JD Vance Addresses His Past Comments About Donald Trump — The View

[0:00] So Mr. Vice President, in your new book, Communion, [0:02] you write about your personal evolution with faith [0:05] from evangelical to atheist to Catholic convert. [0:09] And you also explain your evolution similarly on Trump [0:12] from calling him America's Hitler to America's best hope. [0:16] Now, as someone who has admitted to chasing ambition, [0:20] which you write about in the book, in the past, [0:22] but now says your faith brought you back to your priorities, [0:25] I have to kind of use your own words that sit with me from 2016. [0:30] Fellow Christians, everyone is watching when we apologize for this man. [0:35] Lord, help us. [0:36] And I think about that all the time because as a fellow Christian, [0:38] that is something that weighs on my heart as I watch this country [0:41] and the leadership at the top [0:43] because it's also something I have to explain to my kids, [0:46] which I know we also share this idea [0:48] that our greatest privilege and responsibility [0:50] are these young people we're raising. [0:52] Of course. [0:52] So help me find the words to explain to my children [0:56] what they're witnessing right now. [0:57] Well, you know, first of all, it's been well covered [1:01] that I was a critic of Donald Trump back in 2015 and 2016. [1:04] Now, obviously, I'm sitting here as the vice president of the United States [1:06] in the Trump administration. [1:09] Well, Joy, a little humility, actually. [1:12] I think that when you make predictions [1:13] and those predictions turn out to be false, [1:16] you've got to ask yourself, [1:17] well, what made me wrong about that? [1:18] What did I not understand or not appreciate? [1:21] For example, I said that Donald Trump's economic policies [1:24] would not lead to wage growth. [1:26] They did in the first term. [1:28] That was actually a major, major thing. [1:30] I said that we couldn't bring back any of those factory jobs [1:33] because I kind of had given in to this idea [1:34] that those jobs were disappearing, [1:36] but actually, Donald Trump, you saw a manufacturing boom [1:39] during that administration. [1:40] So there's a certain point where you say, [1:46] you know, I made predictions about this. [1:49] I ended up being wrong. [1:50] And in politics and anything, [1:52] I think it's important to just say, [1:53] you know what, I got some things wrong [1:55] and I was wrong about him. [1:56] He was a very successful president. [1:58] It's one of the reasons why I've been so supportive of him. [1:59] But you go on in the book to explain [2:01] that good policy was maybe one of your justifications, [2:04] but the quote and when you tweeted that or X'd it [2:08] was not about policy. [2:10] It was what Christians were willing to excuse. [2:13] And that's the part I can't get past. [2:15] What are you willing to excuse in the name of power? [2:19] Well, I would say fundamentally [2:23] that one of the things I underappreciated about Donald Trump [2:26] is that so many of the things that people said about him [2:28] weren't actually true. [2:30] Again, you talk about humility, okay? [2:31] So I see Donald Trump, I see a clip of him, [2:33] or I see even, not even a clip of him, [2:35] but reporting about something that he said. [2:37] And I take it at face value. [2:38] For example, let's just go back to [2:39] one of the most controversial things [2:41] Donald Trump said during the first term [2:43] that I was wrong during the first campaign [2:45] is that I was led to believe by the stories. [2:48] I read stories that said, [2:50] Donald Trump said that all Mexicans were rapists. [2:52] He never said that. [2:54] What he said, what he said is that [2:56] the certain South American countries, [2:58] Central American countries were releasing criminals [3:01] into our country, including Mexico. [3:02] By the way, that was objectively true. [3:05] So it's not so much Christians... [3:07] There is no evidence of that. [3:07] No, no, no. [3:08] Fidel Castro did that in 1980 with the Marielle Boatlift. [3:11] There have been many, many journalists, [3:14] including CNN, where you used to work [3:16] and be my colleague, [3:17] that have tried to find evidence of that. [3:19] There is no evidence that Maduro was releasing people [3:21] from insane asylums or jails, [3:24] like Fidel Castro did do. [3:26] This was made up, [3:27] and we just can't accept it without pushing back. [3:30] Anna, we know that there were people [3:31] who were released from prisons [3:32] who were encouraged to come into the United States. [3:34] It wasn't like there wasn't a Marielle, Mr. Vice President. [3:36] And it wasn't where it was like a purposeful relief, [3:38] open up the jails, open up the insane asylums [3:40] and let people flood Florida. [3:42] I've been through that in Miami. [3:44] If you go, it may not have been like Marielle, [3:46] but if you go back to the caravans [3:48] that were happening in 22, 2023, [3:50] we know that those things were funded. [3:52] They were in some ways supported by the government. [3:53] There was absolutely... [3:54] So I don't know how you define support or not support, [3:56] but if people are encouraged to come into our country [3:59] after having spent time in prison by their own governments, [4:02] I think that's a problem. [4:03] Vice President, can I just add one more thing? [4:04] Because you do speak about immigration [4:06] at length in this book. [4:08] Sure. [4:08] And I believe, as a Christian, [4:10] I can tell my kids why it's important to have borders. [4:13] I get that. [4:14] There are laws, there are resources. [4:15] I get all that things. [4:16] It's much harder to explain [4:17] when I see someone dragged out of a house [4:19] or wrongly taken to a thing [4:22] that isn't a violent criminal. [4:23] That is a... [4:24] It's a little more nuanced as a parent [4:27] to try to say when someone's referred to as vermin or scum [4:30] when I teach them in school [4:31] about people that have done that before, [4:33] but this is different. [4:34] It's very hard as a parent and a Christian [4:36] to say both things. [4:38] And you actually say in the book, [4:39] you talk about this struggle, [4:42] this internal struggle in the book, [4:43] and you talk about moral trade-offs [4:45] that result in favoring a strict migration policy [4:48] without dehumanizing anyone. [4:51] But listen, over 50 people have died [4:54] in ICE custody. [4:55] There are thousands of children, [4:57] 6,200 that are being held in places [5:00] like Dilley Detention Center. [5:01] The people that have visited those detention centers, [5:04] I don't know if you have, [5:05] talk about the subhuman, [5:06] infrahuman conditions, [5:08] the lack of clean water, [5:09] the lack of medical attention, [5:11] the lack of education. [5:12] I would urge you as a Christian and as a father [5:15] to visit those detention centers [5:17] where the children are being held [5:19] and make sure that the conditions [5:20] are up to the values that we hold in this country. [5:25] So you guys are throwing a lot at me [5:26] and I see we've got 30 seconds left here. [5:28] But let me say, number one, [5:30] You're the vice president, [5:30] you can go along. [5:31] I'd like to pick up on this theme [5:32] because I think it's really important. [5:33] We do have to strike a balance, of course, [5:35] between enforcing our laws. [5:37] We don't want to dehumanize people. [5:38] That is the balance that, look, [5:40] law enforcement, what I'd say about this, [5:42] law enforcement is always inherently [5:44] not a very pretty process, [5:46] especially when you're dealing sometimes [5:47] with violent people, [5:49] with people who are resisting arrest. [5:51] Some of the people that I've been told [5:52] by the media were completely peaceful, [5:55] had never violated any laws. [5:56] You actually look into the record [5:57] and you find out that those people [5:59] were actually being violent [6:00] or they did have a criminal record. [6:02] They had a sex trafficking conviction. [6:04] The majority of people don't have criminal records. [6:05] So the majority of people [6:06] that ICE is rounding up [6:07] and taking out of their homes [6:11] from their families. [6:12] They're separating families. [6:13] They're using children as bait. [6:15] The majority are not criminals. [6:16] But can I respond to that? [6:17] Let me just say this. [6:19] Okay. [6:19] So you talk about the children. [6:22] Here's what I'd say. [6:23] Do we know that during the last administration, [6:26] we had tens of thousands of children [6:29] who were sex trafficked by the cartels, [6:31] who were brought into our country [6:32] in profoundly dangerous [6:34] and predatory conditions. [6:36] Let's talk about this administration. [6:37] But here's the point. [6:39] Unless you enforce the border, [6:40] you invite that kind of conduct. [6:42] You think that our immigration policies [6:44] are inhumane based on the reporting [6:46] of one person with a political bias. [6:49] What I'm telling you [6:50] is that it's inhumane [6:51] to allow cartels [6:52] to sex traffic people [6:54] across our border. [6:54] And you guys have done a great job [6:56] closing the border. [6:57] Hold on, y'all. [6:57] Hold on, please hold on. [6:58] I appreciate that.