U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance has distanced himself from the war with Iran and from President Donald Trump, to whom he owes his political career, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Vance stated online that day that Republicans lost the congressional elections because of the war.
Vance has tied his political future to preserving the electoral coalition built by Trump. He campaigned intensively ahead of the midterm elections, trying to prevent Republican losses. In the end, however, the party suffered a heavy defeat, losing even in states that had not elected a Democrat to the Senate in decades.
According to the newspaper, the vice president’s remark on Wednesday shows how firmly Vance opposed the war from the very beginning, even though he repeatedly defended it in public after the operation began.
According to the newspaper’s sources, in recent weeks the White House has been full of internal misgivings about the war’s impact on the congressional elections, as well as discussions about whether to publicly acknowledge that military strikes are continuing.
In September, senior Trump administration officials held a meeting on the war’s unpopularity among American voters. Those attending included Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Administration officials concluded that informing the public about continuing attacks, both defensive and offensive, would hurt Republicans in states where the Republican electoral position was at risk. They agreed that publicizing those actions would not help their chances in the elections. According to the sources, Trump was informed of the approach and accepted it.
In the following weeks, the U.S. military quietly carried out small strikes on Iranian territory, hitting missile launchers and other military equipment while avoiding fatalities, the WSJ reported.
Some White House advisers blame Defense (War) Secretary Pete Hegseth for convincing Trump that the war with Iran would be a short operation, similar to the capture of Venezuela’s former leader, Nicolas Maduro. According to some sources, Hegseth repeatedly argued for continuing the war, often clashing with Rubio, Vance and other administration officials who urged peace negotiations.
Trump said Wednesday that he does not intend to fire Hegseth. According to CBS News, however, he has been calling associates to ask whether Hegseth should keep his job.
It is unclear whether Vance cleared the content of his Wednesday post with the White House before publishing it, though it is not standard practice for a vice president to consult the administration on social media posts, the newspaper noted. A White House representative said the president knew the content of Vance’s message before it was published.
Some administration officials are now pressing Trump to carry out further attacks on Iran, then seek an agreement and withdraw from the war.
Others believe Trump should accept the losses and gradually wind down the military operation. According to the sources, this reveals deepening divisions within the administration over the war in the wake of the Republicans’ electoral defeats.
On Wednesday, Trump agreed with the vice president’s assessment that the war with Iran was largely to blame for the Republicans’ electoral defeat. He stressed, however, that it was worth it.
From Washington, Natalia Dziurdzińska (PAP)
