Fresh off negotiating a peace deal with the mullahs and extremists of Iran, Vice President JD Vance waded into the much more turbulent waters of ABC’s “The View” Tuesday.
After receiving warm, respectful applause from most of the audience, Vance endured a hostile interrogation not from the usual four rotating co-hosts of the show, but a tag team of all six: Joy Behar; Whoopi Goldberg; Sunny Hostin; Sara Haines; Ana Navarro; and Alyssa Farah Griffin.
Who needs The Claw when you’ve got the set of “The View”?
Indeed, more punches were thrown than at the UFC Freedom 250 event Sunday night. Yet none landed on the verbally agile vice president.
Flogging Him With His Faith
Vance, on hand to promote his new book, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith,” saw the hosts try using his Christian faith against him.
While discussing Vance’s earlier criticisms of then-candidate Donald Trump, Haines insinuated the vice president was compromising his Christianity by backing Trump now.
She said his past criticisms of Trump were not just about policy but about “what Christians were willing to excuse.”
“That’s the part I can’t get past. What are you willing to excuse in the name of power?” she asked Vance.
Vance was also challenged on how he, as a Christian, could possibly support deporting illegal aliens.
“The Catholic faith says we take in immigrants,” Whoopi Goldberg asked. “How do you justify that?”
Responded Vance: “The Christian faith says that you can have borders and you’re allowed to enforce your borders.”
Countering Complaints About ICE
The sparring over immigration continued, with the co-hosts condemning the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Law enforcement is always inherently not a pretty process,” Vance stated. “Especially when you deal sometimes with violent people, with people who are resisting arrest. 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. They had a sex trafficking conviction.”
Navarro attacked Vance over ICE allegedly separating parents from children. The vice president responded with a withering counter, detailing the tens of thousands of children sex trafficked and exploited due to former President Joe Biden’s open border policies.
They Had to Play the Race Card
The hosts played the race card like it was the show’s opening theme, mentioning in the context of immigration that Vance’s wife Usha is a person of color.
Then Whoopi suggested Trump wants to erase the history of slavery and that the administration has it in for black people.
“What did black people do to this administration to make you stigmatize folks of color?!” she asked.
Vance didn’t bat an eye.
“Look at Washington, D.C., one of the most Democratic—and one of the blackest, by share of population—cities, [which] has seen a radical decrease in violent crime, sexual assault, and murders. We have tried to take the crime issue seriously in part because we believe everybody, whether you are black or white or rich or poor, deserves to live in a safe neighborhood.”
During a much more friendly appearance last night on Fox News’ “Gutfeld!,” Vance said he knew he’d be called a racist on the ABC show, but he expected it would come from Sunny Hostin, not Whoopi.
Inflation and Affordability
The hosts tried to pin Vance over inflation, with Behar claiming Trump called affordability a “hoax.”
Vance jabbed back with facts. “What the president said is the idea that Republicans caused the affordability problem is a hoax. And I think that’s true. If you go back to the Biden administration, inflation got up to 9%. Right now, it’s at 3.5%—by the way, too high. We inherited an affordability problem. We’re doing a lot to make it better. It’s going to take a little bit of time.”
Epstein, Epstein, Epstein
The ladies of “The View” kept harping on Jeffrey Epstein, forcing Vance to repeatedly remind them that the Epstein files reveal the convicted child sex trafficker “hated” Trump, and that Trump tossed him out of his Mar-a-Lago club and “narc’d” on him to the police, which helped lead to Epstein’s downfall.
Shockingly, none of the six hosts asked about the freshly minted U.S.-Iran peace deal, as Vance played a crucial in negotiating the agreement. Somehow, Trump’s friends during the Reagan administration is a more important topic than a current war, Middle East peace and ending Iran’s nuclear threat.
The focus on Epstein, as opposed to Iran, would be like hosting a member of the New York Knicks and not asking about the recent NBA Finals.
A Civil Discourse
All told, despite the six-to-one odds, Vance came out unscathed.
He had gone into the interview hoping for the best.
“It may be the optimist in me, but I just fundamentally think that most people—not everybody, but most people—even if I disagree with them, you ought to try to have a conversation with them,” he told Fox News Digital in a sit-down interview Monday.
And true to form, Vance maintained his cool, remained respectful, and used his charm and baby-blues to diffuse the Trump-hating gaggle. He also injected levity whenever possible during his hour-long ordeal.
The vice president opened his appearance by joking, “This is a show of MAGA Republicans, right? That’s what my media team told me.”
Later, he revealed how Behar had said off air that he’s fine, “which I think is about the best endorsement I’m gonna get out of Joy Behar.”
To which Behar interjected, “For a Republican.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that,” he quipped. “Graded on a curve here at The View.”
That even got a laugh out of Joy Behar. Which is tougher work for a Republican than reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran.
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