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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN, the Axviles, with your host, David Axelrod.

If ever there was a timely book, it's Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, who grew up around Appalachia and in working class Ohio

and lived many of the challenges that are common to folks in that region.

J.D. recently shared his stories and his very, very insightful observations at the Institute of Politics and right here.

J.D. Vance, welcome. You know, they say everything in life is timing.

So you wrote a book, a memoir of your life growing up in and around Appalachia and it was an incredible journey.

Now, every elite in the country looks at you as sort of Margaret Mead or their Sherpa to lead them through this world that they don't understand that Donald Trump obviously did.

And we'll talk about him and all of that. But the book itself, apart from the timing, is a beautiful book and it's an incredible story.

And so I want to start there and just ask you a little bit about how you grew up and how you got from there to here as a Yale educated lawyer and now Sherpa for the elites.

Well, the story in my mind really starts in Eastern Kentucky in the 1940s when my grandparents get married and move to the North, Russ Belto, Ohio, what we now call the Russ Bel, but then was the land of opportunity.

And they just wanted a better life for themselves. They were very poor in Eastern Kentucky. And so they were able to raise a family on a single wage.

They definitely.

You know, Ohio.

You know, Ohio.

Things were pretty chaotic. I mean, they definitely brought with them a lot of the habits they had acquired from being incredibly poor, growing up in the mountains.

And so they didn't fit in quite as well. Their family life was pretty good.

What were those habits?

Well, you know, they grew up in just they were used to struggle and they were used to not necessarily living their life in a way that was that was surrounded by material comfort.

So they didn't necessarily know how to adjust that well to having money. They didn't, you know, they didn't fit in, especially well in their communities.

And their family life was pretty chaotic and pretty traumatic. I mean, even back in the 30s and 40s when things went pretty well for them and their family, still there was a lot of violence, a lot of alcoholism, my grandma's grandfather had famously killed local political rival in the county.

So there was just a fair amount of, I think, emotional baggage that they brought with them and just the fact that they were a 16 and a 13 year old who had moved north to escape their family because their family wasn't too happy about the fact that my grandma was pregnant.

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