The View and JD Vance: An Unlikely Pairing

As part of his book tour, Vice President JD Vance stopped by the popular ABC daytime show The View. If you were expecting fireworks, you’d be disappointed because five of the six female hosts of the show were relatively civil and – perhaps even ever so slightly – charmed by him. This is one for the history books, folks.

The ladies appeared to be wearing their “Be a nice human” T-shirts as they grilled the vice president for about an hour, covering several topics on the left-wing agenda. Vance’s real purpose in saying yes to this request is ostensibly to sell his new book, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith.” For those who enjoy a good read, Vance is already a best-selling author for his Hillbilly Elegy and is universally considered a good writer. In the interview, he fielded questions from each of the hosts, with Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, and Sara Haines representing the left. Alyssa Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro supposedly come from the center aisle.

The odd thing about Navarro is that she has a history of working with the Republican Party, but she caught a life-threatening case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) and was perhaps the least impressed by Vance and the most argumentative. She tangled with him over immigration – interrupting the vice president several times – and her body language spoke volumes as she smirked and appeared dismissive when the VP tried to answer the panel’s questions. She even earned a rebuke from Goldberg heading into a commercial break.

The View From the Top

Apparently, the ladies of The View received their marching orders from ABC honchos, telling them to avoid a circus atmosphere when interviewing the nation’s number two in command. If true, it was a good shot across the bow to the several hosts, keeping things civil.

Questions included the Epstein files, racial tension, and – of course – what made him turn around his opinion on Donald Trump from critic to someone willing to be his running mate. Behar queried about that political transition, asking Vance, “What happened?” Vance responded:

“Well, Joy, a little humility, actually. I think when you make predictions, and those predictions turn out to be false, you’ve got to ask yourself what made me wrong about that? What did I not understand or not appreciate? For example, I said that Donald Trump’s economic policies would not lead to wage growth, but they did in his first term. And in politics, that was actually a major, major thing. I said we couldn’t get back any of those factory jobs because I kind of had given in to the idea that those jobs were disappearing. Still, Donald Trump actually oversaw a manufacturing boom during his first administration. So there’s a certain point where you say, I made predictions about this, and I ended up being wrong, and politics, just like anything, it’s important to say you are wrong and I got some things wrong, and I was wrong about him. He was a very successful president; that’s one of the reasons why I’ve been so supportive of him.”

It was a wide-ranging conversation that included the economy, racial tensions, and issues of faith. However, Vance managed to breeze through them all and in the end offered up: “So Joy [Behar] said when we were off air that ‘I’m fine,’ which is about the best endorsement that I’m gonna get out of Joy.” Behar added, “For a Republican.” To which Vance responded, “Thank you. I appreciate that. Graded on a curve here at The View.”

The fact that the discussion was respectful and civil was a teachable moment and a win-win, not just for the Trump administration but for a fiercely divided nation.