On a trip last month to Europe, I visited with a successful old friend, steeped in the business of oil, high finance, and international politics. He stunned me by saying that the most competent American involved in foreign policy today is JD Vance, the vice president who, he asserted, would make a very good president. I expressed surprise—my friend rarely speaks positively about American policy-makers—especially one who famously joined with candidate Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign in accusing Haitian immigrants in Ohio of eating others’ pet dogs and cats.

In 2016 Vance published a memoir of his chaotic life as a hillbilly in Ohio that many people I respect urged me to read, but I never got around to it. I thought of my oilman friend’s assessment after Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow victory this week in the Democratic primary for Michigan’s open Senate seat. Given Trump’s poor polling, it may be that the Democrats will eke out a majority in the Senate and a greater plurality in the House this fall. The new Congress, once seated early next year, could immediately—as some members have repeatedly threatened—vote to impeach the president, putting Vance in the hot seat.