has already been taken away in one of these states that has like a six-week ban, maybe there are exceptions, maybe not a six-week banner works.

And you hear the rhetoric coming out of not just Vance and Trump, but some of the men who are pushing these bills. You can't come away in these situations without a conclusion that some of these people have personal animus towards women. And so, at the end of the day, it's like I don't need a particular diagnosis, I don't need a doctor to write a note and say specifically what's going on to understand that.

To your point, there is some sort of personal animus or really, a cultural animus too. It's not just one-on-one, but kind of hating or having contempt for an entire class of people. Like this childless cat ladies comment.

And again, that's not just a one-off comment either. That's not a slip of the tongue on one interview, this is like a consistent message that has been appearing in interviews with Vance and radio or podcast appearances, private meetings for some time now.

So, this is like a systematic fixation that American life, particularly the nuclear family, has to look a certain way. That it's not just policies like tax credits and voluntary carrot style policies that where we want to get to their concept of a family. They want to control other people's ability to plan a family.

And so, yeah, I mean, I think that even though we're not armchair psychiatrists, I think it's safe to call this out for what it is, and call it weird and creepy.

Ken Harbaugh:

The evidence is in the policies (the pronouncements, of course) which are going to have that direct impact on the American people.

You're right, we don't need the diagnosis because we have Project 2025. We have what he has said about what he wants to do. He is writing the forward or has written the forward to the publication of Project 2025 and what it proposes for women is shocking.

And then there are the pronouncements, JD Vance saying that there needs to be a federal response if women seek to leave their states to get medical care. Yeah, I don't think we need to be psychiatrists to understand that there is something very menacing at work here.

Josh McLaurin:

Totally. Again, it kind of gets back to this point about fear versus humor. It's really hard to thread the needle and translate real fear of these outcomes into a workable political strategy. But again, and we'll bring it back to the rally, I thought that Vice President Harris did a fantastic job of conveying some of these talking points that we've seen people workshop on the internet on like Twitter style spaces.

She broke it down at one point, she rehashed all the points in Project 2025, but then she said, “Guys, I mean, isn't this just kind of weird?” And it's not like a schoolyard mockery thing. It's not name-calling.

Vivek Ramaswamy, another classmate from this same era at Yale got in his feelings a little bit about Twitter and said, “Hey guys, this is a presidential election. This is not just name-calling, come on guys, cut the crap.” I think is what he said.

And of course, after years of Republicans calling Democrats pedophiles and groomers and all the worst names you could imagine, now suddenly, the Republican Party is committed to certain standards of decency and avoiding name-calling it seems.

But no, I think a little light spritz from Democrats of being honest about, “Hey, this is creepy, this is weird,” I think that's the right way to thread this needle where we're acknowledging the real fear, the real negative consequences that are coming, but we're keeping a light enough spirit about it to try to invite people to agree with us rather than browbeat them and say, “If you don't vote with us, all hell will break loose.”

So, I think Kamala Harris and the whole team are doing a great job of threading that needle right now.

Ken Harbaugh:

The weirdest thing to me about JD Vance's projected anger, his outward facing anger, is how petty it often becomes. The childless cat lady comment, obviously, the most famous example of petty anger directed at a whole class of Americans.

But then there's this one, and I'm bringing it up now because we just finished the Olympic Games, and I'm a huge fan of the Women's Olympic team. Here's JD Vance taking a shot at Simone Biles back in 2020 when she decided to step away for mental health reasons.

[Clip Playing]

JD Vance:

We’ve tried to turn a very tragic moment, Simone Biles quitting the Olympic team, into this act of heroism. And I think it reflects pretty poorly on our sort of therapeutic society that we try to praise people not for moments of strength, not for moments of heroism, but for their weakest moments.

And look, being an athlete is tough. Being an athlete at that level is incredibly tough. A normal response in this moment would be to say, “It's just a shame that she's going through this. It's a shame that she quit,” but instead, what our press has done, I think has turned this into this weird therapeutic moment, let's praise her for doing this. And I think that's really where the problem here lies.

[End of Clip]

Ken Harbaugh:

Josh, I'd love your thoughts on this. You talked earlier about the importance of grace and giving people the benefit of the doubt. I think the standard has to be a little different with political leaders who are auditioning to represent all of us. But I don't think that gesture is reciprocated by today's Republican Party.

I mean, you just look at how JD Vance treats people that he wants to represent, Simone Biles among them, attacking them at their most vulnerable. There's not a shred of grace there.

Josh McLaurin:

I don't want to mince words here, and this is where, even though I'm not a veteran, I start to get a little bit personally upset about comments like this.

I mean, I serve on the Senate Veterans Committee, we talk about PTSD all the time and the real barrier that PTSD or PTS (post-traumatic stress) poses to veterans who are trying to live a normal life to access all the other pieces of the equation, housing, education, healthcare, and jobs.

Ken Harbaugh:

Can I just add, education as well, because until recently, if you were discharged (little bit of a soap box detour here) because of a PTS or PTSD-related incident and denied benefits, your avenues for appeal were incredibly limited. It has devastating effects on your ability to transition into civilian life. And I think I know where you're going because this is what-

Josh McLaurin:

I'm about to land the plane. So, one of the most critical aspects of care for veterans is the acknowledgement that if this is happening, if you have post-traumatic stress, if you have real feelings after-effects from your service, then you got to acknowledge those and confront them head on and find support, find groups who can be your supports and share these experiences.

Not just bottle them up, not pretend that everything is okay, not just charge forward. Like you're supposed to carry the whole country on your back and continue to be responsible for maybe some devastating things that you've been through.

I mean to say that Simone Biles withdrawing because of mental health is a moment of weakness, and that somehow America celebrating that is really a slap in the face of veterans because it is directly contrary to the textbook way that people, veterans and everybody else in the country with post-traumatic stress, mental health issues that need treatment.

Their health issues just like any other physical ailment that require treatment. You wouldn't say if somebody had a broken leg or cancer that we are celebrating weakness, “by giving that person treatment” or by giving that person space to heal. I mean, that's unbelievable style of rhetoric. And if it weren't so fashy, I think the focus would be its clumsiness.

Again, this idea that a politician who wants to compete on this stage is going to insult millions of people, it's just bad political hygiene. Even if morally, you just put the moral concerns aside, how can somebody get away with doing that and trying to win votes?

So, I think that the Simone Biles thing is a particularly egregious example from JD of again, projecting whatever personal issues he's got onto the national stage. And I've said multiple times on the last couple weeks that men obviously, would rather run for office than go to therapy. And condemning other people's weakness seems like some of the barest, like least well-disguised projection imaginable.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm glad you said projection. And again, not going to diagnose JD Vance's own mental state and possible PTS. But the further stigmatization of someone going through a mental health crisis seeking help for that has cascade effects. It deters other people from getting help. And I have zero patience for that as a vet.

And I will say directly to the point JD is trying to make about celebrating people's weakness by getting help, some of the bravest things I've seen people in uniform do was get help and talk about it. That likely saved as many lives as they may have saved downrange in combat, just by setting that example.

There was an Air Force general who published his schedule at one point showing a weekly therapy session because he wanted to make that statement. And I found that one of the bravest things I've ever seen.

So, anyway, you can tell I'm getting angry now. But hopefully, righteously angry because I cannot stand, especially when veterans do that. And JD as a veteran needs to be called out by vets like me.

He has become a massive liability for the Republican ticket. The irony there is that he's actually pretty representative of today's Republican Party, and that's an opportunity we cannot let go as Democrats.

Josh McLaurin:

It's interesting. It’s kind of your point about he's locked into the ticket and he's weighing them down. I mean, on the one hand, I would like to see him replaced because I do think he's the most dangerous pick. On the other hand, from an electoral game perspective, it seems like he's going to be the candidate who weighs down the ticket the most.

So, it reminds me of 2022 in the midterm elections throughout the country when Democrats were making these calculated gambles that they could boost Republicans in primaries who were the most MAGA candidates with outside spending independent expenditures, that sort of thing, so that the general election would feature the swing district Democrat versus kind of the craziest MAGA Republican you could imagine.

And I was really scared of that strategy to be totally honest. Early or late 2021, early 2022, I thought I don't think we should be playing with fire like that. We all still have literally PTS from the Trump administration, why are we playing with this fire and potentially putting a lot more MAGA candidates in plate?

But you know what, the elections did their job, they worked, Democrats actually were fairly successful in 2022 in boosting MAGA candidates throughout the country and in primaries, and then beating them in general elections.

And so, we see this in Georgia too with the Senate race between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker, that was decided at the same time. Herschel Walker became the MAGA candidate, notwithstanding that he ran the ball well for Georgia and was a point of pride in an apolitical sense.

But he became full on MAGA, and he just got humbled with story after story about personal impropriety, financial impropriety. Couldn't really put a few sentences together on policy in a way that satisfied even I think the people in lieu.

So, we had a very weak candidate in the Republican side, and that's why even though Brian Kemp continues to insist that Georgia is a red state, not purple state – we elected two democratic senators, one of them twice in the last couple years.

So, what I think might be happening (I'm putting my political pundit hat on here), is MAGA continues its years long takeover of the Republican Party. 2016 was actually early, Trump won the presidency, but that didn't mean that MAGA had completely overtaken all of the leavers of the Republican Party.

And when you have guys like … is it, Michael Steele? I think that's his name, a former GOT chair who's now like vocally anti-Trump. You can see that this thing actually takes longer than people thought.

The MAGA takeover of the Republican party is still ongoing. I mean, people like Mitt Romney still have a Senate seat, but you might imagine fast forwarding to a time, let's say knock on every wood that Vice President Harris is successful this year.

You're going to have an immediate coming of Jesus moment where the Republican Party has to do what it didn't do for the last eight years, which is say, “Okay, are we going to finally put this to bed or not? Because it's destroyed enough of our party.”

And I think at that point, you would see some sort of like civil war within the GOP where people like JD Vance, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Bobert, Matt Gaetz, those folks are going to try to continue the MAGA insurgency, and then maybe just maybe, you get enough mainstream or established Republicans who are just sick and tired of losing who say, “We're not going to give this one more breath there.”

But certainly, we continue to walk down that road, and look, from a Democrat's perspective, if they want to keep putting up crazy MAGA candidates in swing districts, swing states throughout the country, keep going guys. And we'll continue to put up our victories.

As long as the election mechanisms themselves stay intact, and that's a big if because you've got the Project 2025 style people who are thinking about how to get local election boards, state election boards, secretaries of state on board with the idea of massive resistance to certifying results. As long as you can avoid that outcome, which is a big if, I think the system is going to continue to reward the normie candidates against this MAGA insurgency.

Ken Harbaugh:

I hope you're right. I think you're right. Do you have a prediction for Georgia? I say this as an Ohioan, constantly disappointed by the direction my state has taken. Georgia seems to be headed in the other direction.

Josh McLaurin:

Again, going back to our very first comments today – going to that rally last night, looking at what has happened over the last week or so, we just got a new poll out, I think maybe PPP, that Harris is up 48, 47 in Georgia. The winds are changing. And Harris herself said last night, she is aware that the paths to the White House goes through Georgia.

Now, we might feel like, “Oh, you say that to all the states,” but I think she means it. There's a reason why she picked Atlanta as her first post-announcement, big rally, to make her debut, to put a stamp on the identity of her campaign as some local media saying. And I think there's a reason why Trump and Vance are rushing to go to not just the same city, but the exact same venue this Saturday.

So, they've booked the same convocation center. I don't know why they would want to compete with our numbers. Trump famously obsessed with how many people show up. We had like 19,000 registrations and only 10,000 were allowed to go in the building.

So, go off Trump. If you think you can match those numbers, be our guests. But I think it really says a lot. They're trying to basically play our playbook about a week later that we are playing it. And it also reaffirms completely that Georgia is not just in play but may be the center of the world again this year.

Ken Harbaugh:

Do you think the Republicans are going to start limiting JD Vance's public appearances, or at least being more careful with them? Because it seems like every time he's out there, he just provides more fodder for his critics. He just says the dumbest things.

Josh McLaurin:

Well, I'm guessing they may have taken Diet Mountain Dew out of his greens. Well, I'm not a hundred percent sure how they've handled that. But no, certainly, I mean, they're not paying attention too closely to some of this stuff, it seems like. He made a reference to a couch-

Ken Harbaugh:

I don't want to go there except to say that there's this disinfo swirling around, I'm frankly enjoying it. I'm not going to keep spreading it. But at a podium, he said something about offending his wife and he might have to end up on the couch that night.

Josh McLaurin:

I'm with you, I don’t want to go into the disinfo or try to amplify that. I just think from the perspective of like a campaign hygiene point, that it's funny to think that like his handlers have to worry about that. You've got to say, “Hey man, maybe don't give more fodders to the people who are doing this,” and at this point, if you are a disciplined candidate, you would avoid even saying that word.

But no, this is the prime-time, man. This is the big stage, and he has to compete on a level he's never competed at. Obviously, he's a junior senator, he’s only been around for a couple years. And look, I have said in interviews, I think he's a smart guy. I think he's capable of a lot.

I personally thought back in 2010 that he was so talented, that I could see him potentially remaking or influencing the Republican Party's direction. Because Yale law students like to flatter themselves to think that they might room with the future president or something, so they have thoughts like this. Well, in my case, this is kind of a wishing on a monkey's paw the manner in which he has come to influence the Republican Party.

But no, I mean, no doubt that he's talented, it's just that this is – look, even talented people, you put them in a situation like this where they're already having to rationalize a flip-flop of such magnitude; I mean, the amount of psychic work it takes to go from where he was to where he is, coupled with how volatile American politics are and how rapid his rise has been, it's a lot.

And it's not surprising to me that he's fumbling a little bit the way he is. His campaign made fun of me in 2022 for publishing that text. And their comment on me was, “His 15 minutes are almost up.”

Listen, if my 15 minutes were going to be being Trump's Vice President, or my longer than 15 minutes, count me out. I'm perfectly happy to be in the Georgia State Senate just bumming around. And the state of Georgia sounds great in comparison to the ringer that JD is putting himself through now.

So, just like Scaramucci and many others, karma can be really quick. And I'm not envious of JD running into a big wall of karma.

Ken Harbaugh:

Your sharing of that text message from him kind of broke the dam on all of this stuff coming out to show Americans who he really is. Have you been following this new trove that the New York Times published from his very good friend from his law school days, Sophia Nelson?

Josh McLaurin:

Yeah, the overwhelming reaction of people I've talked to about that is just how sad it is. I mean, the first overwhelming reaction is they were obviously close friends. I mean, even Vance's campaign put out a statement that was more or less gracious that said that he loved them, wished the best for them.

And I think that the first reaction is to be sad that a friendship like that falls apart over something like this. But the second reaction is to think – you think about Sophia's position, they are not in the public eye, or we're not already, they're trans. They have more to lose, I think, than somebody like me to publish … just to be completely candidate.

And so, for them to make the decision to do this because of the conviction that the public deserves to know – if I were JD I mean, I would make me think twice. Not that he's going to take the opportunity meaningfully to think twice about all the decisions he's made. But it would give me pause if a dear friend of mine felt like the way that they needed to serve the country is to publish that amount of texts and emails.

And again, I'm not passing judgment one way or the other on that decision. Obviously, I published something, and I think that they're right, the public deserves to know a lot of that material. But I think the real focus, if I were JD, would just be what would drive somebody to do that. And can I really be so confident in my choices if my dear friend is willing to do that based on circumstances?

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, Josh, I am glad you did because Americans should know. I'm glad Sophia did. Thank you so much for coming on. Please keep speaking out. We got three months to go.

Josh McLaurin:

Thanks, Ken, I appreciate it. Great to join you.

Ken Harbaugh:

Thanks for listening to Burn the Boats. If you have any feedback, please email the team at [email protected]. We're always looking to improve the show.

For updates and more, follow us on Twitter at Team_Harbaugh. And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate and review.

Burn the Boats is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Our producer is Declan Rohrs and Sean Rule-Hoffman is our audio engineer. Special thanks to Evergreen executive producers: Joan Andrews, Michael DeAloia, and David Moss.

I'm Ken Harbaugh, and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions.

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