Vice President JD Vance appeared on The View, hoping to promote his new book, only to find himself having to explain Donald Trump’s relationship with the world’s most notorious sex offender.
In a sign of the challenge Vance faces at the 2028 presidential election, MAGA’s heir apparent was also forced to defend his boss’s description of affordability being a “hoax”, the stigmatization of Black people in America, and his own previous description of Trump as “America’s Hitler.”
But it was the rapid-fire grilling he faced from The View’s six female co-hosts about the handling of the Epstein files that led the vice president to practically beg for a change of topic.
“Let’s talk about the book. I’m here to sell books, please!” he urged.
The topic did eventually turn to Vance’s new book, Communion, but not before he was asked about last week’s bombshell New York Times report outlining the PR gambit he came up with in the Situation Room to use Tucker Carlson to clear Trump’s name from the Epstein files.
“Well, I’d say first of all, don’t believe everything that you read in any newspaper, whether it’s a right-wing paper or a left-wing paper, because, as you guys know well, there are things that are true, things that are false, and things that are taken out of context,” Vance began.
The vice president did, however, admit he was a “conspiracy theorist” when it came to Epstein’s crimes, “because I think that it’s crazy that you have this guy who was clearly a sex predator, who was hanging out with a lot of very wealthy and powerful people… Nobody knows exactly what happened unless you were there, but that really bothered me.”
“I wanted to have full transparency,” he added, but “what I disagree with is the idea that the White House wasn’t committed to full transparency.”
Vance told the show that “I have to defend my boss,” and in doing so, he cited how Trump kicked Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago resort and reported Epstein to police, according to the files.
He also signed the Epstein Transparency Act, Vance said, only to be told by Ana Navarro that this was done “under duress” after a MAGA backlash and dissent within his own ranks.
Vance rejected this. “I was there, he called the senators and said, you know what, pass this bill, I’ll sign it,” he insisted.
“Why haven’t we seen the release of over 2.5 million additional Epstein final documents?” asked Sunny Hosten.
“I’m going to check on this to make sure, but my understanding is that a lot of those are duplicates of things that have already been released,” Vance replied.
“We’re not holding anything back.”
The appearance in hostile territory was part of a media blitz Vance began on Tuesday to promote his new book on faith.
But while he was a good sport, former Trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin set the tone for the interview by asking him to explain why Trump hadn’t brought down cost-of-living pressures as promised.
Joy Behar then grilled him over the president’s description of affordability as a “hoax”, while Whoopi Goldberg demanded to know why the Trump administration was stigmatizing Black people, citing the removal of black history from museums and other spaces.
After an ad-break, Sara Haines finally turned to Vance’s book, citing his former view of Trump as “America’s Hitler”—which the vice president references in Communion—and his 2016 comments to fellow Christians.
“Everyone is watching when we apologize for this man. Lord help us,” Vance said at the time.
What changed, they asked?
“A little humility, actually,” Vance said. “I think that when you make predictions and those predictions turn out to be false, you’ve got to ask yourself: what may be wrong about that? What did I not understand or not appreciate?”
The women of The View did not seem convinced—and neither did the audience.
