Vice President JD Vance joined the co-hosts of The View and found himself quickly sparring with Joy Behar over President Donald Trump’s recent declaration, “I love the inflation.”

Vance argued that Trump was saying he loved that the inflation would come down, which Behar didn’t buy, making clear, “He didn’t say that.”

On June 10th, in an Oval Office Q&A with reporters, Trump did indeed say, “No, I love it. The numbers were great. You know what I really love? I love the inflation.” He then launched into a lengthy discussion about how he was “secretly” getting oil out of Iran, which he argued would bring down prices.

Behar began the exchange, asking, “Yeah, so President Trump has called affordability a hoax. He said that, not me. He’s pouring money into this ballroom of his and the reflecting pool — don’t forget the Arch de Trumpe, I call it — and a White House cage match. All these things, why is he doing them when everybody knows that Americans are struggling? And what is he spending all this money for?”

Vance replied, “Well, I’ve got to defend the president on the hoax point. What the president said is the idea that Republicans caused the affordability problem is a hoax. And I think that’s true.”

“So if you go back to the Biden administration, inflation got up to 9% under the Biden administration, okay? Right now it’s at 3.5%. By the way, too high — we’re doing everything that we can to bring it back down to 2.5%, which is where most people would like to see it. But we inherited an affordability problem. We’re doing a lot to make it better. It’s going to take a little bit of time. There’s a lot more work to do. But the president knows that a lot of Americans are struggling. In fact, he ran on that. He talked about it. And we’ve done some things and made some good progress on that point,” argued the vice president.

Ana Navarro added, “He just said he loves the inflation.”

“What he said, Ana, is that he loves the fact that the inflation is going to come down when this war is over. That’s what he said,” Vance hit back.

Behar replied, “That wasn’t — that’s not what he said, but that’s all right. Are you his interpreter or are you his vice president? Come on.”

“Well, look, what the president said — people were asking about the inflation. They were asking about the affordability problem, which again is very real,” Vance replied, doubling down:

And what he said is, “I love the inflation because it’s going to come down when the war is over.” And now again, we already see gas prices today at $4.06 a gallon — too high. But way down from where they were just a couple of weeks ago. So again, there’s a lot we’ve got to do, but I think that we’re doing as much as we can. We’re going to keep on working at it. And again, the American people are going to make their verdict. But I think that we have a very credible case to run on — that we brought a lot of new investment, we’re building the factories — that is going to pay serious dividends for the American people over the long haul.

Behar pushed, “When?”

Vance replied, “Well, Joy, if you look at manufacturing jobs, those jobs are increasing at a large number. Construction jobs are doing a little bit better. So what happens is the construction jobs build the factories, and then the manufacturing workers go back to work. That also leads to rising wages. That’s one of the things that I’m very proud of — if you look at the amount that wages are going up now compared to, say, 2022, they’re going up way faster. That’s a good thing. Yeah, the affordability problem — again, gas is way too high right now, certain things are way too high. You know, rents have been either flat or down for 12 months now. So there are things that are showing signs of life, things that are showing signs of progress. My view — I’m sure you guys don’t agree with it — is that we inherited a mess and we’re fixing it. But sometimes it takes a long time to fix a mess.”

Watch the clip above.

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