Vance publicly hints at his disagreement with Trump over Iran war
Washington Examiner · RC · trust 56/100
Vice President JD Vance on Friday publicly hinted at breaking with President Donald Trump over the Iran war , signaling a split at the White House as the conflict approaches the eight-month mark.
Vance made the comments during an interview on the Sean Spicer Show , when he was pressed on media personality Tucker Carlson’s attacks on Trump over the war.
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“Even if you disagree with him on that one issue, you can have that disagreement. And I think I have had that disagreement,” Vance said of the debate on the Iran war.
Carlson was known in conservative circles for years, but has leaned into more socialist-leaning populism in recent months with weighty critiques of the Trump administration. Though he and Vance remain friends, Carlson recently offered a tacit endorsement to Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul el Sayed , whom Republicans are furiously fighting to defeat in November with GOP candidate Mike Rogers . El Sayed is very critical of the Iran war and Israel , topics where Carlson is also strongly critical of the Trump administration, setting him at odds with the White House.
Vance admonished Carlson during the Spicer interview, saying he’s told the media personality not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater.
“When Tucker says, for instance, that ‘Abdul el Sayed is the America First candidate,’ what I’d say to Tucker again — I said this to him privately, and I’ll say it publicly — ‘Okay, Abdul el Sayed is a guy who you agree with him about the Iran war, and I understand that. But wait a second, this is a guy who says that the Iran conflict is a problem because it violates international law,’” Vance said. “How was that America first?”
The vice president said he and Trump are “aligned” on the war. But Vance conceded that the role he plays within the White House is one of persistently questioning the rationale for the conflict.
“You can’t just go to war because it feels good,” he said. You can’t go to war because you’re angry or because you’re frustrated. You have to say, ‘What does this military objective — how is it connected to a strategic goal that we have for the United States of America?’
“And that is certainly the role that I play within the Oval Office. I’m always asking: ‘If we do this thing, how does it accomplish something that we care about? What are the costs and benefits? What are the trade-offs here?’”
Before becoming Trump’s vice president, Vance represented Ohio in the U.S. Senate , where he was known for his largely non-interventionist, isolationist-leaning foreign policy stance.
Since becoming Trump’s No. 2, the White House has leaned on Vance to articulate the government’s rationale for the war in Iran and other issues challenging the administration, such as the economy, to skeptical voters, particularly ahead of the midterm elections.
Economic issues have proved increasingly challenging for Republicans to navigate, due to energy prices that have surged due to the Iran war.
In a CBS town hall interview set to air over the weekend, Vance suggested some of the economic issues were inherited from the Biden administration. He conceded that it could take a while for Trump to turn around the economy, but expressed confidence the president could do so.
“The president is saying that we are seeing all of these massive new investments come into our country. But he would be the first person to tell you that you gotta build the factories first, before you can employ the workers working in those factories,” Vance said. “I think what we’re doing is, we’re turning the ship around.”
“I’ll be the first person to tell you that just as this country wasn’t broken in one presidential term, it’s gonna take more than 18 months to fix things and turn them around,” he added.
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