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Vice President JD Vance discussed the end times and the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on a Christian podcast. If Trump had been killed in a 2024 assassination attempt, Vance revealed he would have always wondered if it was part of a conspiracy and might not have accepted another Republican as president.

The conversation with Christian podcaster Bryce Crawford began with a discussion about faith and the tendency to scientifically explain away events that might be divinely influenced. Vance referenced the July 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, during which a bullet grazed Trump’s ear, and a supporter lost his life. Trump has frequently claimed his survival was divine, a belief Vance echoed.

Vance expressed concern that Trump supporters would likely view any attempt to take Trump's life as a conspiracy, leading to civil strife from which the country might never recover. He believed many would assume "dark forces" were responsible for taking Trump out just as he was poised to return to the White House.

While most of the podcast focused on faith, Vance's own spiritual journey, his Easter meeting with Pope Francis, and human frailty, it also touched on darker themes. Crawford asked if Vance had ever entered a room that felt spiritually dark, to which Vance replied he had been in meetings with world leaders where dark thoughts crept into his mind. He also described feeling a strong spiritual energy in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, likely due to the site's historical significance.

Vance acknowledged his youthful obsession with the "end times" in the late 1990s, when a friend got into debt trying to predict the world would end in late 2007. He cautioned against focusing too much on the subject, citing IT companies' reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) as a substitute for human interaction, which he deems "very, very bad."

When Crawford brought up a post by Trump featuring an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus, Vance defended the president. He stated that Trump did not intend to mock or mimic God, emphasizing that the president is not trying to offend people, but rather to keep things light and constantly make jokes.