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BONUS: What Does it Mean to be Vice President?
What does it mean to be a Vice President in the modern political landscape? This bonus episode dives into the complex role of the Vice President with UCC's Clodagh Harrington.
We touch on the often-overlooked influence of Vice Presidents throughout history, contrasting this with the satirical portrayal seen in the popular TV show Veep, and how it encapsulates the cynical and opportunistic nature of the role.
Plus. Clodagh shares her best and worst Vice Presidential picks in US history.
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Special guest for this episode:
- Clodagh Harrington, a US politics lecturer from University College Cork, and host of the excellent podcast A Chicken in Every Pot. Her monograph, co-authored with Alex Waddan, entitled ‘Obama V Trump: the Politics of Presidential Legacy and Rollback is available now, and the follow-up, Trump V Biden is due for publication next year.
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Highlights from this episode:
- The Vice Presidency can be interpreted in vastly different ways
- Fictional Veeps, from Selina Meyer to Christian Bale's Cheney
- Historical context is crucial to understanding the evolving role of the Vice President
- Cheney's role as Vice President brought unprecedented influence and power, unlike many predecessors.
- Walter Mondale is praised for bringing seriousness to the Vice Presidency during his term.
- The unpredictable nature of political power dynamics in the White House.
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Additional Resources:
READ: Obama v. Trump: The Politics of Rollback by Clodagh Harrington
READ: The vice presidency: From 'insignificant office' to political powerhouse : NPR
READ: US Vice Presidents Who Went on to Become President | HISTORY
LISTEN: A Chicken in Every Pot
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And if you like this episode, you might also love:
What Was the Constitutional Convention?
Why Does the President Only Serve Two Terms?
Is the President Above the Law?
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to this bonus episode of a history podcast recorded straight after our recently published episode.
Host:What does the Vice President actually do?
Host:I'm joined now by the guest from that episode, UCC's Clodagh Harrington, to discuss this a little bit more.
Host:Cloda, thank you for hanging on.
Clodagh Harrington:Pleasure.
Host:Really, really, really interesting chat that we had on the main podcast, actually.
Host:And for anyone who hasn't listened to that yet, do go check that out.
Host:Sort of diving into what the Vice President actually did does and, and you know, the influence that they, they may or may not have.
Host:But going away from real life for a second because we, I mentioned Veep when we, when we recorded the main episode because I love that show and I just wondered what your, your favorite kind of fictional depictions of the Vice presidency were.
Clodagh Harrington:Yeah, I mean that series is just, it's so much fun.
Clodagh Harrington:You know, the acting is fantastic and the, you know, art imitating life and vice versa.
Clodagh Harrington:You couldn't make up some of those storylines because, you know, the fact and the fiction have just all blurred into to one.
Clodagh Harrington:So, yeah, anyone who hasn't seen that, I would so strongly recommend it.
Clodagh Harrington:And I think the standout kind of feature of it for me is the, you know, as we've talked about previously, that the slightly cynical role of the Vice president or one of two roles, but the one that everyone kind of talks about is the fact that they are the heart beat away from the main job.
Clodagh Harrington:And that Veep character just embodies that so perfectly.
Clodagh Harrington:I think she's like constantly, you know, dissatisfied, so opportunistic.
Clodagh Harrington:She's just ready to go.
Clodagh Harrington:And it's like the worst traits of a vice president of which I'm sure has not been the case, you know, in reality or not as blatantly anyway.
Clodagh Harrington:But that's really amusing.
Clodagh Harrington: that I would Recommend Is the: Clodagh Harrington:That is absolutely, definitely worth the watch.
Clodagh Harrington:And again, same thing, just kind of dark and satirical and on the money and thought provoking and all of these things.
Clodagh Harrington:And particularly as Cheney was such a massively powerful and significant and consequential vice president.
Clodagh Harrington:I think it's especially for people who might be younger and weren't kind of taken any notice back when that was actually playing out in history.
Clodagh Harrington:It's just an interesting way to kind of recap on what's gone before.
Host:Yeah, definitely two wildly different interpretations of the Vice President there in Veep and Vice.
Host:But Christian Bale, I have to give kudos to him.
Host:He's like a chameleon.
Host:Right.
Host:I had to double take when I first saw the trailer for Vice because, like, I guess the makeup team deserve all the credit because he looks unrecognizable.
Clodagh Harrington:Yeah, yeah, no, no, it's fantastic.
Clodagh Harrington:It really is.
Clodagh Harrington: like in the Trump era, since: Clodagh Harrington:That's all the bandwidth.
Clodagh Harrington:Even those years that he was out of power, we're still all talking about him, you know, prior to that.
Clodagh Harrington:I mean, it's easy to forget, I suppose.
Clodagh Harrington:I mean, this is stuff that I kind of tell my students about because they would have been, you know, children when the Bush Cheney administration was rolling out for those very long eight years, it has to be said.
Clodagh Harrington:And the idea that Cheney interpreted the vice presidency in a way that nobody had previously, the way he saw it was that the veep was not part of the executive branch because if you're president of the Senate, then you don't have an official role in the executive.
Clodagh Harrington:That's how he interpreted it, which was interesting.
Clodagh Harrington:And that's why I think, you know, he.
Clodagh Harrington:He was kind of.
Clodagh Harrington:He was worthy of having a film made about him in a way that, I don't know, perhaps Walter Mondale, to go back to him, might not have.
Clodagh Harrington:You know, so, yeah, really consequential, I think, in what he brought to the White House.
Host:Yeah.
Host:I mean, we did touch on the sort of power dynamics, though, between the vice president and the president.
Host:I think for.
Host:For Dick Cheney to have the sort of role that he had and assert as much power over the role that he did, you need the right president, because you can't.
Host:I can't imagine someone like Trump would let Vance have as powerful a position in the vice presidency as Cheney was allowed under Bush.
Clodagh Harrington:Oh, absolutely.
Clodagh Harrington:But, I mean, I suppose it's all about the characters, isn't it, and what the power dynamic between the two is.
Clodagh Harrington:I mean, as we mentioned earlier, earlier, it's like the how.
Clodagh Harrington:How the formal power dynamic between Trump and Vance will roll out.
Clodagh Harrington:I mean, it's anybody's guess.
Clodagh Harrington:It's fun to speculate, but I mean, we just don't know.
Clodagh Harrington:We really don't.
Clodagh Harrington:And one of the things.
Clodagh Harrington:And again, you know, as a historian, I shouldn't be speculating, but one can't help it.
Clodagh Harrington:It's like, you know, we saw Joe Biden decline very Publicly and very quickly during his presidency.
Clodagh Harrington:You know, I think he's a wonderful, wonderful politician in many ways and I'm sure history is going to be very kind to him in he might have to wait a little while.
Clodagh Harrington:But you know, so you saw his star waning, you know, quite rapidly.
Clodagh Harrington:And so the kind of attention and the expectation and the potential power dynamic of his Vice president, you can kind of see it raising or you could see it raising over time.
Clodagh Harrington:You know, the spotlight was increasingly on Harris with regard to the Trump Vance dynamic.
Clodagh Harrington:I mean, Trump is still, you know, fighting fit and good to go for the time being, but you don't know, you know, how that four year period will go.
Clodagh Harrington:He's going into par.
Clodagh Harrington:I think he's 78 now.
Clodagh Harrington:You know, there could be a series of, of unknown.
Clodagh Harrington:Unknowns, let's put it that way in which could mean that Vance's star rises pretty rapidly.
Host:Yeah, well, I mean the facts are there's been two apparent assassination attempts on Trump just during the re election campaign.
Host:So, you know, I think for the first time in many years or since Reagan, really the threat of that has become a lot more real and a lot more dangerous.
Host:Like him or not.
Host:I mean, you know, it's.
Host:The threat is there.
Host:I think.
Clodagh Harrington:Yes, that's actually very true.
Clodagh Harrington:I wasn't even thinking along those lines.
Clodagh Harrington:I was thinking along the lines of somebody who appears to not exercise and eat a lot of junk food.
Clodagh Harrington:So there's that.
Clodagh Harrington:But you're absolutely right.
Clodagh Harrington:And I mean that would be a, a profoundly traumatic way for Vance to actually, you know, become, you know, if he's a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Clodagh Harrington:You need to be careful what you wish for because you don't, I mean, you know, any of those predecessors who stepped up in, in dramatic and traumatic circumstances, I don't think any of them would have wished that, you know, you, you'd want to be pretty inhuman to be that person.
Clodagh Harrington:So for a whole range of reasons, one would hope that that is not the case.
Clodagh Harrington:It's, it's, it's a profoundly traumatic thing for the country.
Host:Yeah, of course.
Host:And going back to the Vice President itself, you know, who do you think is the best and you know, I guess the reverse that.
Host:Who do you think is the worst Vice president in, in U.S.
Host:history?
Clodagh Harrington:Gosh, I actually, not to keep talking about Walter Montale, but I have a really soft spot for him.
Clodagh Harrington:I think I just loved the fact that.
Clodagh Harrington:I think it's partly because I really, really, really love Jimmy Carter.
Clodagh Harrington:He's possibly my favorite president, and I think he was enormously underrated at the time, et cetera.
Clodagh Harrington:The fact that, you know, Mondale and Carter had this genuine friendship and that Mondale bought things to the office that his predecessors just kind of hadn't been allowed to do, or it just wasn't even, you know, relevant, but that it became more of a serious entity.
Clodagh Harrington:Now, it did happen a bit previously, as we mentioned in the main conversation.
Clodagh Harrington:You know, the idea of somebody like Gerald Ford or whatever who had to kind of step up under dramatic circumstances, started putting those, you know, a bit more resources, you know, more funding, more staffing, more space into the office of the Vice Presidency.
Clodagh Harrington:But I have a real soft spot for Walter Mondale, I have to say, in terms of the worst.
Clodagh Harrington:Gosh, I mean, there's a few to choose from.
Clodagh Harrington:I, I suppose the one that I would find, I don't know if it's the worst, but, but the guy who would have unnerved me most would have been Dick Cheney, definitely.
Clodagh Harrington:Because those were, those were kind of dangerous times, you know, after, after 9, 11, you know, it was, you know, Iraq war, Afghanistan war, the war on Terror, all.
Clodagh Harrington:It was a very tumultuous kind of unnerving period.
Clodagh Harrington:And to have somebody there, like when you're looking at what the President does and the President is Commander in Chief and all the rest of it, it's relatively clear cut when you have somebody in the background, as Cheney was apparently with all this huge, not just influence, but actual power over the President himself and his very unconventional interpretation of what the, the VP office was about.
Clodagh Harrington:I always found him to be.
Clodagh Harrington:Yeah.
Clodagh Harrington:Unnerving, I suppose, is how I would put it.
Clodagh Harrington:So he, he was the one that kind of kept me awake at night and Walter Maldade was the one that kind of made me feel a bit, you know, good about the executive more broadly, but particularly about the veep office.
Host:Yeah, interesting.
Host:Yeah.
Host:And been a great discussion to sort of find out a bit more about historically what the Vice President has and maybe has not done.
Host:And I think Dick Cheney certainly seems like a bit of an outlier there in terms of, you know, the amount of political gravitas that he, that he threw around during his eight years.
Host:But we're going to wrap up there.
Host:I'm sure there is so much more to talk about and certainly as the Trump and Vance administration gets underway, I'm sure the next four years won't be short of, of headlines and prompts for us to discuss further.
Host:But thank you, Claudia, for joining me for this and also for the main episode.
Host:And anyone, anyone that's listening to this, if you are listening to this and haven't seen the full episode, go and do that right now, please.
Host:And also remember to rate, review and click Follow so that all new episodes appear in your feed.
Host:And if you like what you hear, remember you can support the show from as little as one simple dollar or pound or whatever currency you deal in.
Host:Thank you so much for listening and goodbye.
