“I would say he was a little different from me philosophically,” Trump said of Vance about Iran. “I don’t think he was that keen to go, but he was pretty keen.”
President Trump faces MAGA split over decision to attack Iran
USA TODAY’s Zach Anderson explains the criticism President Trump is facing from major MAGA voices over the Iran war.
DORAL, Fla. – President Donald Trump said his vice president and potential successor, Vice President J.D. Vance, had “different” views than his boss and was “less enthusiastic” about starting a war against Iran.
He did not say why, nor did Mr. Vance, who has made a name for himself as a leader in soundly warning against dragging the United States into even more thorny and escalating conflicts overseas.
“I would say he was a little different from me philosophically,” Trump said of Vance at a press conference on March 9. “I think he probably wasn’t all that keen to go, but he was pretty keen.”
Although the president downplayed their differences, his comments suggested that he and Vance are completely out of sync on the war, which has sparked a MAGA backlash and accusations of betrayal from prominent pro-Trump voices.
Mr. Vance now finds himself in a precarious political position as Mr. Trump attempts to navigate a never-ending standoff between what he calls “small excursions” and operations that could take weeks to complete.
The vice president has made limited public appearances during the war, giving only one prime-time media interview and little online activity, balancing pressure from MAGA with his duties to a demanding president whose support will determine his political future.
Mr. Vance’s advocacy of a non-interventionist foreign policy has led him to favor MAGA, a movement whose support he needs to win the 2028 presidential election. His credibility as a politician may be tested by Iran in the future.
more: “It’s disgusting and evil.” President Trump faces MAGA backlash against Iran.
Curt Mills, executive director of the MAGA-affiliated magazine American Conservative, told USA TODAY that Iran was “probably one of the biggest campaign betrayals in American history” and that Trump may turn to Vance for long-term protection of the man he has said he considers his “most likely” political successor.
“This is a problem for him and I think he knows it,” Mills added of Vance.
Trump is known to be vindictive and turned on First Vice President Mike Pence after he broke with him over the 2020 election results. Pence’s presidential bid four years later was barely successful.
Conservatives are now focused on how Mr. Vance will approach the Iran war, which could be a critical moment for his future.
Asked about President Trump’s comments during his visit to North Carolina on March 13, Vance gave an indirect response that emphasized the free exchange of ideas and trust between the president’s top advisers.
“I think it’s important for the president of the United States to be able to have a conversation with his team without them having to open their mouths to the American media,” Vance told reporters.
“Bystander”
Vance kept a relatively low profile during the first few weeks of the Iran war, but he did not go unnoticed.
Brandon Weichert, a stand-in host on Lindell TV, a conservative station run by Trump ally and My Pillow founder Mike Lindell, said that Vance was “supposed to be the non-interventionist pioneer of the MAGA movement, but he was kind of on the sidelines.”
“If I were Vance, I would no longer care about keeping my powder dry for 2028. He needs to start building an alternative power center within his administration now and vocalizing his vision of a non-interventionist foreign policy,” Weichert wrote in a social media post. “Anything less than that is cowardly.”
Former Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who broke with Trump and resigned from Congress after once being one of Trump’s biggest allies, also criticized Vance in two social media posts.
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“We said, ‘No more foreign wars, no more regime change!’ We said it on stage at rallies, in speech after speech,” Greene wrote. “Mr. Trump, Mr. Vance, basically the entire administration campaigned on this.”
Vance, who served as a Marine in Iraq, called the U.S. invasion of the country “disastrous” in a speech at the 2024 Republican National Convention. That same year, he said war with Iran was not in the United States’ interest.
Vance, 41, praised Trump for not starting a war in his first term in a 2023 Wall Street Journal op-ed, saying his foreign policy was “probably” the greatest legacy of his first four years in the White House. He has criticized previous “foreign scandals.”
Some of the vice president’s biggest moments in Trump’s second term came amid belligerence with foreign leaders, reinforcing the perception that he is a conservative torchbearer. Conservatives, many like Vance, are young and skeptical of America’s long-standing role as a leading force in establishing international order and reining in undemocratic forces.
“He’s the face of the New Right…He’s the embodiment of the young vanguard, and as long as that brand is threatened, that’s a problem for him,” Mills said.
But Vance took a tough stance on Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, saying the United States must be prepared to take strong measures to stop it.
“I think we have to be aggressive on this, and I’m approaching this from a position of some degree of restraint in foreign policy,” Vance said on the Morgan Ortagus Show in 2024. “I think wars often have unintended consequences, but it’s really, really, really important to prevent Iran from getting bombed.”
Vance remains silent as MAGA breaks out
Nearly three days after the first Iranian attack, Vance appeared on “Jesse Watters Prime Time” to address concerns about escalating military operations, telling Fox News: “There’s no way Donald Trump will allow this country to go into a multi-year conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear purpose.”
Mr. Vance also attended two dignified transfer ceremonies for the remains of fallen U.S. soldiers, spoke with firefighters, briefly touched on Iran, and asked for prayers for fallen soldiers.
But other administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as the president’s national security adviser, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have been the first to communicate with Trump about the war. That’s not surprising considering their responsibilities. But some wondered why Vance wasn’t more active.
When the first Iran attack was unfolding, Mr. Rubio was with Mr. Trump at the Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, while Mr. Vance was in Washington, D.C., and Mr. Vance was “at the kid’s table,” Mr. Weichert said in a Lindell TV interview with American Conservative magazine senior editor Andrew Day.
“Maybe Vance is hoping it will take him away from the war a little bit, but I think it’s the worst of all possible worlds for him,” Day said.
“I feel the same way,” Weichelt interjected.
“He seems obsessed with this war, so if it becomes very unpopular he’ll drag his feet, but at the same time he’s not exactly demonstrating leadership skills,” Day added.
A spokesperson for Vance disputed the report, saying the vice president had “kept a low profile” since the strike against the president’s advisers.
“As a member of the president’s national security team, the vice president provides private advice to the president,” Vance press secretary Taylor Van Kirk said in a statement to USA TODAY.
Mr. Vance’s office also said the vice president was in Florida and discussed the Venezuela operation with Mr. Trump at a West Palm Beach golf club on January 2, but was not at Mar-a-Lago at the time of the strike because his national security team was concerned that the late-night motorcade movement could tip off President Nicolas Maduro’s government. Vance participated via secure video conferencing.
Mr. Vance’s office added that he participated in the planning process for the Iran attack and monitored the attack from the White House Situation Room while Mr. Trump and other aides were in Palm Beach to maintain operational security. The Trump administration has said it aims to limit how often and for how long the president and vice president are away from the same area of the White House, citing security concerns.
“Efforts to drive a wedge between President Trump and Vice President Vance are completely misguided. The President listens to the many voices of his talented national security team and ultimately makes decisions based on what is best for our country and national security. Vice President Vance is an invaluable asset to the President and the entire administration,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement. Separately, a senior White House official said the entire national security team was focused on carrying out the Iranian operation and was intentionally muting Iranian attacks. The president’s two pre-recorded video speeches stand alone as the operation unfolds.
While government officials are working behind the scenes, The voices of prominent Trump supporters were stirring up war. Tucker Carlson, a conservative media figure who is an ally of Mr. Vance and has advocated to be Mr. Trump’s running mate, called the war “evil” in an interview with ABC News.
Influential podcaster Joe Rogan, who has Trump on his show and supported him ahead of the 2024 election, said on March 10 that “people feel betrayed” by the war, after his campaign message was “No more wars, let’s end these stupid, pointless wars.”
“The real problem”
Whatever philosophical differences Mr. Vance shares with Mr. Trump, he has voiced support in public comments in the two weeks since the United States launched the military operation on February 28.
Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton told USA TODAY in an interview that he expects more from the president.
Bolton, who has praised the president’s actions on Iran and is a frequent critic of the president, said Trump expected Vance to “step up” and noted that the vice president will be given a serious task of selling Trump’s policies in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections.
“It’s going to be a day-to-day situation as to what happens with Mr. Vance going forward. I think it’s really going to be a day-to-day issue for him,” Bolton said.
“MAGA intellectual”
Vance’s approach to Iran could affect his political career for years to come.
“Mr. Vance was very much in the position of no more forever wars… but if Mr. Trump drags them here to Iran and somehow manages to instill this view, it’s going to be very difficult for him to come back and say, ‘I never believed that all along,'” said Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a nonprofit think tank, who advocates for a more restrained U.S. foreign policy.
Ashford told USA TODAY. Vance, on the other hand, is more engaged in the philosophical discussion of MAGA principles. Mills described Vance, a Yale Law School graduate, as a “MAGA intellectual.”
“He’s in a stressful position where at least part of his reputation revolves around some sort of clearly articulated, well-thought-out, true beliefs about major changes in the direction of domestic and foreign policy,” said Sam Rosenfeld, director of the Public Affairs and Policy Research Initiative at Colgate University.
“If that’s part of your identity, it’s dangerous to be tied down to President Trump,” Rosenfeld told USA TODAY.
The Republican base is aligned with Trump and continues to rally behind the president. An NBC News poll released March 4 found that 77% of Republicans support attacking Iran, with support even higher among those who identify as MAGA.
However, the situation could change depending on how US involvement in Iran develops. And it remains to be seen whether Mr. Vance has that much goodwill within his party and the ability to shape Republican opinion.
Some believe that a short-term conflict would not have much of an impact on Mr. Vance. But Mills said it would have been better for him if the war had never happened.
“(For) those who believed in the core MAGA, the promise to remake the party and remake the movement, this is just a huge disappointment,” Mills said. “And there’s no way to polish it.”
