Vance highlights Trump's people-reading ability, criticizes elite expertise
US Vice President JD Vance offered a personal assessment of President Donald Trump's character during an appearance on Sean Hannity's podcast, describing what he believes
US Vice President JD Vance offered a personal assessment of President Donald Trump's character during an appearance on Sean Hannity's podcast, describing what he believes is one of the President's most remarkable and lesser-known qualities. Vance praised Trump's ability to evaluate people and determine their motives, suggesting the President possesses an unusual talent for recognizing honesty and deception. "He has the best instincts about human beings of anybody I've ever met," Vance said. "There's an almost like, spiritual dimension of where he understands whether somebody's telling him the truth or not." The vice president said he remains impressed by Trump's ability to assess the intentions of those who interact with him. "He understands whether somebody is trying to pull one over on him or not… it's fascinating to me," Vance said. Ability to judge motives According to Vance, Trump's instincts are particularly valuable given the constant stream of influential individuals seeking meetings and policy decisions from the White House.
"He's the President of the United States, right? You have people who are constantly coming into the White House and asking for things," Vance explained. Vance said Trump is especially adept at distinguishing between requests made for personal gain and those made with national interests in mind. "And he has this unbelievable ability to sniff out whether this person wants this thing because it's good for America or he wants it because it’s good for him." Learning from his grandmother During the discussion, Vance also reflected on his own intellectual journey, describing a period in his life when he believed education and rational analysis provided all the answers. "I became arrogant about what I knew," Vance explained. He recalled underestimating the wisdom of his grandmother despite regarding her as highly intelligent. "My grandmother, who, again, was the smartest person I've ever met, devout Christian, but not an educated woman by any means, I sort of thought of her as a simpleton, as a bumpkin." Vance said his views at the time were influenced by atheism and a belief that formal education equated to greater understanding.
“I called myself an atheist at the time, and I sort of had this arrogance about me that I knew everything and people like my grandmother didn't know things.” Criticism of elite institutions Vance argued that elite institutions, including colleges and universities, often encourage an excessive reliance on rational analysis while dismissing instinct and lived experience. He criticized what he described as a "hyper-rational" mindset that, in his view, undervalues practical wisdom and intuition. Experts "didn't learn a single lesson" The vice president also targeted political, military and economic experts, claiming many failed to learn from past policy mistakes. "I think that so many of the things that people said about Donald Trump… it was experts who assume they knew everything about economics. It was military experts who assume they know everything about foreign policy," Vance said.
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