Vice President JD Vance defended his transformation from critic of President Donald Trump to one of the president's closest political allies in a contentious appearance Tuesday on ABC's "The View," saying his change in perspective stemmed from deciding that his earlier predictions about Trump were wrong.

Vance appeared on the daytime talk show to promote his new memoir, "Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith," which was released Tuesday and traces his religious journey and conversion to Catholicism.

Tuesday's appearance marked Vance's first visit to "The View" and made him only the third sitting vice president to appear on the program. The interview featured all six co-hosts and included exchanges on several issues.

Co-host Joy Behar pressed Vance about his criticism of Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, when Vance publicly opposed the future president and questioned his fitness for office.

"It's been well covered that I was a critic of Donald Trump back in 2015 and 2016," he said. "Now, obviously, I'm sitting here as the vice president of the United States in the Trump administration."

Asked what prompted the change, the vice president pointed to what he described as a willingness to acknowledge mistakes.

"Well, Joy, a little humility, actually. I think that when you make predictions, and those predictions turn out to be false, you got to ask yourself, 'What made me wrong about that?'"

Vance said he had expected Trump's economic policies to fall short of their goals and believed they would fail to improve wages or revive manufacturing employment.

"So, there's a certain point where you say, you know, I made predictions about this, I ended up being wrong," Vance said. "And in politics, and anything, I think it's important to say, 'You know what, I got some things wrong,' and I was wrong about him.

"He was a very successful president. It's one of the reasons why I've been so supportive of him."

The discussion later turned to documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an issue that has continued to draw bipartisan interest and public scrutiny.

"I'm frankly kind of a conspiracy theorist on the Epstein stuff," Vance said. "I think that it's crazy that you had this guy who was clearly a sex predator who was hanging out with a lot of very wealthy and powerful people."

Vance rejected suggestions that the Trump administration has sought to conceal information related to Epstein and argued that the White House has supported transparency regarding the release of records. He pointed to the administration's efforts to make documents public while acknowledging continued public interest in the case.