Vice President JD Vance was unexpectedly tasked with reacting in real time to Elon Musk‘s social media meltdown while recording a podcast. He said he hopes the billionaire “comes back into the fold.”

Vance’s 90-minute spot with podcast titan Theo Von was released early Saturday morning, but was recorded Thursday as Musk was railing against President Donald Trump on social media, alleging that the president was in the Epstein files, and calling for him to be impeached.

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“I haven’t even seen this one,” the vice president said when Von brought up the Epstein files post. “Presumably, when this comes out, people will know more about this than even I will. This kind of happened on the plane when I was coming down here.”

After clearing the air about the timeline, Vance quickly denied that Trump was actually in the Epstein files and gave a nuanced take on Musk, who had been one of Trump’s closest allies during the first four months of his term and frequently flew with him on Air Force One.

“Here’s my basic read on it,” Vance said. “I’m always going to be be loyal to the president, and I hope that eventually Elon kind of comes back into the fold. Maybe that’s not possible now, because he’s gone so nuclear. But I hope it is.”

A few minutes later, the vice president was shown a Musk post suggesting Trump should be impeached — with Vance replacing him.

“Dude, that’s one vote!” Von joked. But Vance was not amused.

“Oh my God,” he said. “See, this is what I’m talking about. This stuff is just not helpful… my first loyalty is to my family, obviously, to the Constitution, but politics is a place where people stab each other in the back. And you can’t get anything done unless you’re all on the same team.”

Impeachment talk is “totally insane,” he added. “The president is doing a good job.”

Yet Vance remained diplomatic throughout, suggesting that Musk has been a huge benefit to the Trump administration and could be again in the future.

“The president doesn’t think that he needs to be in a blood feud with Elon Musk,” Vance said. “And I actually think if Elon chilled out a little bit, everything would be fine.”

Vance first weighed in on the conflict Thursday night with an X post, saying, “President Trump has done more than any person in my lifetime to earn the trust of the movement he leads. I’m proud to stand beside him.”

He also alluded to the Musk fight with a joke about his podcast appearance.

“Slow news day, what are we even going to talk about? @TheoVon,” Vance wrote. Musk laughed at the post.

According to a source familiar with the matter, Vance was with Trump when the Musk fight started to get out of hand, and Vance spoke with Trump multiple times throughout the day. Trump encouraged his vice president to speak diplomatically about Musk when asked about him.

Trump himself went on Von’s podcast last year, and the former MTV star has remained in the administration’s orbit ever since. Von attended Trump’s inauguration and joined the president in Qatar to visit American troops a few weeks ago. Vance also went on Von’s podcast last October.

On the new episode, which was recorded at The Detroit Cowboy, Kid Rock’s new restaurant in Nashville, Musk was far from the only topic of conversation.

Von and Vance hit a very wide range of issues, including whether or not Frederick Douglas could have been gay, which side of the Civil War Vance’s ancestors fought for, and whether or not the disgraced early ’90s group Milli Vanilli really sang its own songs. Vance said that he was a Milli Vanilli “truther.”

But other serious fare came up as well, including when Von opined that Israel’s military actions in Gaza constitute a genocide. Vance disagreed.

“I don’t think that the Israelis are purposely trying to go in and murder every Palestinian,” Vance said. “I don’t think that’s what they’re doing. I think they got hit hard. And I think they’re trying to destroy this terrorist organization, and war is hell.”

Still, he added that if you have a soul, your heart should break seeing any innocent child killed and stressed that Trump is trying to find a peaceful way to end the conflict.

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Toward the end, Von pulled out one last twist, saying that he would soon host Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) on the podcast.

“That’ll be interesting,” Vance said. “He’s a nice guy.”