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Ohio Senator, and now the Republican candidate for Vice President, J.D. Vance, speaking last night at the Republican National Convention, striking a populist tone, which he is known for, but it's a stark contrast to some of the traditional economic policies the Republican Party is well-known for. And joining me now is Neil Irwin, Axios's Chief Economics Correspondent. Neil, it's great to see you. And it's perfectly timely, Neil, because I think today, a lot of traders, investors, business people, Neil, who are watching this, um, they're trying to make sense, Neil, of what a Trump Vance White House would mean in terms of economic policies. Because you would traditionally as a Republican administration, you know, of course you'd think low taxes, less regulation, business friendly. But then you heard Senator Vance last night, Neil, that wasn't so friendly. That was pretty tough on business, tough on multinationals, tough on Wall Street. What are we to make of it all, Neil?

Yeah, he's he's been kind of the front edge of a shift within the Republican Party, that has traditionally of course been the party of business. Has been the party of business interests, and has wanted to, you know, cut the corporate income tax rate. Has wanted to to encourage kind of pro growth, uh, tax policy. And of course there's plenty of overlap between the Vance worldview and that more traditional Republican worldview, deregulation, uh, those areas, they're they're very much aligned. But when it comes down to it, uh, what Vance emphasizes is trying to get wages up for workers and trying to put in place tariff barriers that can, uh, really, uh, help workers potentially, in in his arguments, but not necessarily be good for for businesses that have to import. Um, so you know, you can see some areas where there are real fault lines that might emerge. And look, I talk to CEOs all the time. A lot of them are not very happy with the Biden administration. They see the approach as being overregulated, but they do have some risk if if the Trump Vance administration comes to be, uh, that they will have some some real, uh, some real problems to deal with as they deal with the that incoming administration.

It's interesting, uh, Neil though, because you know, if Trump Vance ticket, if this really takes the White House, Trump's the president, Trump sets the economic policy. I mean, do we have any line of sight into how much, um, former President Trump agrees with Senator Vance on some of his his perspective and vision, when he's talking about, um, business and multinationals and Wall Street, Neil?

Yeah, look, Trump kind of has it all ways. He he he uh, likes to talk about some of these same populist ideas of focusing on restricting immigration, deportations, uh, tariffs. Obviously those are core to his political identity, but he also loves talking to CEOs and loves talking about how he's so great for business. He just floated cutting the corporate income tax rate again. He cut it from believe 38% to 21% when he was in office. Uh, he wants to go down to 15 now, he says. Um, so you know, look, there's a lot of things Trump would like to do that that are certainly business priorities and things that big business would like to see. And Vance as Vice President would just be one voice at the table kind of trying to shape those policies. That said, you know, if you think about how parties usually evolve, the sitting Vice President, and again, we're in a scenario where Trump Vance wins in November, uh, is you know, the the first the frontrunner to to be the next nominee. So you can imagine that this is part of a shift in kind of who the Republican base is and what Republican Party priorities are.

I find, Neil, just the shift that we're watching. I think is just fascinating. Um, and when you listen to these sort of, you know, I guess populist conservatives, Neil, like Senator Vance, are there areas where in economic policy, they can almost in sometimes overlap with more left of center economic views and policies?

Oh definitely, yeah. I think a lot of what you hear from Senator Vance around uh, around workers and wages and trying to encourage, for example, trying to encourage productivity gains by having higher wages and labor scarcity. That's a concept that I first heard, you know, years ago from from left of center economists. Now, something that Vance talked about in a in an interview with New York Times last month. So, you know, I think there is a kind of changing of the guard of where parties line up on different issues, and it also intersects with these culture war issues, where you know, Senator Vance views attacking big companies for their diversity initiatives for example, as a as a winner for him. Um, you know, it's hard to disentangle what economic policy would look like, and some of the culture war stuff that really is part of the Republican Party going after big business.

Such a big, complicated, interesting topic, Neil. Thank you so much for taking the time to walk us through it. Appreciate it.

Thanks Josh.