Outspoken Trump critic Joy Behar offered Vice President JD Vance an unlikely compliment after she helped inundate him with questions alongside her co-hosts on Tuesday.
Vance, 41, had appeared on The View to plug his book, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, when he was forced to sit through claims that the Trump administration is racist as he fielded a barrage of questions about the Epstein Files, the economy and his relationship with President Donald Trump.
But when the vice president sat down with Fox News' Greg Gutfeld on Tuesday night, he said the experience 'wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be.'
He then revealed that Behar told him during the commercial break, 'You know what, you're, like, pretty good for a Republican.'
'And I was like, "Whoa, that is a way better compliment than I expected from Joy Behar,"' Vance recounted.
The vice president also said he had expected the panelists to be 'absolutely vicious, and they were only a little bit vicious.'
His 'expectations were defied' again when Whoopi Goldberg accused him of being racist - and not Sunny Hostin as he had expected.
Vance had remained diplomatic throughout the segment, despite facing criticism almost immediately after he sat down on the stage.
Vice President JD Vance told Fox News' Greg Gutfeld how The View's liberal co-host Joy Behar complimented him during a commercial break on Tuesday
Behar (pictured) reportedly told Vance he's 'pretty good for a Republican'
The Republican was flanked by anti-Trump hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Joy Behar, Ana Navarro and Sunny Hostin
It began with anti-Trump panelist Ana Navarro pushing back on the vice president's claim that the administration has 'made good progress' on lowering inflation.
'[Trump] said he loved inflation,' Navarro noted, to which Vance had to clarify: 'What he said is he loves inflation is going to come down when this war is over.'
At another point, Hostin asked why Vance was 'rebuffed' by federal officials after he suggested last summer that Tucker Carlson interview Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell in an effort to clear Trump's name, according to a new report.
'I would say first of all, don't believe everything that you read in any newspaper whether it's a right leaning paper or left leaning,' Vance disclaimed, before admitting he is 'frankly kind of a conspiracy theorist on the Epstein stuff.'
'I think that it's crazy that you have this guy who is clearly a sex predator who is hanging out with a lot of wealthy and powerful people - that bothered me. I don't know what's there. Nobody knows exactly what happened unless you were there.'
'I wanted to have full transparency. What I disagree with is the idea the White House wasn’t committed to full transparency,' Vance said.
He went on to remind viewers that while he 'disagree[d]' with certain White House decisions when it came to the case, one of the major revelations from releases thus far 'is that Epstein hated Donald Trump.'
'Donald Trump literally reported Jeffrey Epstein to the police. That's one of the things that came out of the files,' Vance explained.
Vance, 41, faced some hard-hitting questions during his appearance on The View
But Behar didn't seem to buy the claim, insisting: 'They were best friends for a decade.'
Navarro also claimed Trump and Epstein's relationship only fell apart over a 'real estate deal.'
Hostin also grilled the conservative about the holdup in releasing the remaining 2.5 million pages of DOJ records related to feds' investigation into the financier.
Vance responded by pointing out how remaining records were either duplicates or subject to court-ordered limitations.
'I would need to actually know exactly what you're talking about,' he told Hostin at a point, after asking for - and not receiving - specifics.
Moderator Whoopi Goldberg quickly called for a break.
When the broadcast returned, Behar immediately seized on Vance as he began fielding a question from Sara Haines.
Haines had asked how Vance's conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism in 2019 affected his political views - specifically how he went from calling Trump 'America's Hitler' in a 2016 text message to a friend to 'America's best hope.'
'What happened?' Behar blurted out.
'Well, Joy - little humility, actually,' an affable Vance answered. 'I think when you make predictions and those turn out to be false, you have to ask yourself, what made me wrong about that? What did I not understand or appreciate?'
At one point, Vance had to calmly tell Behar to let him finish his thought
As he explained how he came to this growth, Haines and Behar began speaking over him.
'Let me finish. Let me just finish,' he said in a soft tone.
He added: 'There's a certain point where you say, "I made predictions about this. I ended up being wrong. In politics and anything, I think it's important to say, you know what? I got things wrong. I was wrong about him. He was a very successful president.
The hosts responded by bringing up Trump's purported lack of humility, before spending several minutes panning the president's approach to immigration.
'You have thrown a lot at me. We have 30 seconds left here,' Vance noted as Goldberg desperately tried to cut off her co-hosts and go to a pre-scheduled commercial.
'You are the vice president. You can go long,' said Navarro.
Vance insisted that 'We have to strike a balance between enforcing laws' on suspected illegal immigrants while not 'dehumaniz[ing] people.'
An unsatisfied Hostin still asked two follow-ups.
Goldberg accused the administration of attempting to 'stigmatize folks of color' through its efforts to remove structures or sites important to black history
After the commercial, Goldberg took charge, outright asking 'What did black people do to this administration that has allowed it to really stigmatize folks of color? You know how hard it is.'
The question was a reference to the Trump administration's efforts to remove certain structures or sites important to black history, as well as the dismantling of majority-black voting districts.
'You have folks of color in your family,' Goldberg noted, referring to Vance’s wife, Usha, who is Indian American.
'Sure,' Vance said.
'When you see things - them doing all kinds of removal of information of black heroes, how do you - how does that sit with you?'
A visibly confused Vance replied: 'What exactly are you talking about?'
Goldberg, tripping over her words at points, explained: 'They are taking down the actual history that happened in this country.
'Slavery happened. All kinds of stuff happened. It seems that it has been very easy for this administration to remove that and also to denigrate black folks who have worked their behinds off to get this American dream.'
Hostin stepped in to say: 'We’re talking about black history erased. Black voter districts dismantled. Black leaders are sidelined from our ranks. Where do Americans of color fit in this vision? It doesn’t seem like we fit.'
Vance answered: 'I think everybody is welcome in our political coalition, even if you didn’t vote for us.
'Everybody is welcome in our country so long as you are an American citizen.'
When Vance cited declining violent crime rates in Washington, DC - where black people comprise nearly half the population - Goldberg shot back: This is not about crime. This is about human rights.'
Hostin maintained: 'Black history has been erased.'
'That is not right,' Vance said, before yet another break.
The rest of the appearance spanned only a few minutes, with Vance given the time to plug the book and field softer questions about his personal life.
The book - a 304-page memoir billed as 'a spiritual exploration of what it means to be a Christian in all the seasons of life' - hit shelves on Tuesday.