Focus on the Family hosted Vice President JD Vance in a Monday broadcast that explored family, faith, Vance’s thoughts about running for president in 2028, and the importance of voting.
The show came eight days before midterm elections in which President Donald Trump’s historically low approval ratings threaten to dampen Republican turnout.
Jim Daly
“Now’s the time to fight for our country, and the best way to do that is through the polls,” said Focus CEO Jim Daly, who bemoaned that “30 million Christians don’t show up at the polls.”
Vance agreed. “If you want America to be more like the faith that you know is true, the only way to do that is to get out there and vote,” he said.
Focus claims to be nonpartisan, and during the program Daly said, “I don’t really care if it’s an R or a D” next to a politician’ name. But Focus broadcasts are all R and no D. Vance’s broadcast follows those featuring GOP Sens. Mitch McConnell, Josh Hawley and Ben Sasse; Reps. Tim Scott and James Lankford; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Daly recorded the interview with Vance last week at his residence, the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Vance told Daly that he had listened to Focus founder James Dobson’s broadcasts when he was 14 to 15 years old, saying Dobson was a “wise guy” who “was very influential to me. … I just always naturally gravitated toward him for whatever reason, even as a teenager.”
Focus called the interview “wide-ranging” but it lacked a single challenging question and left many issues unaddressed, including Vance’s support for a widely reviled ad run by Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP candidate in the Ohio governor’s race.
Vance criticized those who objected to the Ramaswamy ad.
Vance criticized those who objected to the Ramaswamy ad, which features the long-estranged mother of Democratic candidate Amy Acton. Acton’s mother stuck with her husband after he was indicted for raping Acton. In the ad, Acton’s mother says her daughter is a liar who should not be elected.
“I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” Vance said last week.
In his Focus interview, Vance commented on his friendship with the late Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA and spoke of the need to halt political violence. He acknowledged that his faith says he should respect and love his opponents while admitting he struggled to do so: “Sometimes a Democrat or somebody in the media will say something to me, and I’m not going to lie to you and say that I have this like, Christian charity that just wells up inside me.
“Sometimes I hate that person, but … I have to constantly remind myself, I have to pray for that person. … I think this is the process by which Christ ultimately acts on human beings and transforms us. … You may not always feel the right way, but if you try, even if you try only 20% of the time, slowly those seeds of grace blossom into something bigger.”
JD Vance speaks during the vice residential debate October 1, 2024. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
Some GOP candidates are distancing themselves from Trump, and the sole mention of the president in Vance’s Focus broadcast came during Daly’s closing comments, when he pledged to pray for “President Trump and the administration and everyone in Congress, both Democrat and Republican.”
Daly previously supported Trump as the “most pro-life president” of his lifetime. Daly criticized Trump when he abandoned his support for anti-abortion policies but Focus continues to support the administration.
Earlier this month, Focus celebrated “President Trump’s 250 Victories for People of Faith,” up from last year’s 100 victories. Focus praised Katie Zacharia on the third day of her five-day stint as White House press secretary, its latest positive profile of Trump officials.
In Monday’s broadcast, Vance discussed his wife, Usha, but there was no discussion of how the Vances manage their multifaith family. Usha is a Hindu who says she has no plans to convert to her husband’s Catholic faith.
Vance discussed his grandmother Mamaw, who sheltered and nurtured him during years of chaos in his birth family and was central to his memoir.
“She was, you know, in some ways a very devout Christian, in other ways a very unconventional woman,” said Vance, remembering how she “cursed like a sailor” and died with 19 handguns “loaded and stacked around the house.”
Vance wandered from Mamaw’s Christian influence before returning to the faith through an interest in political philosophy and reading Augustine’s City of God. Vance figured, “If Augustine’s right about how to organize human society, maybe he’s also right about Jesus.”
Daly and Vance compared notes on having a “father hole” in their lives and the challenge of forgiving bad dads. Daly said it was “awesome” to see a vice president with young children.
“So at least you’re helping younger families say, ‘OK, maybe we should have children,’” Daly said.