JD Vance is going on The View while the FCC breathes down ABC’s neck
The vice president makes his first appearance on the ABC talk show June 16, right in the middle of an FCC equal-time investigation and a license fight between Washington and Disney.
Vice President JD Vance is going on The View. Live, Tuesday, June 16, all six co-hosts at the table, promoting his new book Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith.
It’s his first time on the show. He’s only the third sitting vice president to do it, after Joe Biden in 2014 and Kamala Harris in 2024, and he’s the first Republican of the three.
And the timing is doing a lot of talking on its own.
The FCC fight hanging over the booking
The View is currently under investigation by the FCC, chaired by Trump appointee Brendan Carr, over the long-dormant equal-time rule for political candidates on broadcast TV. Disney has argued the show qualifies as “bona fide news“ exempt from the rule, the same carve-out that covers Meet the Press. Carr has publicly pushed back on that argument.
The agency also ordered early license renewal filings for ABC’s owned-and-operated stations, years ahead of schedule. ABC called that move “an extraordinary demonstration of power and coercion,“ and Disney says its renewal applications were filed under protest.
So a show fighting a federal regulator over whether it’s biased political programming just booked the sitting Republican vice president for a friendly sit-down. Nobody involved is saying the booking is about the investigation.
Nobody has to.
Vance and the table have history
This isn’t a neutral-ground meeting. Vance has dismissed the show as “propaganda.“ The White House went further last summer, with a spokesperson calling co-host Joy Behar “an irrelevant loser“ and pointing at the show’s ratings.
The hosts have given as good as they’ve gotten. In March, Behar and Sunny Hostin went after second lady Usha Vance on air, with Behar saying she was “addicted to the power“ and suggesting the vice president traded his old anti-Trump positions for his current job. Back in 2024, Whoopi Goldberg got heated enough over Vance’s Taylor Swift comments that she told him on air to stop talking, then apologized after the break.
A study from the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters claims the show hosted 341 guests in 2025 and only two of them were conservative. That’s the study Carr’s side of the argument leans on, and it’s the backdrop the June 16 booking lands against.
Conservative guests have survived the table before
The show grills guests from the right. That’s the format. But the format also produces good TV when the guest doesn’t fold.
Arnold Schwarzenegger went on last June promoting FUBAR and said immigrants coming to America should “behave like a guest“ and give back to the country. Behar and Hostin both pushed back, Hostin tried to interject more than once, and Arnold just kept rolling until the studio audience applauded him. Goldberg offered a gentle correction and the segment moved on.
That’s the template Vance is walking into. The hosts will come with receipts. Whether he pulls a Schwarzenegger and steamrolls through, or the table gets the viral clip instead, depends entirely on how the hour goes live.
Which is the point. Whatever this booking is — olive branch, ratings play, or Exhibit A in Disney’s case that The View really does book both sides — it’s appointment television either way.
Get popcorn.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
ABC (June 11, 2026), official announcement, verified for the June 16 live date, full six-host panel, book title, and third-sitting-VP status
Variety (June 11, 2026), verified for the booking details and Disney’s under-protest license renewal filings
Deadline (June 11, 2026), verified for the FCC equal-time investigation, the early station license renewal order, and ABC’s “power and coercion” response
CBS Austin / TNND (June 11, 2026), verified for Carr’s public response to Disney’s “bona fide news” exemption argument
The Hill (July 2025), verified for the White House spokesperson statement on Joy Behar
Fox News (March 31, 2026), Hanna Panreck’s reporting, verified for the Hostin and Behar comments on Usha Vance
The Daily Beast (June 11, 2026), verified for Vance’s “propaganda” characterization and the 2024 Goldberg exchange and apology
TheWrap (June 2025), verified for the Schwarzenegger appearance, the “behave like a guest” exchange, and the host pushback
Media Research Center / NewsBusters (2026), guest-count study, attributed as the study’s claim