Vice President JD Vance is attempting to assure a consistently suspicious American public that President Donald Trump is not hiding anything when it comes to the highly-publicized Jeffrey Epstein files.
“What I disagree with is the idea that the White House wasn’t committed to full transparency. We have to remember I was inside of the room when some of these decisions were made,” Vance, 41, claimed on the Tuesday, June 16, episode of The View. “One of the things that you see in the Epstein emails is that Jeffrey Epstein hated Donald Trump and that Donald Trump literally reported Jeffrey Epstein to the police. That’s one of the things that came out of these files.”
In November 2025, Trump, 80, signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law after it was passed by Congress. It required the Department of Justice (DOJ) to publicly release all unclassified records, investigative materials, flight logs and communications related to the investigation and prosecution of Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges.
When The View cohost Anna Navarro pushed back and claimed Trump and Epstein were best friends for almost a decade, Vance shared his perspective.
“He knew Jeffrey Epstein back in the 1980s. He also threw Jeffrey Epstein out of his club when he found out he was a creep and reported him to the police,” Vance further claimed. “That’s something the media often misses when they report on this story.”
The vice president also denied claims that Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act because he was under duress from other powerful members of the Republican party.
“The idea that Donald Trump runs around afraid of Republican congressmen as opposed to the other way around is kind of crazy,” Vance said. “Don’t believe everything that you read in any newspaper, whether it’s a ring-leaning paper or a left-leaning paper. There are things that are true. There are things that are false and there are things that are totally missing context.”
The View’s Sunny Hostin questioned why nearly 2.5 million documents or files have yet to be publicly released.
According to Vance, some of the delays are due to the court system, while others are simply copies of originals.
“My understanding is that a lot of those are duplicates that have already been released,” he added. “We’re not holding anything back.”
Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors. He pleaded not guilty prior to his death one month later.
The commander-in-chief has repeatedly denied having any knowledge of the disgraced billionaire’s crimes, claiming he had a falling out with Epstein more than two decades ago after the controversial figure “stole” young female workers from his Mar-a-Lago resort.
During his appearance on The View, in promotion of his new book Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, Vance admitted he was “kind of a conspiracy theorist on the Epstein stuff” before becoming vice president of the United States.
“I think it’s crazy that you have this guy who is clearly a sex predator who is hanging out with a lot of very wealthy and powerful people. That really bothered me,” he shared with the panel that also included Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Joy Behar and Alyssa Farah Griffin. “I don’t know what’s there, of course. Nobody knows exactly what happened unless you were there, but that really bothered me and I wanted to have full transparency.”
Several cohosts of The View have been critical of the Trump administration. Before Vance’s interview began, however, Goldberg, 70, expressed gratitude to the vice president for agreeing to appear on the show.
“This show has invited thousands of guests with all kinds of diverse points of view, and we have been asking our next guest to join us for a while now,” she said. “We’re glad that he’s taken up on the offer today.”
Vance replied, “This is a show of MAGA Republicans, right? … That’s what my media team told me.”
The View airs weekdays on ABC. Check your local listings online.
