In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America. Published daily by senior writers and experts, these in-depth pieces go beyond the headlines to give readers the full picture. You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here.“Yesterday on Joe Rogan’s show, the vice president made a strong case against free markets and meritocracy,” Shapiro claimed on his own podcast a day later. “I don’t want a socialistic big government. I don’t want economic policies that could come straight from Bernie Sanders.”
Vance a socialist? That is a serious charge. Here is the clip Shapiro played to support it.“Does the socialism thing scare me? Yes,” Vance told Rogan. “Is it the wrong solution? Yes. But one thing I try to persuade my fellow Republicans of is socialism is the alternative if we don’t have a pathway to give people a sense that the system is not rigged and that the American dream is attainable. That’s like our job. That’s what we have to do.”“It’s not going to be easy to undo some of these economic trends,” Vance continued. “But man, we ran the experiment. We ran the experiment of offshoring all of our industrial jobs, of becoming a services and finance economy and allowing Wall Street to come in and buy every asset of modern life and turn it into an investable, you know, line goes up asset. And what has that done? It’s created a generation of kids who kind of are attracted to socialism. We have to fix that problem.”Contra Vance, Shapiro thinks everything is perfect in the economy and Vance is only helping Democrats by pointing out past policy mistakes.“That America has offshored all of our jobs. Not true,” Shapiro claimed. “That America’s services economy is some sort of gigantic failure. Not true. That America’s economy is some sort of rigged system in which no one can get ahead. Not true.”“When you keep giving credence to that and then you say we have to … we must … we the government … we must step in and convince people the system is not rigged, I don’t know how that sounds any different than Gavin Newsom frankly,” Shapiro continued.Shapiro then played a clip of Gov. Gavin Newsom saying the American dream is “now out of reach for many, if not most, Americans.”Secretary of State Marco Rubio, left, talks with Vice President JD Vance prior to the arrival of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
