JD Vance received an icy welcome on the Sunday press shows this weekend.
The vice president sparred with “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker and “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos, ducking questions about Donald Trump’s Department of Justice and the ongoing bribery scandal surrounding border czar Tom Homan.
Welker was up first, and she grilled Vance about the recent indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Welker brought up reports that a recent Trump post to social media, calling for the prosecution of his political opponents, was meant to be a direct message to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“Is the Department of Justice acting on orders from the president to prosecute his political opponents?” Welker asked.
“The president is allowed to have opinions about the law enforcement of the federal government. He is the chief executive officer of the federal government,” Vance said. “Him having opinions doesn’t mean that we prosecute people unless we have the legal justification to do so.”
Welker regularly pushed back on Vance’s defence of National Guard deployments in American cities and the Trump DOJ’s prosecutions, but ultimately the interview ended on agreeable terms. Stephanopoulos, the host at the center of a Trump defamation lawsuit that ABC settled for $15 million, extended no such niceties to the administration. The “This Week” host grilled Vance about the Homan bribery report and criticized Vance’s shiftiness.
Vance said unequivocally that Homan “did not take a bribe,” while allowing that he may have taken $50,000 from agents conducting a sting operation for legitimate reasons.
“Is it illegal to take a payment for doing services? The FBI has not prosecuted him. I’ve never seen any evidence that he’s engaged in criminal wrongdoing,” Vance said. “Nobody has accused Tom of committing a crime, even the far-left media like yourself. So I’m actually not sure what the precise question is.”
Vance’s accusation that the anchor was going down a “weird left-wing rabbit hole” was a bridge too far for Stephanopoulos. He cut the vice president’s microphone and threw to commercial over Vance’s continued objections.
“You did not answer the question,” he said. “Thank you for your time this morning.”
STEPHANOPOULOS: I didn’t insinuate anything. I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50k as was heard on an audio tape recorded by the FBI in September 2024. You did not answer the question. Thank you for your time.
VANCE: No, George, I sai–
STEPHANOPOULOS: We’ll be right back pic.twitter.com/bj9qxaFIzk
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 12, 2025
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