Vice President JD Vance said he wouldn't be "shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us" and called certain uses of artificial intelligence "satanic" during an hourlong interview with a Christian podcaster.

Vance sat down with popular Christian podcaster Bryce Crawford on Tuesday for a conversation that ranged from his personal faith and doubts about the afterlife to the spiritual dimensions of Donald Trump's survival of the 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. The vice president, who recently released a book about his journey to Catholicism, spoke with unusual candor about subjects most politicians avoid, including whether the world is approaching its final chapter.

The interview, first reported by NBC News, offered a rare window into how Vance thinks about faith, technology, and the forces shaping American life. His willingness to engage these questions directly, without the usual political hedging, drew attention precisely because elected officials so rarely do it.

Vance on the end times: 'I try not to focus too much on it'

Asked whether he believes the world is living in the end times, Vance gave an answer that balanced conviction with humility.

"Do I think that we're in the end times? I don't know, and I think that it's probably bad for me spiritually to focus too much on it, because there are, like, things you got to do. I got to be good to my wife. I got to be good to my kids. I have to be, you know, as good of a leader as I can for the United States of America."

He didn't stop there. Vance acknowledged that certain realities in the modern world give him pause.

"I think that there are, like, things about the world that make me feel, like, not shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us. But again, I try not to focus too much on it."

That framing, open to the possibility but focused on present duties, reflects a posture familiar to many practicing Christians. Vance did not claim prophetic certainty. He described a man doing his job while keeping his eyes open. For millions of believers who sense something deeply wrong in the culture, that kind of honesty from a sitting vice president is striking.

Vance, who has previously spoken about faith's proper role in public life, summarized his approach plainly:

"While I wouldn't be shocked if we are living in the end times, what I'm trying to focus on is doing as much of God's work as possible right now, and if that leads to the end times, OK."

AI as spiritual danger: 'I think that's kind of satanic'

Vance turned some of his sharpest language toward artificial intelligence, not the technology itself, but what happens when people use it as a substitute for real human connection. He described a friend whose spouse had begun using AI for marriage counseling instead of talking to an actual person.

"There's no real human feedback. It sort of short-circuits that social part of our brain where we respond to other people's wants and needs and just completely, like, I think that's kind of satanic."

The word "satanic" carries weight from a vice president who has championed building data centers to support AI development. Vance wasn't condemning the technology wholesale. He drew a line between AI as a tool for economic growth and AI as a replacement for the human relationships that hold families and communities together.

That distinction matters. The vice president has backed infrastructure investment in AI capacity. But he sees a difference between using the technology to build things and using it to avoid the hard, messy work of being married, raising children, or maintaining friendships. The concern isn't Luddite. It's pastoral.

Vance described certain AI applications as carrying "really, really weird spiritual dark energy", a phrase that may sound unusual in a policy context but lands naturally in a conversation between two Christians trying to make sense of a technology that is reshaping daily life faster than most institutions can respond.

Butler, Pennsylvania, and the hand of Providence

The conversation turned to the July 2024 assassination attempt on President Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, an event Vance described in explicitly spiritual terms.

"He points to a chart, just so happens to be at the exact moment that the guy took a shot. Now, again, there is a physical explanation for that."

Vance acknowledged the physical explanation. Then he rejected it as sufficient.

"He turned his head. The guy fired the bullet. Crazy coincidence, right? These things happen. But I think that that's a very spiritually impoverished way to look at things. Like, whatever the reason is, whatever God was trying to accomplish, like, it is just so obvious to me that coincidences like that don't happen without the hand of Providence."

The vice president went further, describing what he believed would have happened had Trump not survived. AP News reported that Vance said the country could have faced "real civil strife" it might never have recovered from.

"I would have assumed very dark forces had taken out Donald Trump, right as he was about to come back into the White House. There would have just been an illegitimacy to our entire political system."

Vance wasn't spinning conspiracy theories. He was describing, in plain terms, how tens of millions of Americans would have processed the assassination of a former president on the verge of returning to power. The distrust already running through the country's institutions would have deepened into something far more dangerous. That assessment is hard to argue with, regardless of where you sit politically.

The threats Vance and his family have faced are not abstract. An Ohio man pleaded guilty to a hammer attack on Vance's Cincinnati home, a reminder that political violence in America targets real families in real neighborhoods.

Vance rates his chances of heaven at 7 or 8, up from a 5 or 6

Crawford asked Vance to rate his confidence in getting into heaven on a scale of one to ten. The vice president didn't dodge.

"That is a tough question. It's high, but it's not 10, right? I mean, it's a 7 or it's an 8. Like, I'm always one of these people who is always going to have little doubts. And like, if you'd asked me that question a year ago, probably was like a 5 or a 6."

That kind of candor about personal doubt is rare from anyone in public life, let alone a vice president. Vance's willingness to admit uncertainty about his own salvation, while describing growth in his faith over the past year, paints a picture of a man taking his spiritual life seriously rather than performing it for cameras.

His recent book on his conversion to Catholicism adds context. Vance has described faith not as a political identity but as a framework for understanding the world, one he came to as an adult, not as a birthright. For conservative Christians watching their beliefs marginalized in elite culture, a vice president who talks this way registers as genuine.

The Vance family's personal life has drawn its own share of public attention. Reports that Usha Vance overruled JD's push to name their fourth child after Trump offered a lighter glimpse into the household dynamics of a family navigating both faith and politics at the highest level.

Defending Trump's AI Jesus image: 'He's not trying to offend people'

Crawford told Vance that Trump's AI-created image of himself depicted as Jesus, posted on social media earlier this year, had "offended him." Trump initially said he thought the image showed him as a doctor, then took the post down amid widespread criticism from supporters and critics alike.

Vance defended the president directly.

"He did not mean to, like, mock or mimic God; that's just not who he is."

He then offered a characterization of Trump's personality that framed the post as consistent with the president's style rather than any theological statement.

"He's a bit of a b***buster, for those of us who work with him, and he just likes to have a good time. And I think that if people appreciated that, they would recognize he's not trying to offend people, he's trying to keep things light."

Crawford also asked whether Vance, as vice president, had encountered any classified evidence of the spiritual world, UFOs, demons, or anything that might confirm the existence of forces beyond the material. Vance's answer was direct and dry.

"I don't have the file that says, 'Oh, this wasn't a UFO; it was actually a demon.'"

He added: "I don't have, like, a top-secret file that sort of proves that one way or the other." The answer got a laugh, but it also served a purpose, Vance signaled that his faith doesn't depend on government intelligence briefings. It stands on its own.

Usha Vance, meanwhile, has carved out her own public role, speaking openly about raising four children and championing literacy for American kids, a quieter kind of public service that complements her husband's more visible platform.

Why this interview landed differently

Politicians talk about faith constantly. They invoke God at prayer breakfasts, quote scripture in stump speeches, and pose for photos at church doors. Almost none of them talk the way Vance talked in this interview, openly wrestling with doubt, describing AI in spiritual terms, and admitting he doesn't know whether the world is ending.

The roughly hourlong conversation covered ground that most media-trained officials would never touch. End times theology. The Antichrist. Whether a sitting vice president has seen classified proof of demons. These are questions that millions of American Christians think about regularly and almost never hear addressed honestly by the people who govern them.

Vance didn't claim to have all the answers. He said he has doubts. He said he's working on his faith. He said he tries to focus on being a good husband, a good father, and a good leader, and that if the end times come, he wants to be found doing God's work when they arrive.

In a political culture that treats faith as either a prop or a punchline, that kind of honesty is worth more than another poll-tested soundbite.