J D Vance says Trump death in 2024 attack could have sparked conspiracy fears

Washington,UPDATED: Sep 2, 2026 08:46 IST

US Vice President J D Vance said in a podcast released on Tuesday that if the 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump had killed him, he would have wondered whether it was part of a conspiracy and may not have accepted even another Republican as the next president.

In the conversation with Christian podcaster Bryce Crawford, Vance also spoke about faith, defended Trump over an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus, and reflected on artificial intelligence and the idea of the end times.

The discussion began with faith and what Vance described as a rush to scientifically explain away events that may be divinely touched. He referred to the July 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in which a bullet nicked Trump’s ear and a supporter was killed. Trump has often described his survival as divinely guided, and Vance echoed that view.

Vance said that if the bullet had killed Trump, “we would have had real civil strife in a way that I don’t know that the country could have ever come back from.” He said many Trump supporters would have assumed that a conspiracy had taken out their chosen president and added that he too would have had such thoughts “in the back of my mind”. “I would have assumed very dark forces had taken out Donald Trump, right as he was about to come back into the White House,” Vance said. “There would have just been an illegitimacy to our entire political system.”

Much of the one-hour-10-minute conversation focused on faith, Vance’s own journey to Catholicism, his Easter meeting with Pope Francis the day before the pontiff’s death last year, and human frailty and fallibility. But it also moved at times to darker themes. When Crawford asked whether he had ever been in a room that felt “spiritually dark”, Vance said, “I’ve been in meetings with world leaders where various issues are being discussed, and somebody will say something or somebody will make an observation and I’ll feel some darkness about it, it sets off every spiritual alarm bell in my body.” He added that he had also felt “a very dark spiritual energy” in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which he linked to the carnage at the Civil War battlefield.

Crawford also asked Vance about his interest in the “end times”, which Vance said with a laugh had been more of an obsession in his youth in the late 1990s, when people were discussing the coming millennium. He recalled a friend who became convinced that the world would end in late 2007 and ran up major credit card debt. “There are, like, things about the world that make me feel, like, not shocked if the antichrist was walking among us, but, again I try not to focus too much on it,” Vance said. He pointed to “IT companies” and the use of artificial intelligence as a substitute for human interaction.

When Vance recounted the story of an acquaintance using AI as a marriage counsellor, Crawford said, “I think that’s kind of satanic.” Vance replied, “Yeah, when you completely divorce the human from the social element that God made us for, OK that’s very, that’s very bad.”

The podcast also touched on Trump’s social media post earlier this year of an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus, which Crawford said had offended him. Trump had initially said he thought the image showed him as a doctor before taking it down after criticism, including from some of his own supporters. Vance defended him, saying, “He did not mean to, like, mock or mimic God, that’s just not who he is.” He added, “He’s a bit of a ballbuster, for those of us who work with him, and he just likes to have a good time. And I think that if people appreciated that, they would recognise, he’s not trying to offend people, he’s trying to keep things light.”

The podcast ranged from Vance’s views on faith and spiritual unease to his comments on the attempt on Trump’s life, artificial intelligence and the president’s online post, with the vice president repeatedly linking politics and public life to his religious outlook.

With PTI Inputs

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