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Vice President JD Vance on Monday accused a journalist of “trying to drive a wedge” between him and President Donald Trump regarding the Iran war when reminded of his earlier stance on U.S. military operations overseas.
The heated exchange between Vance and RealClearPolitics reporter Philip Wegmann went down at an Oval Office press event, during which Wegmann pointed to reports of the vice president’s skepticism on Operation Epic Fury while asking if he was “completely on board with the current war” in Iran.
“Look, I think that I know what you’re trying to do, Phil, you’re trying to drive a wedge between members of the administration, between me and the president,” Vance said. “What the president said consistently, going back to 2015, and I agreed with him, is that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.”
“We have taken this military action under the president’s leadership,” he continued. “I think all of us, whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, should pray for success and pray for the safety of our troops.”
When Wegmann pointed to Vance’s “past statements,” however, the vice president doubled down.
Watch a clip of Vance’s remarks via Forbes below.
“I think one big difference, Phil, is that we have a smart president, whereas in the past we’ve had dumb presidents,” he said. “And I trust President Trump to get the job done, to do a good job for the American people and to make sure that the mistakes of the past aren’t repeated.”
Vance, who served in the Marine Corps in Iraq, appeared on “The Tim Dillion Show” just days before the 2024 presidential election, where he proclaimed that an Iran war would be “a huge distraction of resources” and “massively expensive to our country.”
“Our interest, I think, very much is in not going to war with Iran,” he said at the time.
Alex Wong via Getty Images
A year earlier, he shared similar sentiments on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” saying that the U.S. should be focused on its efforts to “de-escalate the situation” rather than initiating a war in Iran.
“If [Iranians] play an excitatory role in the conflict, we need to be willing to respond,” he explained. “If they hit us, we have to hit them back. But if you’re talking about an attack on the Iranian mainland, I think that would be a significant escalation. Right now it would be a mistake.”
In recent weeks, Trump and his aides have gone to great lengths to justify the U.S.’s joint military strikes with Israel on Iran. Earlier this month, the president laid the blame on his predecessors, former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, on social media before claiming it was his “opinion” that Iran was “going to attack first.”
On Tuesday, National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent resigned from his role, noting he “cannot in good conscience support” the war given that Iran “posed no imminent threat to our nation.” Kent, a conspiracy theorist, has longstanding ties to far-right extremist groups.
“It is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” he wrote in his resignation letter.
At least 13 American service members have been killed in Iran’s counterattacks so far.
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