Vice President J.D. Vance on Sunday reportedly accused ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos of fixating on a “fake scandal” involving White House border czar Tom Homan, saying the media is ignoring real issues facing Americans during the ongoing government shutdown.
During a heated exchange on ABC’s “This Week,” Stephanopoulos pressed Vance on whether Homan had returned a reported $50,000 payment from undercover FBI agents.
The vice president dismissed the question as political theater. “You’re focused on a bogus story,” Vance said, “you’re insinuating criminal wrongdoing against a guy who has done nothing wrong, instead of focusing on the fact that our country is struggling because our government shut down.”
Vance said Democrats and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were to blame for the shutdown, which he argued is now harming working families and military service members. “Low-income women are struggling to buy food and members of the military will not receive their next paychecks on Oct. 15,” Vance said.
Stephanopoulos ended the interview abruptly, cutting off the vice president mid-response before going to a commercial break.
Later Sunday, Vance criticized the anchor in a post on X, writing that Stephanopoulos “doesn’t care” about substantive issues such as Israel and Hamas agreeing to phase one of a Trump administration peace plan, China’s new restrictions on rare earth exports, or the economic fallout of the shutdown. “[Stephanopoulos is] here to focus on the real story: a fake scandal involving Tom Homan,” Vance wrote.
The controversy surrounding Homan stems from a September 2024 undercover FBI operation in which agents, posing as business executives, reportedly offered him $50,000 in exchange for help obtaining government contracts should President Trump return to office.
The White House and Homan have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and the Justice Department has since closed the investigation.
According to FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, prosecutors found “no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing” by Homan. The pair told The New York Times last month that the case was reviewed and dismissed shortly after Trump took office.
Vance’s confrontation with Stephanopoulos underscored a broader tension between the Trump administration and mainstream media outlets over coverage of the new administration’s policies and priorities.
Conservatives have long accused legacy networks of bias, arguing that they elevate peripheral controversies while downplaying stories that reflect favorably on the administration.
The vice president framed the exchange as emblematic of that imbalance, saying the media’s fixation on scandal comes at the expense of covering the White House’s foreign policy and economic agenda. “He’s doing the job of enforcing the law,” Vance said of Homan. “The media’s going after him because he’s effective.”
Meanwhile, the shutdown—now in its second week—continues to strain government operations. Negotiations remain stalled as Senate Democrats block spending measures proposed by Republicans to reopen the government without including the $1.5 trillion in new social and climate spending Democrats have demanded.
As political gridlock deepens, Vance and other administration officials have sought to redirect public attention toward what they describe as a deliberate campaign by Democrats and their media allies to distract from policy failures.
For Vance, Sunday’s interview was another example of that strategy in action: a televised clash where, he suggested, the spectacle mattered more to the media than the substance.
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