JD Vance officially accepts VP nomination | The Excerpt
On Thursday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: JD Vance accepted his vice presidential nomination Wednesday at Day 3 of the Republican National Convention. As Republicans focus on the border at the convention, Paste BN National Immigration Reporter Lauren Villagran discusses how immigration is transforming the American South - and its politics. Paste BN National Political Correspondent David Jackson sat down with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts to discuss Project 2025. President Joe Biden continues facing calls to bow out of the presidential race. Plus, he tested positive for COVID-19 Wednesday.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning, I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Thursday, July 18th, 2024. This is The Excerpt.
Today, a look back at day three of the Republican National Convention, as JD Vance gave his first address as vice presidential nominee. Plus, we look at how immigration politics are playing out across the South, and Biden continues to face pressure to drop out.
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Senator JD Vance officially accepted his vice presidential nomination yesterday, after former President Donald Trump tapped the Ohio lawmaker as his running mate earlier this week.
Senator JD Vance:
My friends, tonight is a night of hope, a celebration of what America once was, and with God's grace what it will soon be again. And it is a reminder of the sacred duty we have to preserve the American experiment, to choose a new path for our children and grandchildren. But as we meet tonight, we cannot forget that this evening could have been so much different. Instead of a day of celebration, this could have been a day of heartache and mourning.
Taylor Wilson:
Vance, during his acceptance speech, called on Americans to send Trump back to the White House and introduced himself to voters across the country, talking about his journey from poverty to the vice presidential nomination. Trump family members also took the stage at the Republican National Convention yesterday. Donald Trump Jr. called on Republicans to fight with their vote to elect his father back to the White House. He, like many this week, alluded to the assassination attempt on Trump last weekend. And Donald Trump's seventeen-year-old granddaughter, Kai Trump, told convention attendees that she sees a side of her grandfather that most people don't see, saying that he calls her to ask how her golf game is going. Also speaking last night was Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who talked about immigration on stage.
Governor Greg Abbott:
When Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refused to even come to Texas and to see the border crisis that they created, I took the border to them. I began busing illegal immigrants to Washington, DC.
Taylor Wilson:
Abbott, in his address, referenced his controversial decision last year to send thousands of migrants by bus to various cities led by Democrats, including Washington. It's clear that immigration is playing out as a major issue for Republicans this election, and immigration and border politics are both changing the South. Historically, the region attracted relatively few immigrants. Now, immigration is transforming the region and border politics have followed. I spoke with Paste BN national immigration reporter, Lauren Villagran for more. Hello, Lauren.
Lauren Villagran:
Hey, Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
So Lauren, can you help us understand the immigration trends in the South as a whole in recent years? How are things changing?
Lauren Villagran:
Yeah, so we're in a really interesting point in our country's history, Taylor. The percentage of foreign-born people, among the total population of the United States, is reaching, or may have surpassed, the level of a hundred years ago when it was at the high watermark in the early 1900s. So it's a real watershed moment for the country in terms of immigration. And I think that's probably no surprise to listeners who are hearing about the border, border policies, and immigration on an almost daily basis. What's interesting is when you look at the patterns of where foreign-born persons are going to in the country. The places that have traditionally received immigrants, like the Northeast or the Midwest, are receiving fewer than they were in the past. And the growth of the foreign-born in the American South has been the fastest in the past 10 years.
Taylor Wilson:
And Lauren, you wrote about this woman, Grace Resendez McCaffery and her story in this part of North Florida. Would you tell us about that a bit?
Lauren Villagran:
Yeah, so it's funny. If any of your listeners know Florida, they may know that Florida has vibrant Latino and immigrant populations throughout. But folks like to say in North Florida that the farther north you go, the farther south you get. And what they mean by that is that culturally the area in Northwest Florida is really culturally southern and hasn't historically seen much immigration until very recently. You've seen, both in migration from within the country, of Hispanic US citizens and residents, as well as a migration of Hispanic immigrants. And the demographic change is putting the conversation around the border and around immigration policy front and center.
Grace Resendez McCaffery is a woman from El Paso, Texas, whose grandparents immigrated to the United States. She moved to Pensacola 30 years ago, and although at the time she didn't speak Spanish, she has become a sort of voice for both the Hispanic and immigrant community in Pensacola. So recently, when an anti-immigrant resolution came up at a local county commission meeting, she was the one to rally the troops.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah. And so how is this demographic shift in Southern states really changing the country's political landscape?
Lauren Villagran:
It's interesting. It wasn't until 2010 that Southern state legislatures all flipped Republican. And when you look at the political change that this type of immigration has brought, it's not that immigrants are voting en masse and changing the politics, it's that the demographic change itself has helped shift the politics rightward. And Republicans have found a stronghold in the South where, according to one analyst, they're able to talk about cultural issues in a different way that motivates voters to worry about immigration and the border.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah, I want to hear a little bit more about that, Lauren. I mean, really, how are Republican immigration politics playing a role here, both in communities like the one you wrote about in Florida and really around the South?
Lauren Villagran:
I went to a local county commission meeting in a place called Santa Rosa County, which is just outside the city limits of Pensacola. And their five county commissioners, all conservative Republicans, got into a heated debate about one of the commissioner's proposed resolutions, stating that "illegal aliens," in quotes... that's the way it's written... were unwelcome in Santa Rosa County. And that all came about because residents saw a charter bus go through town, stop at a local gas station, and several dozen men got out of the bus. And folks started calling their local commissioner, saying, "Were these, quote unquote, 'illegal immigrants'?" One commissioner, James Calkins, decided to put forth this resolution stating that illegal immigrants were unwelcome in the county. Another commissioner, however, said he looked into it further and found that, in fact, the men were Mexican workers legally in the country on an H-2A temporary agriculture visa. They had just stopped to use the restroom and were on their way to pick crops in southern Florida.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, and you can read more about that with a link in today's show notes. Lauren Villagran covers the border and immigration for Paste BN. Thank you, Lauren.
Lauren Villagran:
Thank you, Taylor.
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Taylor Wilson:
If you've been listening to the show over the past few weeks, you've probably heard about Project 2025, but what exactly is it and how does it factor into this election? The conservative think tank, Heritage Foundation, is leading the project, and our own Paste BN national political correspondent, David Jackson, sat down with Heritage Foundation president, Kevin Roberts, to discuss.
David Jackson:
Dr. Roberts, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.
Dr. Kevin Roberts:
My pleasure.
David Jackson:
So I just want to start out by asking what is Project 2025?
Dr. Kevin Roberts:
David, thanks for the opportunity to visit with you. I suppose if progressive Democrats hate it, it's a good idea. And it's a good idea because it's a corrective to what's happened for too long in this country, which is over the last half century, especially since LBJ was president, progressive Democrats, the radical left, have taken over the federal government as unelected bureaucrats. Project 2025 is an attempt to restore proper constitutional order to this country. It is a set of policies. It is a menu of options. I like to refer to it as sort of the menu from Cheesecake Factory. It's every possible thing that someone might want to take on, which means there's no possible way that any president, even if he or she was really aligned with everything, would take on all of these, right? It's a manual for conservative policy thought, but it's also a database for personnel who may be chosen by the next president and his advisors to do so. That's ultimately his choice, right?
And I think the thing that the media has gotten totally wrong about Project 2025 is both some of the particular planks in it, but also, that the whole point is to be of service to any administration. Frankly, we would love it if the current administration would use it. We know that, philosophically, it's unlikely. I'm not being sarcastic in saying that, but we also know that great ideas and great people rise to the top. And if the will of the American people of this November is to elect Donald Trump and JD Vance as president and vice president, then the strength of those ideas, the strength of those people, forget about the label, Project 2025, I think will rise to the top.
David Jackson:
Well, the Democrats say it's a blueprint for a Trump administration. I mean, why are they wrong?
Dr. Kevin Roberts:
It's a blueprint only if President Trump and Vice President Vance choose it to be, right? They're the bosses. They're the guys who are going to make the decision, along with their advisors. And perhaps some historical context is helpful. The Heritage Foundation has done this since 1980, with what we then called Mandate for Leadership. I think what has made Project 2025 such a boogeyman for progressive Democrats this time around is that the conservative movement has never been this unified. We've never been this organized. We've never been this resolute, especially after the assassination attempt on Saturday, about making sure that when conservatives are in power, whether they're president of the United States, member of the US Senate, governor, mayor, that there's actually policy substance behind what they want to do.
There will always be disagreements in this country about policy direction. I think it's imperative on the left that they stop the rhetoric. Some of it's been vile and violent, some of it has led to threats on those of us on the right. That was happening before Saturday. If they want to have a policy conversation, let's be intellectually honest about it, which is why I appreciate having this conversation with you.
David Jackson:
What do you want to do with abortion policy?
Dr. Kevin Roberts:
With abortion policy, we aspire to a pro-life country, that is settled by society and culture. President Trump and Vice President Vance have charted a vision in terms of politics and policy that reflects the majority of the country, which is, let's let states focus on this. And beyond that, I think it's important to understand, on other policy areas like education... which happens to be my policy expertise, I'm a fifth-generation teacher, only went to public schools, grew up a poor kid like JD Vance... what stands in the way of people in South Texas or in the Rust Belt in achieving the success that, say, JD Vance has gotten, is that we've spent a trillion dollars in the US Department of Education, or so, since 1979. And all that's happened is that academic achievement in every demographic group has gone down. What Project 2025 charts, is a vision that updates education, that devolves power from Washington and gives it back to the states and to the people.
David Jackson:
What's your response to this claim that your plan would give the president basically unlimited power to prosecute political enemies, to eliminate education?
Dr. Kevin Roberts:
It's just not true. There's nothing in the plan that says that. I think what the Biden-Harris campaign has done is take a 100% mischaracterization of the plan, and they've spent more money on that attacking it than we have spent putting the plan together. They get one thing right, however, one thing right, amid all of that mischaracterization, so I'll give them credit, it does call for the elimination of the US Department of Education.
David Jackson:
I know Trump doesn't want to deal with Social Security or Medicare, he doesn't really want to touch it. What do you all say about those entire works?
Dr. Kevin Roberts:
We say nothing about Social Security in Project 2025. Some of the individual organizations that are part of Project 2025 might do some work on that. Keep in mind, we've got 110 conservative organizations that are part of it. But we understand that President Trump not only has an intuitive sense of where the American people are on that question and others, but he also understands that obviously he's just going to have four years to get some priorities done. And he's rightly focused on those issues on which 80% of American people agree, we've got to close the border, we've got to end illegal immigration, we have to end the nonsense of the Green New Deal. We've got to revitalize the American economy, and we have to stop being the police force around the world and actually have a very restrained sense of foreign policy. Use sparingly the military if we must, but it also has to be very lethal.
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Taylor Wilson:
As the Republican convention rolls on this week, President Joe Biden continues to face calls from his own party to drop out of the presidential race. Congressman Adam Schiff yesterday called on Biden to do so, becoming the most prominent Democratic lawmaker so far to publicly push for a different presidential nominee. House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, in individual private meetings with President Joe Biden last week, told him that his continued candidacy puts Democrats in danger of losing control of either chamber in Congress, according to news reports. Following outcries from President Joe Biden's Democratic detractors, the Democratic National Committee is now holding off on an accelerated virtual roll call vote this month to confirm Biden as their presidential nominee. Yet Democrats are still sticking to a plan to virtually nominate Biden as their party's standard-bearer before August 7th, ahead of next month's Democratic National Convention, set for August 19th to 22nd in Chicago.
We also learned yesterday that President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19, but will continue to work, according to the White House.
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Last year's strikes by both the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild, new technology, like generative AI, and a global pandemic, have all drastically changed film production in Hollywood. Adding to the issues facing the big screen, the trend of moviegoers bypassing theatrical releases to watch films at home on the small screen. So is Hollywood ready for a reboot? Henry Jenkins, professor at the University of Southern California, joins The Excerpt later today to talk about the current state of moviemaking in America with my co-host, Dana Taylor. You can find the episode right here on this feed, beginning at 4:00 PM Eastern Time.
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And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.