JD Vance Humble Brags to Mike Rowe About VP Job: ‘It’s So Weird…No More TSA Lines For Me And the Kids!’

Vice President JD Vance humble-bragged when talking with Mike Rowe’s The Way I Heard It podcast about what his late Mamaw would think of his success.

Vance wrote about the grandparents who raised him in Middletown, Ohio, in his best-selling book Hillbilly Elegy. His “Mamaw,” Bonnie Vance, died in 2005, and his “Papaw,” James Lee Vance, died in 1997 at just 67 years old.

“I was raised by a union steelman, my grandfather, and — the most important man of my life — he died when I was 13 years old,” Vance said.  “I called him Papaw. Papaw had this idea — his work was the work of the hands…he was a blue-collar guy — but that my work would be the work of the mind, and that I would sit at a desk and I would do that.”

“Did he want something better for you?” Rowe asked.

“Exactly,” Vance answered. Even though he, himself, realized more than anybody that his work was very much work of the mind.”

“How weird is it to envy and love him so much and admire him, and then watch him want something else for you?” Rowe asked, and Vance answered, “It’s very hard.”

Rowe then asked, “What in the world” his grandparents would say about his success today.

“Well, you know, you never know. I think and hope they’d be proud of me,” Vance said. “I think that what Mamaw would say in particular is, ‘Don’t get too big for your britches.'”

“Don’t get too big for your godd*mn britches,” Rowe offered.

“That’s right. That’s right,” Vance agreed.

He continued:

She was particularly worried that, you know — I think Mamaw always had very high expectations for me. So, I don’t think that she would necessarily be surprised, though, how could you not be surprised by how crazy my life has been last 10 years? But I think that what Mamaw would be worried about, and it’s something I worry about, too is, like, my life is — dude — totally transformed.

I don’t go to the grocery store anymore. People go to the grocery store for me. Most of my meals, like when I cook a meal, it’s like — I love to cook actually — big baker. I like to cook for my kids as a special occasion, but I don’t have to cook anymore because I’ve got an army of people who are willing to, like, cook me my food.

My life is so weird. I fly around on a 757 — no more TSA lines for me and the kids. It’s so weird, but it can become the sort of thing that if you internalize it, you start to be an entitled asshole. And I think that’s the thing that Mamaw would really be insistent on is, don’t become entitled about this . Recognize it’s cool. It’s a blessing. Obviously, it comes along with duties and responsibilities. But she would be very proud of me. I know she would she would also make sure that I didn’t get too big for my britches.

Watch the clip above via YouTube.

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