Vice President JD Vance faced intense questioning during Sunday morning television appearances, culminating in an abrupt end to his interview on ABC’s “This Week” when host George Stephanopoulos cut his microphone following a heated exchange about border czar Tom Homan’s alleged bribery scandal.
The confrontation occurred on October 12, 2025, after Vance appeared on both NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Kristen Welker and ABC’s “This Week” with Stephanopoulos. During both interviews, the vice president deflected questions about President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice activities and the ongoing controversy surrounding Homan.
On “Meet the Press,” Welker pressed Vance about recent indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. She questioned whether the Department of Justice was acting on direct orders from Trump to prosecute his political opponents, citing reports that a recent Trump social media post calling for such prosecutions was intended as a direct message to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Vance defended the administration’s position, stating that the president is allowed to have opinions about federal law enforcement as the chief executive officer of the federal government. He argued that having opinions does not automatically lead to prosecutions unless there is legal justification to do so. Welker continued to challenge Vance’s defense of National Guard deployments in American cities and the Trump DOJ’s prosecutions, though their interview ended on relatively agreeable terms.
The situation escalated significantly during Vance’s appearance on “This Week” with Stephanopoulos, who had previously been at the center of a Trump defamation lawsuit that ABC settled for 15 million dollars. The ABC host grilled Vance specifically about the Homan bribery allegations and criticized what he characterized as the vice president’s evasiveness.
When questioned about whether Homan accepted 50,000 dollars as allegedly recorded on an FBI audio tape from September 2024, Vance stated unequivocally that Homan did not take a bribe while acknowledging he may have taken money from agents conducting a sting operation for legitimate reasons. The vice president questioned whether it was illegal to take payment for services and noted that the FBI had not prosecuted Homan.
Vance escalated the confrontation by asserting that nobody had accused Homan of committing a crime, even what he termed the far-left media. He then accused Stephanopoulos of going down a “weird left-wing rabbit hole,” which proved to be the breaking point for the ABC host.
Stephanopoulos responded by cutting Vance’s microphone and ending the interview abruptly. “You did not answer the question,” he declared before thanking Vance for his time and throwing to commercial break over the vice president’s continued objections.
The ABC host clarified that he had not insinuated anything but had simply asked whether Homan accepted the money as heard on the FBI recording. When Vance attempted to respond further, Stephanopoulos maintained his position and cut him off entirely.
This confrontational appearance capped what sources described as a contentious tour of the Sunday press shows for Vance. The vice president’s performance demonstrated the ongoing tensions between the Trump administration and major news networks, particularly following the previous legal disputes between Trump and ABC.
The Homan bribery scandal has become a significant political liability for the administration, with questions mounting about the border czar’s financial dealings and potential conflicts of interest. The FBI’s alleged recording from September 2024 has intensified scrutiny of Homan’s activities and the administration’s vetting processes for high-level appointees.
Vance’s defensive posture during both interviews highlighted the administration’s struggle to address mounting legal and ethical questions while maintaining political messaging discipline. His accusations of media bias against both NBC and ABC hosts reflected a broader strategy of deflecting criticism by attacking the questioners rather than directly addressing the substantive allegations.
The dramatic conclusion to the ABC interview, with Stephanopoulos cutting Vance’s microphone mid-sentence, represented an unusual escalation in tensions between a sitting vice president and a major network news program. Such abrupt terminations of high-profile political interviews are relatively rare in modern television journalism.
