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Vice President JD Vance and his allies are casting his advocacy for President Donald Trump’s Iran deal as a contrast with the Republican Party’s neoconservative establishment, betting that owning the agreement dividing his own party will help him with the MAGA base.
The deal, of which Vance is increasing the public face, is encountering a wall of opposition from skeptical conservatives who have blasted it as a loss for the United States — and a potential handicap for Vance’s political future. “The deal Trump signed not only allows the regime to survive, it helps Iran get back on its feet,” conservative commentator Marc Thiessen argued, coining the agreement the “Vance peace deal.”
But Vance countered in an interview with podcaster Megyn Kelly that critics of the deal are “proposing an endless conflict.” What’s more, his allies see a political upside in his role in the agreement. They argue that Americans, who are already skeptical of US intervention overseas and unnerved by the prospect of another prolonged war, want an end to the conflict that Trump started nearly four months ago.
“Ironically, the hawks attacking the Vice President for this peace deal have unwittingly helped solve the biggest potential political problem that he was facing should he run in 2028 — the unpopularity of this war,” said one Republican who is supportive of the Trump administration’s efforts to end the conflict. “The more unpopular neocons like Jonah Goldberg, John Bolton and Marc Thiessen make him the face of ending the war, the more it signals to the MAGA base that Vance is their guy. And for that, I’m sure that Vice President Vance is very thankful to his biggest critics.”
One Vance ally went so far as to call his advocacy for the deal a “political no-brainer.”
“First, it’s the right thing to do, because it’s the right policy to end the war for the American people, but number two, it’s a political no-brainer to be on the side of peace, especially when you’ve got a war that is only popular in some corners of X and in the halls of K Street,” the Vance ally said.
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Polling has consistently confirmed that the war is wildly unpopular with Americans. One CBS News/YouGov poll published this week found that 78% want the conflict to end immediately. Trump also highlighted a survey from his longtime pollster Tony Fabrizio that found that 67% favor the deal reached between the US and Iran.
And Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son and a Vance ally, shared an Economist/YouGov poll Tuesday showing that a majority of Americans want a peace deal to end the war (though only one-third support the deal that Trump struck).
“And here we have ANOTHER poll showing that the peace deal to end the war is very popular. Maybe, just maybe, the neocons gaslighting on this website are full of sh*t???” he wrote on X.
Room for Disagreement
Even so, the bet Vance is making has its risks: Americans remain skeptical of the details of the deal. The CBS News/YouGov poll found that 42% believe the agreement is “about equal” for both sides, and 57% believe that the conflict created more problems with Iran than it solved.
Some close to the White House acknowledge that Vance, who is inextricably tied to Trump’s decision to launch the war in the first place despite being privately skeptical of the decision, is in a difficult spot.
“It’s political monopoly,” one White House ally argued. “He’s either buying the board or heading straight to jail.”
Notable
- Vance told Kelly that “the coalition” that elected Trump included more hawkish Republicans, and suggested that critics “can’t just quit politics” because of disappointment over certain decisions made by Trump.