JD Vance has spoken about the war of words that erupted between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. The Vice President described the idea of impeaching Trump as “insane” in a podcast interview recorded on Thursday when the argument between the world’s most powerful leader and the world’s most powerful man reached boiling point.

Speaking to comedian Theo Von, Vance said: “I just think the idea that the president should be impeached, I’m sorry, it’s insane. It’s totally insane.” He then described Musk’s social media rant as “not helpful”. The pair began hitting out at each other this week, in a spat culminating with Musk claiming that Trump was included in the so-called Epstein files – an allegation which Vance called “totally BS”.

The Vice President hadn’t seen the Epstein post, which Musk has since deleted, beforehand as he had been travelling to Nashville for the interview, but when asked about it, he concluded: “Absolutely not. Donald Trump didn’t do anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein.”

Vance had been with Trump when the spat began, allowing him to comment on how the US President felt and reacted to the row.

He said: “I don’t want to reveal too many confidences, but he was getting a little frustrated, feeling like some of the criticisms were unfair coming from Elon.

“But I think it’s been very restrained because the president doesn’t think that he needs to be in a blood feud with Elon Musk. I actually think if Elon chilled out a little bit, everything would be fine.”

While he acknowledged there would be “some frustrations” for Musk because of his business and that he had a right to voice his opinion under the First Amendment, he described him as “new to politics” and believed he was making a “huge mistake”.

He admitted: “I hope that eventually Elon kind of comes back into the fold. Maybe that’s not possible now because he’s gone so nuclear.”

During the social media row, Musk called Trump’s tax and spending legislation a “disgusting abomination” and launched on social media platform X a poll asking whether Americans wanted a new political party after claiming that without him, Trump “would have lost the election”.

Trump kept the tirade public by responding to the Tesla billionaire in real time via reporters during his meeting with the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and referred to Musk as the “man who has lost his mind”.

The US Vice President defended Trump in a post on X on Friday, writing: “There are many lies the corporate media tells about President Trump. One of the most glaring is that he’s impulsive or short-tempered.”