“Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace on Sunday quizzed Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence on his many attempts to explain away controversial comments made by Donald Trump.

“Are you the cleanup crew?” Wallace asked Pence after playing a video of an 11-year-old boy asking the Indiana governor if it is his role in the campaign is to soften Trump’s statements.

“I couldn’t be more honored to be campaigning shoulder to shoulder with a man who I believe is going to be the next president of the United States,” Pence said in response.

“You do have to clean up. You do have to explain some of the things he says,” Wallace then pressed.

“Well, look, we have different styles, but as I told that little boy, we have exactly the same convictions,” Pence replied.

This followed an intense exchange in which Wallace grilled Pence about Trump’s comment last week that President Obama was the “founder” of the Islamic State.

“You and he spent a day defending his remarks, saying that they were serious. Now, Trump says that he was being sarcastic. So, Governor, which is it?” Wallace asked Pence.

“Well, I think he was being very serious, and he was making a point that needs to be made, that there is no question that the failed policies of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the wider Middle East created a vacuum within Iraq in which ISIS was able to arise,” Pence replied.

Wallace then asked twice more why Trump said he was being sarcastic.

“Well, he was making a very serious point,” Pence said. “Donald Trump has a way of talking to get people’s attention, and it’s drawn attention to a very important issue.”

Pence then launched into his talking points about the vacuum Obama created in the Middle East.

“Those are all perfectly legitimate points to make, but that isn’t what Trump said,” Wallace said to Pence in response. “He said that Obama and Clinton were the most valuable players of ISIS, that they were the co-founders of ISIS. Then he said, well, ‘I was just being sarcastic about that,’ just as he said he was just being sarcastic about inviting Russia to come in and release emails of Hillary Clinton’s. Isn’t the sarcastic excuse getting a bit old?”

“I don’t think it’s getting old at all,” Pence responded. “Donald Trump made his way through a very competitive primary because he spoke not like your typical politician, but just plainly like an everyday American.”

Watch the interview via Fox: