00:00Mr. Vice President, Jacob Bogage from the Washington Post, it's good to see you.
00:04Good to see you, too.
00:04Merry Christmas.
00:06Same to you.
00:07Unfortunately, I have to ask a bit of an off-topic question from affordability because news events do intervene,
00:13and that is the interviews that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles gave to Vanity Fair,
00:17in which she's quoted as referring to you as, excuse me, and again, not my words, sir,
00:23but a conspiracy theorist of a decade and described your transformation from someone who once opposed
00:32President Trump to now his vice president as an act of political expediency.
00:36And I'd like to give you the chance to respond to that, sir.
00:39Well, first of all, if Susie, like, I'll trust what you said.
00:46I haven't looked at the article.
00:47I, of course, have heard about it.
00:48But conspiracy theorists, sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist,
00:53but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true.
01:02And by the way, Susie and I have joked in private and in public about that for a long time.
01:07For example, I believed in the crazy conspiracy theory back in 2020
01:12that it was stupid to mask three-year-olds at the height of the COVID pandemic
01:16that we should actually let them develop some language skills.
01:21You know, I believed in this crazy conspiracy theory
01:24that the media and the government were covering up the fact
01:27that Joe Biden was clearly unable to do the job.
01:34And I believed in the conspiracy theory
01:39that Joe Biden was trying to throw his political opponents in jail
01:42rather than win an argument against his political opponents.
01:45So, at least on some of these conspiracy theories,
01:51it turns out that a conspiracy theory is just something that was true
01:55six months before the media admitted it.
01:57And that's my understanding.
02:01Now, look, I do want to say something about Susie, though,
02:04because, again, having not read this article,
02:07Susie is a person I've come to know very, very well.
02:10And, you know, a lot of you probably ask yourself,
02:13what is it like behind the scenes?
02:15What's going on, actually, behind the scenes of the Trump administration?
02:18And I'll tell you, the president is exactly in private who he is in public.
02:22Like, I'll tell you a little story.
02:24A few, maybe actually a week or so ago,
02:27I walk into the Oval Office and Marco and I are sitting there
02:30talking with the president about something.
02:32He says, stop.
02:33And he looks at our shoes and says,
02:34you guys have terrible shoes.
02:38So he goes and gets a shoe catalog.
02:40And remember, this is the Christmas season,
02:42so the president's got some holiday cheer.
02:44He goes and gets a shoe catalog and gets his favorite shoes
02:47and orders, like, four pairs of shoes for me
02:51and four pairs of shoes for Marco
02:52because he's like, you know, we need our vice president,
02:54our secretary of state to look their very best.
02:56And, you know, then we went back to talking about
02:59whatever major, you know, international issue we were talking about.
03:03Again, he is exactly in private who he is in public.
03:06That's not true of most people in Washington, D.C.
03:09It's not.
03:10And I've seen so many people who will say one thing
03:13to the president's face, Democrats and Republicans,
03:15and then will do the exact opposite behind the scenes.
03:18You know why I really...
03:19You know what they are.
03:21And you know why I really love Susie Wiles?
03:23Because Susie is who she is in the president's presence.
03:28She's the same exact person when the president isn't around.
03:32I've never seen Susie Wiles say something to the president
03:36and then go and counteract him
03:39or subvert his will behind the scenes.
03:42And that's what you want in a staffer.
03:44Because as much as I love Susie,
03:45the American people didn't elect any staffer.
03:48They elected the president of the United States.
03:50And what you...
03:51...
03:53...
03:55...
03:57...
04:00...
04:06...
Comments