JD Vance sat down with the hosts of The View on Tuesday to promote his new book, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, but the conversation quickly turned elsewhere. The vice president was peppered with questions about the Epstein files, ICE and the Trump administration’s handling of Black history. That being said, it is what happened during the commercial break that has continued to make headlines.
As per a report shared by the Daily Mail, when Vance later joined Greg Gutfeld on Tuesday night, he revealed that The View co-host Joy Behar pulled him aside off-air and told him,
“You know what, you’re, like, pretty good for a Republican.”
Vance, who had walked into the studio fully braced for the worst, appeared caught off guard by the remark. He recalled his reaction to Gutfeld, saying,
“Whoa, that is a way better compliment than I expected from Joy Behar.”
The vice president also shared that he had gone in expecting the panelists to be “absolutely vicious,” adding that they were, in his words, “only a little bit vicious.” The appearance, which many had anticipated would be a full collision, ended up being something far more complicated than either side had likely planned for.
JD Vance clashes with Joy Behar and Ana Navarro over Trump’s inflation remarks on The View:
As per a report shared by Variety, things moved quickly once the panel got started. Alyssa Farah, Ana Navarro and Joy Behar opened by pressing Vance on the economy, with the vice president telling the hosts that the administration has “made good progress” on lowering inflation. Navarro wasn’t buying it.
“[Trump] said he loved inflation,” Navarro said.
Vance pushed back, arguing the remark had been stripped of its context.
“What he said is he loves inflation is going to come down when this war is over,” he replied.
Behar cut straight across him.
“That’s not what he said,” Behar said.
“Are you his interpreter or his vice president? Come on,” she added.
JD Vance tells The View panel Trump reported Epstein to police as hosts argue the two were close friends:
The conversation shifted when Sunny Hostin pressed JD Vance on why the administration had not released the Epstein files in full. The vice president said he personally wanted “full transparency” but pushed back on the suggestion that the White House had ever been uncommitted to it. He then went further.
“I have to defend my boss,” Vance said, insisting that “Epstein hated Donald Trump” on the grounds that
“Trump literally reported Jeffrey Epstein to the police.”
As per a report shared by Variety, a recently released FBI interview summary indicates Trump told Florida police officers “thank goodness you’re stopping him” in reference to Epstein, back in 2006.
The panel wasn’t convinced. Behar told JD Vance that Trump and Epstein
“were best friends for a decade.”
Navarro took it a step further, arguing that the falling out between the two men had nothing to do with Epstein’s sex crimes and everything to do with a real estate dispute.
“Let’s be truthful and transparent. They didn’t just know each other. They were close friends,” Navarro said.
Sara Haines and Ana Navarro confront JD Vance over ICE detention conditions:
Immigration was next on the agenda. Sara Haines told JD Vance she understood the case for border enforcement and could explain it to her own children, but drew a line at something else entirely.
“It’s harder to explain when I see someone dragged out of a house or wrongly taken … [when] they aren’t a violent criminal,” Haines said.
Navarro went further. She told the vice president that over fifty people have died in ICE custody and that roughly six thousand two hundred children are currently being held in detention facilities that visitors have described as having subhuman conditions, with shortages of clean water, medical care and education.
“I would urge you as a Christian and as a father to visit those detention centers where the children are being held and make sure that the conditions are up to the values that we hold in this country,” Navarro said.
JD Vance told the panel that the administration was trying to “strike a balance” and insisted that “we don’t want to dehumanize people.” He pushed back on the characterization of those being detained.
“Some of the people that I have been told by the media were completely peaceful, never violated any laws, you look into the record and find out they were violent or they did have a criminal record,” Vance said.
Hostin rejected that framing outright, arguing the “majority” of those being removed from their homes by ICE are “not criminals.” And by the end of the episode, JD Vance was given some time to plug his book
Edited by Ryan D’souza