JD Vance Easily Handles Past Comment Trap On ‘The View’

Vice President J.D. Vance had a direct answer Tuesday when one of the co-hosts of “The View” pressed him about his past criticism of President Donald Trump.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Vance was not yet Trump’s running mate or one of his most visible defenders. At the time, he was best known as the author of “Hillbilly Elegy” and as a political commentator, and he was firmly in the Never Trump camp.

That history followed him into the 2024 campaign. PBS and other outlets revisited several of his past comments, including his 2016 remark to NPR that he “can’t stomach Trump.” Vance also wrote in a New York Times op-ed that “Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”

In a private text to a former roommate, Vance said he did not vote for Trump in 2016 and suggested Trump could become “America’s Hitler.”

By 2021, however, Vance had changed his view of Trump. The president later endorsed him in Ohio’s crowded 2022 Republican Senate primary, a major boost in a race that helped launch Vance into national Republican politics.

On Tuesday’s episode of “The View,” co-host Sara Haines brought up another past Vance comment about Trump. Quoting him from 2016, she said, “Fellow Christians, everyone is watching when we apologize for this man. Lord, help us.”

Then she challenged him directly.

“Help me find the words to explain to my children what they’re witnessing right now,” Haines said.

The question was framed as more than a request for clarification. It carried a clear criticism of Trump and, by extension, the administration Vance now serves in. That kind of criticism is common on “The View,” but it was still a pointed moment to put in front of the sitting vice president.

Vance did not dodge the issue.

“It’s been well-covered that I was a critic of Donald Trump back in 2015 and 2016,” he said. “Now, obviously, I’m sitting here as the vice president of the United States in the Trump administration.”