Vice President JD Vance on Augustine, Mamaw and the Power of Faith

In an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with Vice President JD Vance taped last week at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. and airing today across the country, Focus on the Family President Jim Daly and the vice president discussed the former Ohio senator’s difficult childhood, his unlikely rise to the Ivy League and the consequences of a deep commitment to his faith and growing family.

Vice President Vance first burst onto the national scene in 2016 with the publication of his bestselling book, Hillbilly Elegy, a personal memoir and an analysis of the working-class frustrations that led to President Trump’s election later that same year.

In August 2016, several months before Mr. Trump’s victory, The New York Times’ Jennifer Senior praised the book – and Mr. Vance. She wrote that the future vice president offered “a compassionate, discerning sociological analysis of the white underclass that has helped drive the politics of rebellion…”

When it comes to JD Vance, the Old Grey Lady has since changed her tune.

Jim Daly began his conversation with the vice president by noting that President Trump’s second-in-command had recently expressed his admiration for Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson. 

“I was 14 or 15, and [a family friend] was surprised that I would listen to him,” VP Vance told Daly. “He would go on Larry King Live, too, and do things like that. I just thought 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 whatever reason, even as a teenager.”

Vice President Vance, whose mother struggled with addiction and whose father was in and out of his life, speaks lovingly of his grandmother, who raised him. Known affectionately as “Mamaw,” he describes her as a “devout Christian” who nevertheless defied stereotypes. 

“She would read the Bible, pray multiple times per day,” he told Daly. “She was also very tough. You know, I remember when I was 12 or 13 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, ‘JD, if you ever hang out with that person again, then I’m gonna run them over with my car and nobody will ever find out about it.’” 

He added:

“People were legitimately terrified of my grandmother. She had 19 handguns when she died. All of them were loaded and stacked around the house. So, she was a tough old bird. And because of that, she was able, I think, to direct my pathway in the right way.”

Despite his grandmother’s Christian influence and push, a young Vance never seemed to make a firm personal commitment himself. He told Daly, “I just didn’t have any need of it. And I sort of saw myself as this person who had come from nothing. I had made something of myself. I had this real arrogance about myself. But I also didn’t realize it at 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 amount of money I made.”

As it turned out, though, Vance said the absence of the Christian disciplines his grandmother had attempted to instill in him began to make him realize he was succeeding in every way at things that just didn’t matter.

“Where did the Lord connect with you again?” asked Daly. “How did it happen?”

“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. I became obsessed with this ancient Christian thinker, Augustine, who wrote this book called The City of God.”

The questions raised in Augustine’s work struck him at just the right season, which was his time at Yale Law School, where he met his wife, Usha.  He said he started asking himself, “Am I actually good at the things that Mamaw cared about? Am I gonna be a good husband? Am I going to be a good father?” 

VP Vance said he also concluded, “If Augustine’s right about how to organize human society, maybe he’s also right about Jesus.”

During the interview, VP Vance talked about his 12-year marriage to Usha and their four children, including a three-month old. 

“We want to try to protect the kids’ privacy as much as possible,” he told Daly. “But we also just try to live in the world with them and try to show people that, yeah, sometimes they’re gonna be misbehaved and sometimes they’re gonna get off at Air Force Two in their pajamas. But we just try as much as possible to be parents in the world and show that it’s possible. And that is something that we try to do in our own personal lives.”

When it comes to finding the right balance between being a husband and father and managing a career, Vance offered some perspective. 

“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 a few more dollars in the bank.”

Yet the vice president acknowledged parenting is never easy, regardless of the age of your children.

“Somebody once told me that 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.”

With just days left until Election Day, Daly and Vance ended their time together by urging Christians to participate in the political process – especially the 30 million Christians who regularly stay home from the polls.

VP Vance noted that if every Christian cast their vote, “American politics would never be the same.” He added, “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 and vote.”