George Stephanopoulos battles JD Vance over Tom Homan bribery claims, abruptly ends interview

Vice President JD Vance clashed with ABC News host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday as the vice president denied border czar Tom Homan accepted a bribe and accused the ABC host of losing credibility, leading the interview to abruptly end.

Stephanopoulos pressed Vance repeatedly on whether Homan accepted money and said Homan was "recorded on an audiotape in September 2024, an FBI surveillance tape, accepting $50,000 in cash." 

MSNBC reported in September that Homan allegedly took $50,000 in cash in September 2024 from undercover FBI agents he believed were business executives after suggesting he could help them secure government contracts with a second Trump administration. The outlet reported that the FBI said the investigation into Homan closed and the White House said at the time that Homan never even accepted the money in the first place, and said that Trump did not ask the Justice Department to shutter the probe. 

"I don’t know what tape you’re referring to, George. I saw media reports that Tom Homan accepted a bribe. There’s no evidence of that. And here's why fewer and fewer people watch your program and why you're losing credibility," Vance said. "Because you're talking for now, five minutes with the Vice President of the United States about this story regarding Tom Homan, a story that I've read about, but I don't even know the video that you're talking about."

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Vance said they should focus on "real issues" and told Stephanopoulos he was "going down some weird left-wing rabbit hole, where the facts clearly show that Tom Homan didn’t engage in any criminal wrongdoing."

"It’s not a weird left-wing rabbit hole. I didn’t insinuate anything. I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50,000, as was heard on an audiotape recorded by the FBI in September 2024, and you did not answer the question," Stephanopoulos responded before ending the interview. "Thank you for your time this morning."

Vance tried to respond again, but the ABC News host moved on. 

The vice president posted on X after the interview and said Stephanopoulos didn't care about other news, including the Middle East peace deal, and the shutdown. 

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"George S doesn't care about that. He's here to focus on the real story: a fake scandal involving Tom Homan," Vance wrote. 

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ABC News did not immediately return a request for comment. 

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the allegations in September. 

"Mr. Homan never took the $50,000 that you're referring to, so you should get your facts straight, number one," Leavitt told reporters in September. "Number two, this was another example of the weaponization of the Biden Department of Justice against one of President Trump's strongest and most vocal supporters in the midst of a presidential campaign, you had FBI agents going undercover to try and entrap one of the president's top allies and supporters, someone who they knew very well would be taking a government position months later, Mr. Homan did absolutely nothing wrong." 

Previously, Trump administration officials have refrained from saying Homan never accepted the cash, and instead, said that there was no evidence of illegal activity. 

Fox News' Diana Stancy and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.