‘It’s Because of Peter Thiel’: Maddow Rips Into JD Vance’s Past, Argues He’s ‘Against Liberal Democracy’

Rachel Maddow tore into Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) with a deep dive into some of his past scandals and quotes during a scorched earth monologue on MSNBC Wednesday night.

“ Peter Thiel also financially backed JD Vance, sort of a protege of his, that he had given a number of jobs to in California,” Maddow began, focusing her attention on Vance’s relationship with Thiel – the eccentric Silicon Valley titan. She added:

Thiel then pumped $15 million into a JD Vance for Senate race in Ohio that Mr. Vance otherwise had absolutely no shot at. It was the largest amount ever given to boost a single Senate candidate ever. And it worked. Peter Thiel created a Senate candidate out of whole cloth, especially once Thiel personally introduced Vance, personally introduced Vance to Donald Trump, literally walked JD Vance into Donald Trump’s office, and helped convince Trump to endorse Vance.

Despite the fact that Vance, just a few years earlier, had called Trump reprehensible and called him immoral and absurd, who had wondered if Trump was, quote, ‘America’s Hitler.’ Nevertheless, holding Peter Thiel’s hand was enough to get JD Vance, Donald Trump’s endorsement. And now, just 18 months after Peter Thiel put him in the Senate. Peter Thiel, Peter Thiel has now got his guy, JD Vance, onto Trump’s ticket as his running mate.

Whatever you think about Mr. Vance, the working class champion who is also a venture capitalist millionaire, his patron and politics, the reason he, at age 39, has risen from a guy who was only famous for writing an autobiography to now being the Republican nominee for Vice president of the United States.

It’s because of Peter Thiel, because of a handful of really, really, really radical tech billionaires, most explicitly Mr. Thiel, but also some of the others.

Maddow then shifted to Vance’s own rhetoric, focusing on his stance on American democracy, “Vance his own worldview off the Senate floor. Makes that background pretty clear. He told a podcaster recently that in a second term, if he’s reelected to the White House, Donald Trump should defy Supreme Court rulings. He said that Trump must seize power because the entire American system is collapsing.” Maddow added:

He said, quote, ‘We are in a late Republican period,’ and he doesn’t mean late Republican Party, period. He means late Republican period, as in, this is a republic. But we’re not going to be one much longer. Quote, ‘If we’re going to push back against it, we’re going to have to get pretty wild and pretty far out there and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.’

Last year, JD Vance spoke on a panel with a philosopher who has called on conservatives to carry out regime change in the United States, not just to topple the Democratic president, replace him with a Republican president, but rather to replace liberal democracy with a, quote, ‘Post-liberal order.’ At that event, Vance identified himself as a member of the post-liberal right. Again, not about being against liberals, it’s about being against liberal democracy. He said he views his role in Congress as, quote, ‘Explicitly anti-regime,’ the regime here being the American system of government.

JD Vance is a Yale Law School graduate. He has called American colleges and universities, quote, the enemy. A couple months ago, he was asked about Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban seizure of state universities in Hungary. Vance said that Orban, quote, ‘Made some smart decisions there that we could learn from in the United States.’ JD Vance, within minutes is about to make his debut on the national stage. Americans have a lot to learn about him.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.