#2526 - JD Vance

**Joe Rogan** (0:03)
The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
So the last time we talked, last time I saw you, we were at a cage fight at the White House.

**JD Vance** (0:18)
That's right. That's one of the craziest experiences of my life. It must have been one of the craziest experiences of your life.

**Joe Rogan** (0:26)
Oh yeah, it took me like two weeks afterwards to recover, just to like go, did that actually happen? That seems, it seems so insane.

**JD Vance** (0:34)
Okay, the most insane part of it, which I guess was before you got there, to me at least, is you're like, you come into work every day in the White House, right? You know, I have an office in the West Wing, there's the Oval Office in the West Wing, and you look out the window, and as this like eight story complex was grown up, it was just the most unbelievable thing. It's like the South Lawn in the White House, but you've got the 8th Wonder of the World being built up around it.
And every day, I'd look at it, it would take me a couple of seconds, I'd be like, what the hell is going on? And I'd be like, oh yeah, it's UFC, it's UFC coming in a couple of weeks.

**Joe Rogan** (1:09)
The whole thing was surreal. First of all, it was crazy that the weather just went around us. There was a real moment where the fights would have been postponed until 10:30 p.m. to start.
And last minute, the storm just diverted.

**JD Vance** (1:28)
That's right. Well, in this book that I have, that I guess we'll talk about a little bit, but the book tour started the next day. So I was flying to New York the next day to talk about it. And all I could think about is every time we got the update from White House weather, oh, it might not start until 10.30, I was thinking to myself, holy shit, that means I'm gonna go to bed at like 4 a.m. I'm gonna look like a total crazy person while I'm trying to go talk about this book. But yeah, it amazingly did work out. Honestly, it actually helped a little bit because as you know, it was hot as hell out there. And it's super humid, you know, mid-June in DC.
And I think the weather actually helped cool it down a little bit because by about 10 o'clock or so, I was not thinking it's hot as hell out here anymore.

**Joe Rogan** (2:15)
Yeah, it wasn't too bad, but I talked to Justin Gaethje about it and he said it was a problem when he was fighting. He said the air was very thick.

**JD Vance** (2:23)
Okay.

**Joe Rogan** (2:23)
Like right after the first round, he was like, boy, like this is rough. Because that hot, humid air and, you know, it's...

**JD Vance** (2:30)
Yeah, yeah. No, it's fine walking around.
I mean, it's okay walking around. It still feels... It is a swamp, right? That's why people call it the swamp. So, you know, that's obviously June 14th. That's the president's...

**Joe Rogan** (2:40)
That's not why they call it the swamp.

**JD Vance** (2:41)
That's one of the reasons why they call it the swamp.

**Joe Rogan** (2:43)
They call it the swamp because...

**JD Vance** (2:45)
They call it the swamp because of my colleagues too.

**Joe Rogan** (2:46)
Because it's filled with mud and water and gunk and shit. And swamp monsters.

**JD Vance** (2:52)
Oh, man. So, that's June 14th, so that's the president's birthday. That's also...
That was my 12th wedding anniversary.

**Joe Rogan** (2:59)
Oh, wow.

**JD Vance** (2:59)
And my wife... So, that's the one thing, like, if somebody runs in here, it's because my wife's going into labor because she's, like, 39 weeks pregnant. But I remember we go out to dinner, like, right before the UFC fight. And we're, of course, checking the weather report to figure out what's going on. And you know, my wife normally likes to come to the cool stuff of being vice president. That was the one where she was like, it's hot, I'm super pregnant, and I'm not going to sit out there for six hours.

**Joe Rogan** (3:27)
Yeah, I couldn't imagine.
Also, it was just, there was so much chaos. And the potential for real chaos was always there. First of all, you have the ellipse. So the ellipse has, what, 85,000 people outside. And for people that are watching at home, like, we could hear them. Like, when the fights, when something would happen...