JD Vance said something bizarre the other day. During an appearance on The View, the vice president expressed concern about dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s close ties with wealthy elites.

“I think that it’s crazy that you had this guy who is clearly a sex predator who was hanging out with a lot of very wealthy and powerful people,” said Vance. “Like, that really bothered me. I don’t know what’s there, of course, nobody knows exactly what happened unless you were there, but that really bothered me, and I wanted to have full transparency.”

Vance wants to be seen as a crusader against Epstein and his friends, but there’s a problem with this narrative. The vice president serves two men with incredibly deep ties to Epstein: Donald Trump and Peter Thiel.

Trump was one of Epstein’s closest friends and described him as a “terrific guy.” “He’s a lot of fun to be with,” said Trump of Epstein in 2002. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Trump has since become a critic of Epstein, calling him a “creep,” but has continued to block the full release of the Epstein files—files in which, by one New York Times analysis, his name appears thousands of times.

Vance, who once described Trump as “America’s Hitler,” now serves under him. So, it is rich to watch him decry Epstein’s elite friends while playing the role of attack dog for Epstein’s former #1 bestie.

And it gets worse. Vance is largely the creation of one man, tech billionaire Peter Thiel. At every step of Vance’s career, Thiel funded him and promoted him. Thiel—Vance’s benefactor and creator—also had deep ties to Epstein.