Vice President JD Vance's sit-down with a right-wing Christian influencer about the end times raised a red flag, a serious political analyst warned.
In a Wednesday podcast episode, progressive political analyst David Pakman dissected Vance's conversation with Bryce Crawford. Pakman described Crawford as an influencer who "goes out on the street" asking people whether they're "with Jesus."
"What I'm trying to focus on is doing as much of God's work as possible right now," Vance told Crawford in a clip flagged by Pakman. "And if that leads to the end times, okay."
Pakman said that the problem wasn't Vance's faith but the combination of "massive political power" and "casual, apocalyptic thinking" from a man who is "a heartbeat from the presidency."
"Do I think that we're in the end times?" Vance said in another clip. "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."
Pakman also raised concerns about Vance's comments about the Antichrist. "I think that there are like things about the world that make me feel like not shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us," Vance said.
The remarks "deserve some follow-up questions," Pakman argued. Vance should explain whether he sees his role as vice president as a way to "accelerate" or "precipitate" a "biblical end times prophecy," Pakman said.
"Is he thinking about American foreign policy in terms of like, 'What could I do to bring about the rapture?'" Pakman asked. "That is wacky stuff."
Pakman stopped short of diagnosing the vice president and said it "would be inappropriate to do that." Still, taken together, the interview was "bizarre," Pakman said.
"If what I do leads to the rapture, then so be it," was an "insane sentence," Pakman argued.