Vice President JD Vance sparred with the ladies of “The View” on immigration, affordability, and the Jeffrey Epstein files during an intensely one-sided interview on ABC on Tuesday.
“So this is a show of MAGA Republicans, right?” he joked to “The View” hosts as he sat down among them. They greeted his joke with laughs, pointing out that he is much taller than they expected.
Then they immediately plunged into different lines of attack, starting with affordability. Vance kept his cool, smiling throughout the interview, pushing back on many of their questions and politely calling out statements he disagreed with. Notably, the hosts did not bring up the war in Iran, nor did they bring up the most highly discussed item of the week: the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran.
“President Trump has called affordability a hoax,” noted Joy Behar. “ He said that, not me. He is pouring money into this ballroom and the reflecting pool, the Arc de Trumpe, I call it, and a White House cage match. All these things. Why is he doing them when you just — everybody knows that Americans are struggling. What is he spending this money for?”
“I have to defend the president on the hoax point,” responded Vance. “ The idea that Republicans caused the affordability problem is a hoax. If you go back to the Biden administration, it was up to 9% inflation. It’s at 3.5%. Too high. We’re doing everything we can to bring it back down to 2.5%, where most people would like to see it.”
“ We inherited an affordability problem,” he added. “ It’s going to take a little bit of time. There’s a lot more work to do. The president knows a lot of Americans are struggling. He ran on that. He talked about it. We have done things and made good progress on that point.”
When the hosts pushed Vance, arguing that Trump said he loves inflation, Vance responded: “ What he said is, he loves [that] inflation is going to come down when this war is over. That’s what he said.”
. @VP on coming to appreciate @POTUS : “I said that Donald Trump’s economic policies would not lead to wage growth — they did in the first term… I said that we couldn’t bring back any of those factory jobs… you saw manufacturing boom during that administration.” pic.twitter.com/ZcWlyVQpHN
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 16, 2026
He repeatedly stressed that, while he knows the ladies of “The View” don’t share this view of American politics, the American people “inherited a mess” and are focused on fixing it.
“Sometimes it takes a long time to fix a mess,” he said.
The Epstein files received a heavy amount of attention, and co-host Sunny Hostin referenced a recent report claiming that Vance had strongly advocated for the release of the Epstein files and floated having Tucker Carlson interview Ghislaine Maxwell “to clear the president’s name.”
“You were rebuffed by your people,” she claimed. “Why?”
Vance didn’t directly address the claim, noting: “Don’t believe everything that you read in any newspaper , whether it’s a Right-leaning paper or Left-leaning. There are things true, false, and missing context.”
“Number one, I am frankly a conspiracy theorist on the Epstein stuff,” he explained. “ That is one thing that’s true. Some people called me a conspiracy theorist. Because I think that it’s crazy that you have this guy who is clearly a sex predator who is hanging out with a lot of wealthy and powerful people. That bothered me.”
VANCE: “One of the things you see in the Epstein emails is that Jeffrey Epstein hated Donald Trump, and that Donald Trump literally reported Jeffrey Epstein to the police.” pic.twitter.com/FK5q83o9z2
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) June 16, 2026
The vice president pointed out that no one knows exactly what went on with Epstein unless they were there themselves. But he pushed back strongly against the notion that the White House wasn’t committed to full transparency.
“One of the things you see in the Epstein emails is that Epstein hated Donald Trump,” he noted. “ Donald Trump literally reported Jeffrey Epstein to the police. That’s one of the things that came out of the files.”
Joy Behar cut in here, insisting that Trump was best friends with Epstein and signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act under duress. Vance again pushed back, noting that Trump was friends with Epstein but ultimately threw him out of his club when he found out that Epstein “was a creep and reported him to the police.”
“That’s something the media misses when it reports the story,” Vance said. “ They tell the fact that they knew each other, which the president admitted. They ignore the fact that he narced on them.”
He also smacked down the notion that Trump only released the Epstein files because he was forced to by Republicans.
“You know the Republican Party probably better than I do,” he said. “The idea that Donald Trump runs around afraid o…
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