WHEN: Today, Thursday, September 12, 2024
WHERE: CNBC’s “Squawk Box”
Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC interview with Vice Presidential Candidate (R) & Ohio Senator JD Vance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” (M-F, 6AM-9AM ET) today, Thursday, September 12. Following are links to video on CNBC.com: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/09/12/apple-isnt-an-evil-company-but-they-do-sometimes-benefit-from-chinese-slave-labor-jd-vance.html and https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/09/12/jd-vance-on-tariffs-and-taxes.html.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
JOE KERNEN: We heard from former President Trump at Tuesday night’s debate and today, we have his vice-presidential candidate here with us on set. Joining us now, Ohio – the great state of Ohio, Senator JD Vance. We grew up – well, long before you grew up, I grew up in a part of Cincinnati. You’re from Middletown. And you’ve been on this show before, Senator –
SENATOR JD VANCE: I have been.
KERNEN: With Steve Case –
VANCE: That’s right.
KERNEN: When you’re involved with that, and I think for “Hillbilly Elegy,” I don’t know if it was the book tour or what. But so we’ve met before, but it’s great –
VANCE: Yeah, that’s right.
KERNEN: Great to have you on.
VANCE: Good to see you. Good morning, guys.
KERNEN: We’re struggling how to start. We could do a postmortem on the debate but because we’re so interested in trying to get into your economic beliefs –
VANCE: Sure.
KERNEN: Given that as we now know, people’s economic beliefs can evolve as we’ve seen from, you know, former President Trump’s opponent. But I’m wondering whether yours have evolved because then we’ll get into some of the things you said in the past.
VANCE: Yeah.
KERNEN: How much daylight right now is there between what you believe as what I – would I call you an economic populist? Is there daylight between you and President Trump right now?
VANCE: No, I don’t think so. I mean, look, obviously, he selected me as his running mate and I’m trying to run to implement and win on the Trump agenda. But I think that President Trump’s economic views are actually pretty straightforward American conservatism, which is we need to manufacture things in this country. We need common sense energy and regulatory policies to be able to make things. And the best way to lift up workers is to promote good jobs and good wages, not to just throw everybody on welfare which I think is in some ways the main thrust of the Kamala Harris economic policy. So there’s definitely some element of populism to it because, look, I do think that for 30 years in this country, we shipped a lot of good manufacturing jobs to places like East Asia. Now, China makes some of the critical things that we need – antibiotics, prescription drugs, even God forbid the weapons that our troops would need if we went to war against a nation like China. So we have to be a little bit smarter about our own self-reliance as a nation. That is one departure I think between President Trump’s vision and frankly, 30, 40 years of failed leadership in this country.
KERNEN: A lot of what I think of as populism though seems like it’s almost diametrically opposed to certain aspects of capitalism. And there are certain groups and I don’t even want to mention the name of it, but they claim you as a strict adherent to populism. I don’t know if you know the group I’m talking about. You have said we should raise corporate taxes in the past. The former president wants to cut the 21 percent rate down to 15 I think. You said 28 or even higher, that these big corporations deserve that.
VANCE: Well, what I said is that we need to lower taxes on corporations that are creating jobs in this country and raise tariffs on corporations that are shipping jobs overseas and manufacturing overseas. Look, if you’re trying to take advantage of Chinese slave labor and then use American markets to make a profit on your product, I do think and I know Donald Trump thinks that we should try to penalize these companies. But we want companies that are investing in America, hiring America and creating good American jobs to thrive. But we have to recognize, there’s a fundamental difference between a national corporation that’s creating good jobs in this country and a foreign corporation that’s benefiting from Chinese –
KERNEN: It sounds like industrial policy that that the Democrats get criticized for all –
VANCE: Oh, no, it’s not. Look, whatever you want to call it, man, the problem is, look, Chinese slaves making $2 a day if – you know, and they get caned working 72 hours a week if they want to work 70 hours a week instead. You want to allow American manufacturers to benefit from that cheap labor, not only is it going to destroy good American jobs and wages, it’s going to decimate our core manufacturing industry, which I think makes us less productive over time. The final and most important point is it makes us reliant on foreign nations to make some of our critical stuff. Now, Donald Trump does believe in trade and I believe in trade but we believe in trade that’s actually going to benefit American workers, not destroy American jobs. So the final point is, look, as you’ve seen on this campaign, there have been a lot of outside groups who try to claim that President Trump or I agree with every single thing that they say. President Trump speaks for himself and I speak for myself. So don’t necessarily assume that everything you hear written about him or me is true. Obviously, they lie about him quite a bit. But he really does believe, and frankly, he’s been right about this for 40 years, we have to make more of our own stuff. We have to build more in America and we need a corporate tax policy that promotes that. And, yeah, sometimes that does mean if you’re shipping jobs overseas, you’re going to be penalized.
BECKY QUICK: What are the lies that they’re telling about you that you don’t agree with?
VANCE: Well, I think one of the things they say, for example, about Donald Trump’s economic policies is that somehow, they’re going to jack up inflation which is rich coming from Kamala Harris whose economic policies have directly led to inflation.
QUICK: But tariffs are inflationary.
VANCE: Well, not always, right. Let’s just take –
QUICK: They’re inflationary or people aren’t buying the products anymore.
VANCE: Well, let’s just take one example. So, one of the classic examples that economist used to attack or some economists, I should say, used to attack Donald Trump’s economic policies is the tariffs that he imposed on washing machines and other dishwashers – sorry, on dishwashers. So, they show a chart that says, well, look, a few months after this tariff, the price of dishwashers went up a little bit. But if you look over two years, actually, the price of dishwashers went down. You induced a lot of American factories to invest in American workers and American-made products, and the price of dishwashers is actually lagged behind the price of a lot of other home appliances. So, sometimes, when you induce investment and capital formation in the United States of America, it does lower prices on American workers. And again, the experience of Donald Trump’s presidency, he was president for four years. He did impose tariffs sometimes to induce more investment in American workers. And what happened, we had 1.5 percent inflation, rising take-home pay and the best economy for workers in 40 years.
KERNEN: That’s different across the board tariffs, though.
VANCE: But when people say that Donald Trump is going to destroy the economy, he was already the leader of the American economy for four years. We had rising prosperity, broad-based middle class wage growth. That is a record I’d like to get back to.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Senator, I think the question though on the tariffs is and it’s where Joe was going, because they’re across the board and they’re not as targeted, it’s unclear there are certain industries that unfortunately, we don’t have. Now, would it be great if our country were to invest in some of these industries that we’re not – that we’re missing on the manufacturing side but the amount of time it may very well take to, quote/unquote, induce every industry to invest here to manufacture, that’s the complication with the plan. So when you see, for example, like a Goldman Sachs report come out suggesting that this actually becomes not just a massive tax, but a massive drain on the economy, what do you think? And then just a related question because a lot of people have said this, do you believe that the entire across the board tariff would go into effect, or is it a – should we think of it as some kind of negotiating cudgel, if you will, with China for other things?
VANCE: Well, first of all, I do think that it’s negotiation. Donald Trump is a negotiator. He believes in using tariffs for negotiation but he also does believe in using tariffs to induce more manufacturing, more capital formation in our country. But, Aaron — Andrew, the problem with the argument here is when people say these tariffs are going to have an effect, Donald Trump already imposed specific tariffs on specific industries. You didn’t see the negative consequences come to light. In fact, what you saw was rising wages and rising take-home pay. So when people say you can’t do this in a narrow way, you can’t do it in a broad-based way, I just think that doesn’t actually fit with reality. Andrew, there’s actually a deeper argument here that I think Donald Trump really again understands and understood better than a lot of people who said that somehow American prosperity was going to come by shipping our steel industry and our pharmaceutical industry overseas. They were wrong and he was right. So maybe he’s right about his policies and the effect they’re going to have on the future too. But one of the critical conceits that our bipartisan consensus made over the last 40 years is that you could separate the manufacturer of things from the design of things. You open up an iPhone and it says, you know, I think it says designed in Cupertino, California. The implication of course is that it’s manufactured in Shenzhen, China. But what we’re finding out is that the people who are manufacturing things, they innovate, they become more productive. They develop the critical skills necessary to get better at manufacturing and then they start designing the things, too.
SORKIN: Right.
VANCE: If we’re not doing enough manufacturing in our own country, we’re going to lose our tech edge and then we’re going to be in a world of hurt. So there’s a critical dynamic difference.
SORKIN: Senator, no question, but the flip side is—
VANCE: Go ahead.
SORKIN: The flip side is it creates an export problem because there’ll be retribution. I’ve got emails even in the past week from viewers of “Squawk” who are farmers in the Midwest who are worried — deeply worried that depending on how these tariffs play out, that they’re, it’s actually going to affect them on the opposite end.
VANCE: Well, Andrew, this actually highlights — again, we have to look at experience versus some of these ridiculous predictions from people who have an axe to grind against Donald Trump. I’m, of course, not saying the farmers fall into that category. But when did America for the first time maybe in our history become a net food importer? Meaning we need to take in more food than we produce ourselves. 2023, under the policies of Kamala Harris, when Donald Trump was president and doing all these things that certain pundits say are going to lead to terrible outcomes, what actually happened, America was a net food exporter. We grew more of our food than we needed. That is an important thing. We’re — you know, one of the critical mistakes that we made again is that we became dependent on foreign nations for the goods that we need. Now, we’re becoming dependent on foreign nations for the food that our children need to eat. This is insanity. We have to be self-reliant. We have the biggest economy in the world. Every business, every foreign country, every competitor wants access to American markets. If you want access to American markets, you can’t use Chinese slave labor to produce your products. You’ve got to be able to use American workers, and that’s the whole thrust of Donald Trump economic policies.
QUICK: Do you think Apple is an evil company?
KERNEN: Yeah. Can we talk about big tech? Yeah—
VANCE: Let’s — let’s talk about it, big tech.
KERNEN: Because you’ve seem to kind of—
VANCE: Do I get to answer Becky’s question? Do I think Apple’s an evil company? No. Do I think that sometimes they benefit from Chinese slave labor? Yeah, and that’s pretty sick. And I think that a company that wants to benefit from American markets should also have to pay American workers a fair wage.
KERNEN: So I guess that’s leading to — to your feelings on big tech because that — it would seem that you are somewhat conflicted — I would think what I want to finally get to–
VANCE: Please?
KERNEN: Is whether you keep Lina Khan on as — you know, in the antitrust concerns. But so you — we mentioned Steve Case.
VANCE: Yeah.
KERNEN: I mean, Peter Thiel, you’ve got strong connections with a lot of Silicon Valley.
VANCE: Sure.
KERNEN: But I also think you have a — you’ve talked about your fear of the power of big tech—
VANCE: Oh, sure.
KERNEN: As well. So is it a — is it a complex relationship?
VANCE: Well, look, I think that there’s a difference between little tech and big tech. If you look at my friends in the tech industry, whether, you know, Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, these are folks who are investing in upstarts. And yeah, some of them invest upstarts that became monopolists like Facebook, but all these guys recognize that when you have companies like Facebook and Google censoring American citizens, making it harder for Americans to speak in their own political process, that is a major problem. And yeah, I do think that there should be an antitrust solution to it. Of course, Donald Trump started the antitrust lawsuit against Google during his administration the first time, and we’ve got to be concerned about these mega companies that censor Americans. Now, look, Lina Khan and I disagree on some things, we agree on some things. I think where you and I might actually agree on Lina Khan is that while I share her view that we should be concerned about big tech companies and some of the mergers that lead to the censorship of American citizens. Look, I do think that not all mergers and acquisitions are bad. And sometimes in the technology space, in the private equity space, you need to let some companies buy other companies. That’s how investors get capital returns. That’s how you promote capital formation. Just because Google maybe shouldn’t have bought YouTube and used it to censor Americans doesn’t mean every merger is bad.
QUICK: But what mergers are good and what — which are bad? How do you determine that? How do — how does American business look at that and say, okay, these are areas we can proceed, instead of living under a fear of we don’t know what’s going to happen?
VANCE: Well, I think our antitrust policy has been pretty clear on this, right? I mean, massive major mergers where you have companies that dominate whole markets. They’re extracting massive, massive corporate profits. Our antitrust laws have recognized for a century that that’s a major problem. I really don’t care about a medium-sized business buying a small-sized business. And I do think Lina Khan has occasionally gotten a little overaggressive there. But I agree with her big tech. I really do.
KERNEN: Senator, there’s a fascinating piece today. I don’t know if you saw. I was going to talk to you about entitlements.
VANCE: Yeah.
KERNEN: This has to do with mean-tested — means-tested programs being the real issue and you’ve been reluctant to call for reform of Medicare or Social Security. This plays into your favor in basically saying most discretionary income is eaten up by these means-tested, whether it’s Medicaid or food stamps or any of these support systems that have since Bill Clinton tried to reform it back in the—
VANCE: Sure.
KERNEN: I don’t know if you were around, I know I was. But when he reformed–
VANCE: I was a young guy, but I was around.
KERNEN: So back — yeah, back then, the bottom quintile got $7,000 in inflation — inflation adjusted dollars. It’s $64,000 of support now that we have. It’s grown, I mean, beyond anything anyone could imagine. How would you rein that in? Is that something that would make sense?
VANCE: Well, of course, those dollars don’t go as far, thanks to Kamala Harris’s inflationary economic policy.
KERNEN: But this inflation adjusted, 64,000—
VANCE: We have to look at this. So go back to 2019, the U.S. federal budget was about $4.4 trillion. In 2024, it’ll be close to $7 trillion, right? So, $2.5 trillion of additional spending in four years. Most of that delta is not Social Security and Medicare. It’s discretionary programs. It’s a whole host of non-Medicare, non-Social Security, non-discretionary programs. The—
QUICK: It’s also interest of the debt.
VANCE: And it’s interest on debt, which why do we have high interest on debt? Because we’re spending way more money than we have but—
QUICK: And interest rates are higher.
VANCE: Well, interest rates are higher in part because energy costs are higher and inflation overall is higher. So when you have inflationary policies and you have policies like Kamala Harris which has made it harder for Americans to afford energy, that drives up the interest rate, which does drive up our debt servicing cost. So we’ve had a total economic whammy under Kamala Harris. It’s been bad on every single set of policies. But if you lower energy costs, you lower interest rates, you make the debt more serviceable, and you bring down some of the ridiculous discretionary spending, you can get the American federal budget over the medium term on a much more sustainable pathway. The problem that I have—
QUICK: The energy prices are down. We were talking about that this morning, too. Energy costs are down. We’re expecting the Fed to lower rates.
VANCE: Well, since Kamala Harris became vice president, energy costs for American families are up about 45 percent, right? Household energy costs, so maybe they’ve gone down a little bit past few months —
KERNEN: Even at the top, it’s a—
VANCE: But at the — at the baseline from four years ago, it’s a total disaster. And again, that does lead to higher interest rates, which leads to higher debt servicing costs. Now you asked about Social Security and Medicare — look, there are some problems that I think that we absolutely should look at. For example, we have a massive fraud problem in Social Security and Medicare because you have illegal aliens who are collecting Social Security and Medicare sometimes fraudulently. I’ve had constituents — I’ve even had friends who have gone to the IRS, who have gone to the Social Security Administration say, I have evidence that an illegal alien is collecting my Social Security benefits. That is terrible for the federal budget but then the Kamala Harris administration has basically said, no, no, we’re not going to reveal private information even if it’s an illegal alien who’s stealing your Social Security. That blows up the federal budget, too. So before we start talking about doing anything to the benefits for Americans who have earned them, let’s deal with the illegal alien fraud in our Social Security and Medicare system. I think that cost us a lot of money.
KERNEN: Yeah, the Goldman Sachs report is everywhere and you heard it the other night. You heard Vice President Harris.
VANCE: Sure.
KERNEN: A lot of the analysis that went into that report is based on immigration, and I guess if you were to close the border completely and try to expel 13, 15 million — deport, you know, undocumented people that are here, that would take a half of a percentage point off GDP every year. It’s — to me, it seems like things cost money that I don’t know if Americans would choose to open the southern border and allow all the people that come in to stay for a half a point of GDP, that doesn’t make sense to me. But do you see the analysis that that there have been positive aspects to — in for the jobs market and for the labor situation from immigration?
VANCE: I’ve certainly seen these reports and look, for a generation, Wall Street has said that the way to create prosperity in this country is to flood the country with cheap labor and off source our manufacturing to places like China, which use cheap slave labor. What that’s actually led is communities like Springfield, Ohio, where you have 20,000 Haitians who have come in, housing costs are unaffordable, communicable diseases are on the rise, and people can’t afford to live a good life in this small Ohio town. If the path to prosperity was flooding your nation with low-wage immigrants, then Springfield, Ohio, would be the most prosperous country — the most prosperous city in the world. America would be the most prosperous country in the world because Kamala Harris has flooded the country with 25 million illegal aliens. What’s actually happened is that over the past three and a half years, while we’ve had this massive influx of illegal labor, what’s happened? We’ve had skyrocketing inflation, lower take home pay, Americans more dissatisfied with the direction of the country and the economy than they’ve been in a generation. This is not the path to prosperity no matter how much a Wall Street bank says that it is. Now, this is an important distinction though between Kamala Harris’s economic policies and Donald Trump’s economic policies. Donald Trump believes the path to prosperity is to invest in our country, invest in American workers, and build out the middle class and the great American manufacturing sector that provides the foundation for the American middle class. Kamala Harris wants to import cheap labor and offshore our manufacturing plants to even cheaper labor overseas. That is not the path to prosperity. We’ve tried it for 40 years and it has been a failure.
KERNEN: What would the first regulatory actions that the Trump ad — Trump — another Trump administration would begin with on day one? And that, you know —
VANCE: Drill, baby, drill. It’s the most important thing that we can do. It lowers inflation. It creates a lot of good jobs. It makes it more competitive for us to manufacture in our country, because, of course, a lot of the input—
KERNEN: — Amos Hochstein on who said this is the greatest renaissance in American energy production ever under the Biden administration.
VANCE: Oh, I think that’s preposterous. I mean, look, we’re way below baselines in oil production per day. You talk to folks who work in natural gas. They’ll tell you, we could be producing two, three times as much natural gas in this country. It’s been a total disaster under the Biden-Harris administration. And again, you just look at the energy cost, you look at how much Americans are paying for energy compared to three years ago, if it was so successful, then why are Americans paying 40 percent higher? And we’re sitting — in Pennsylvania, we’re sitting on the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.
QUICK: We’re producing more crude oil than any country ever.
VANCE: We’re producing a lot less crude oil than we could be producing. Of course, America has a lot of crude oil but if you look at what we were producing under Donald Trump and you look at where we were headed and you compare it under Kamala Harris, we’re producing about 3 million barrels less per day than we should be producing if we just had smarter energy policies like we had under Donald Trump. And by the way, oil is not even the big one. Oil is a mistake and Kamala Harris has been a disaster. It’s why gasoline prices for Americans are up, what, 35, 40 percent. But natural gas is actually where we have — I mean, again, we have 500 years of effectively limitless natural gas. We could be powering the world. We could be sending great energy resources to Europe. We could be absolutely crushing it in the natural gas economy. Thanks to Kamala Harris, we’re not.
KERNEN: I didn’t say that we wouldn’t talk about the debate. I just said, we’ll wait to talk about a little bit. But as it was occurring and one of the common criticisms was, we don’t know anymore really about Kamala Harris’s economic policies, about her previous positions—
VANCE: Sure.
KERNEN: Because President Trump didn’t prosecute that debate properly.
VANCE: I think he did but go ahead.
KERNEN: Do — would — so you were watching and you didn’t have any frustration with what he was focusing on versus what he could have said about the vice president?
VANCE: Look, I think he absolutely, his closing statement was a critical piece of the debate because he drove home the entire message up to that point which is Kamala Harris says she wants to do all these great things, Kamala Harris is currently the vice president of the United States, why isn’t she doing it now? Look, I think a lot of her economic policies are insane, but even if you separate the slogans and the platitudes and say, what does Kamala Harris actually believe? If she believes it, do it now. Yet, the actual results of her leadership has been higher inflation, lower take-home pay, a wide open southern border. This is a woman who for three and a half years has had a position of power. She’s utterly failed and now she’s asking the American people for a promotion. I don’t think they’re going to give it to her and I think Donald Trump made that point incredibly effectively. Now, look, I do believe the moderators, I think they asked more about, you know, ridiculous lies about Donald Trump more than they asked about the actual economy. I think there were two questions about the economy. Kamala Harris, of course, brought up the ridiculous Charlottesville hoax instead of defending her actual economic record. So I think there are a lot of problems with the debate but I think Donald Trump did a good job. The moderators did a pretty disgraceful job.
KERNEN: I’ve got plenty of places to still go with this, do you have any?
QUICK: Yeah. I mean, looking back, do you think there’ll be a second debate? Donald Trump suggested –
KERNEN: And then we’ll talk about your debate and how you’re going to prepare. Does your debate matter?
VANCE: I think it matters a lot less than the presidential debate.
KERNEN: Would there be another debate?
VANCE: I can check my ego at the door. Most people are voting for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump or frankly against one of those candidates. I think our debate will matter because American people, they do care about their vice presidential candidate. But I think the presidential debate matters so much more. You know, is there going to be a second debate? I think it’s an interesting question. It’s telling to me that while some pundits walked away from the debate and said Kamala Harris did great, the actual undecided voters appear to think that Donald Trump did better, which is who you’re appealing to.
QUICK: It wasn’t just that. I mean, Hugh Hewitt, who’s a very conservative commentator said he thought President Trump lost the debate.
VANCE: Yeah. I love Hugh. I disagree with him and I think that when you see how the undecided voters react, that’s what actually matters the most. But it’s telling that immediately after the debate, Kamala Harris came out and said, yes, I’d like to do another debate. If you think things went so well, you’re normally not asking for a rematch right away, like when a boxing match happens, the guy who loses is typically the one who’s immediately asking for a rematch.
QUICK: That’s what President Trump said yesterday.
VANCE: But look, I think that the American people saw the difference between Kamala Harris who’s all slogans and all platitudes, no detail, no real agenda, and no real explanation for why she said she wanted to ban fracking but now she doesn’t. She said she wanted to defund the police but now she doesn’t. She said she wanted to open the border but now she doesn’t. She can’t even explain these viewpoint changes much less explain the policy behind them. Donald Trump actually has a record, and I think that is actually the most striking difference between these two campaigns is you got two people with a record. Donald Trump with a 4-year record, Kamala Harris with a nearly 4-year record. She’s running away from a record. Donald Trump’s running to his record because it was great. It was the record of peace and prosperity for this country and we got to get back to it.
KERNEN: And one of her first decisions is Governor Walz. You would have an opportunity I would imagine to look at some of the policies in Minnesota that were passed by the governor.
VANCE: Some crazy stuff.
KERNEN: Well, that was her first decision was to pick this gentleman.
VANCE: That’s exactly right, and I think it’s telling that with her first decision, she chose to select a guy who wanted to do some ridiculous things in Minnesota, wanted to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, for example. I think that tells you who Kamala Harris really is and it tells you which part of her party she actually listens to. But, look, I’m going to use my debate opportunity to try to prosecute the case against Kamala Harris, because she’s ultimately going to be the president if the American people elect her, and I have to remind people of course that Donald Trump’s presidency was one of peace and prosperity. That’s what I’m going to do as well. I mean, you know, the way that I take these things is I try not to sort of over prepare. I think if you’re scripted or you’re over rehearsed, it comes across the wrong way. You don’t want to think too much, you just want to actually answer the questions, okay. And so, the way that I prepare is by reading a lot about the policy, trying to understand how the policy of course affects the lives of Americans, and then just answering the questions directly. One thing I’ll say, much different, you guys have been tougher certainly than the debate moderators were on Kamala Harris, I think it’s really telling that me and Donald Trump will go anywhere and talk to anybody. By the way, questions haven’t been unfair but you guys have asked me real questions about my record and my views and Donald Trump’s views, why is Kamala Harris so afraid of actually going before the American media and answering questions? And can we trust a person who’s terrified of friendly American media to sit in a private room with Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping and actually advocate for the American people’s best interest?
KERNEN: Sure.
VANCE: I don’t. I think she’s incompetent. And that’s why she won’t go through the American media process.
KERNEN: Well, those are the questions you’re going to get here and maybe most importantly, Skyline Chili or Gold Star Chili?
VANCE: Look, they’re both good. I’m definitely a partisan of Skyline Chili. We have one like a half —
KERNEN: Skyline.
VANCE: Yeah, big time. My wife loves it. She’s vegetarian. So, Skyline, you can get really good vegetarian chili, really good meat chili. So it’s a very good place for our family.
KERNEN: Montgomery Inn Ribs or Graeter’s ice cream?
VANCE: Why can’t have both?
KERNEN: You can see I was —
VANCE: You can go to Montgomery Inn Ribs and then Graeter’s for ice cream. Seriously, Graeter’s is the best ice cream —
KERNEN: It is.
VANCE: — that exists anywhere in America.
KERNEN: It is. They don’t cheap out —
VANCE: I’m glad you’re backing me up. We could talk about ice cream for a while. The tell
SORKIN: Graeter’s for the win.
KERNEN: Thank you, Andrew.
SORKIN: But Graeter’s for the win.
VANCE: The tell for the quality of ice cream is how heavy it is because the heavier it is, that’s when they use cream and not milk. Graeter’s ice cream is very heavy.
KERNEN: For Christmas, the peppermint stick, it’s like there’s so much candy in there.
VANCE: It’s unreal, yeah.
KERNEN: It is.
VANCE: Yeah, high quality ingredients. Thank you, guys.
KERNEN: Thank you. And we ended on that. I don’t want any criticism about not being serious. We ended on it. Thank you.
VANCE: Thanks, guys.
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