so, no. >> leaving aside whether you would run for something. because the platform you have is so y great, you can be a spokesn about alcoholism, unemployment, opioid addiction. >> we will break away for live coverage of the u.s. senate. lawmakers will hold a brief session. no votes expected until september 9th. you are watching live cough age here on c-span 2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk:

washington, d.c., august 9, 2024. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable christopher van hollen, a senator from the state of maryland, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patty murray, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 9:15 a.m., tuesday august 13, 2024. >> lawmakers are currently in august recess whether state or period. they will hold his brief sessions due to renovations in the senate chamber. members are scams to return for votes september 9. watch live coverage of use senate here on c-span2 as we now return to our booktv programming.g. >> what effect it's going have. we happen to live in a political time where it's hard to translate interesting policies to constructive.

people might be called up but shortly but people call themselveses hillbillies or hillbilly culture. are thehe proud of your book for having exposed some of the challenges they have or are the upset from theen exposed some of the challenges of they have? >> i think opinion to differ. pk that i have shed a light on really important issues and they appreciate. i think the thing that i most from people back home when, you know, when i go and talk about the book or just when i hear, you know, people when they run into me on the street is that they appreciate that the book as has talked about these problems in a way that they feel like wasn't talked about before, that nobody really wrote the story from the inside. nobody really talked about, you know, what is it like to grow up in a household with a lot of instability, lot of addiction? what's it like to grow up in a household where you you're really worried about whether you can pay for college or even pay

more fundamental things? that is the part that's been the most to me. but i also think that, you know, it's a region that's really and really diverse. and so you have that are probably as diverse as any large population. so what is the most frequent question get asked you? because you are in the speaking a little bit and you're on tv at cnn you're a contributor to cnn. what is question you get most frequently asked audiences about your book or about your background? the the question i get most frequently asked. i mean it's probably how family reacted to the book. i think that's definitely something that people are curious about. i get asked a lot how my mom's well, how is she? and the answer, she's doing really well, so she's living. she's not married now. she's living. yes. while yes, she's living back home. she's doing well. she's been clean for a very long time. and i think in some ways, you know, while while mom may not ready to to play this role and. so i'm not i'm not going to foisted upon her. i think she's a really good example of what can happen when

even after five or six times you get knocked off horse of addiction and back into relapse that that it's still possible to sort of climb back out to find the right supports and to make another go at it and that you know that's something i really admire about mom she's incredibly tenacious so does she now have like a the business card that says j.d. vance's mother? she doesn't have that on her business card. she does not. and what about your your your biological father? is to see you have contact with him and. yeah, yeah, i actually just got a text message from her right before i went up here. yeah. so so dad and i are still, still close and still talk quite a bit. you know, he's doing pretty well. he you know, he's, he's he's a great guy and. i think that he, you know, he and i most most often talk about his grandson and that's what he's most interested in. and i think that's true of a lot of grand grandparents. so you talk about in the book

you grew up largely what does sister now, what is she doing? so my sister has kids back back home and in middletown has been married for 20 years or so and and is doing well, you know i think that what lindsey and i wanted to really accomplish like what we thought of as success in our lives was being able to give our kids the stability and the comfort and the sense of security that we didn't have as kids know, she has successfully done that for almost 20 years. her kid is 18. i done that for three months. so i'm i'm hopeful i get there too. and today do you find that your friends from high school, they they laugh at your jokes more than did before or they treat you differently. how do the people you grow up with that treat you now that you're so famous and wealthy people ask you for money, you sometimes ask me for money, but that's you know not not a common occurrence but yeah, there are

definitely some people who laugh laugh louder at my jokes, but my real friends not laugh louder. and again, it's one of the one of the really good things about having a successful book or what a successful book can do is. you definitely realize that people who are loyal to you no matter what and, don't let you get too big for your britches. as we say back home. those are the people that i really onto. okay, so leaving aside your potential political career right now, you're not practicing law, but you are in what i would call the highest calling of mankind, private equity and investing. so why did you choose to go into what i call the venture capital space? you're in an area, a narrow niche of private equity, venture capital. why did you choose go into that area and you're doing it from a firm that's based here and you're also living in ohio, right? sure. well, so that is. right. and what i find so interesting about what i'm doing right now is that if it's done well, it

could actually help create amazing new products and amazing new companies and amazing new jobs that didn't exist before. right. and one of the things i realized in law school and i think, i came into this with sort of this veil behind eyes that was lifted is that, you know what the people who i think really, frankly, call the shots in our economic system are those who are figuring out, you know, where goes. and i think that when i realized that, i thought to myself, i'd like to be a guy who is trying figure out how to get capital to into good places, where it's going to do lot of good and where it's going to create a lot of value not just for investors, but for people on the receiving end to now some people who write first books. some people write a book, you know. margaret mitchell, ralph, their first book is so successful that they have a hard time writing a second book. they get writer's block because. they think nothing could be as good as the first book. you don't worry about problem.

well i don't know. i that i know that my first book was that good so i don't know that any follow up will be measured well or poorly compared it it certainly was very successful and i think that i'd be an idiot if i expected other book to be as successful. but i'll let people decide whether it's good or not. so what you want to do with your life and what you'd like to be would be, let's say, a role model for people who came out of the kind of background that you came out of. and now, rightly or wrongly whether you want it or not, you're a bit of a role model for. people who come out of your kind of background as a role model, do you feel more responsibility to live a life, a certain do you feel you should give back to your community a certain way? what? how has your life changed as a result of this book? well, yeah. i mean, definitely feel a certain responsibility when i go on tv, not to make my entire community seem like an idiot. right. because i think one of the things that i have not appreciated but i just have accepted is reality is that a lot of people see me as sort of a spokesperson for the white class.

a lot of times asked to go on tv and say, you know, what is the trump feel about this or that issue? i think that's unfair. i don't think that any person could possibly speak for that many people or for the trump voter writ large. but what i what i try to do is recognize that some people see me as that representative. and so i try not to sound like a total buffoon when. i go on tv, that's one way that i think things have really. but i mean, you know, it's it's crazy right. i mean, a year and a half ago, i was not sitting here in an auditorium in front of hundreds of people. so it's kind of impossible to describe how my life has changed. it's changed in the way that, you know, any person's changes when they go from, you know, sitting home, eating pints of ice cream and watching netflix to sitting here in front of hundreds of people like those people, the president, united states called you and said, i read your book and you really typify the kind of voter i appeal to or you haven't heard that kind of reaction yet. i've never heard that from from from president trump. i have heard, you know, people

work at the white house who said something similar to that. so but no, i've never gotten the phone call. president trump still still waiting. so today you would say you're a very happy person. you've got a child, a wife, your mother, father are doing well. so you're a very happy person. and and the experience, the book has made your life even better. yeah. yeah. i mean, think things are really going great. book has changed my life in a very weird way. but, but in a in definitely a positive way. well, i read the book as i said, i thought it was a great book. i highly it to those who haven't read it yet and those who've read it once read it again. i do think it's very instructive, well-written and i want to thank you for a very interesting conversation. thanks, it's very instructive well-written and i want to thank you for bringing it to the conversation. >> thanks, david. [applause] >> if you are enjoying booktv then sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive the schedule of upcoming programs, author discussions, festivals and more. booktv every sunday on c-span2

or anytime online at booktv.org your television forerious readers. >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's stories, and on sundays booktv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more including wow. >> the world has changed. today fast reliable internet connection is something no one can live without so wow is there for customers with speed, reliability, value and choice. now more than ever it all starts with great internet. >> wow along with these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service. >> charlie spiering is here with us, , senior political reporter with the daily mail, author of this