President Donald Trump may have been “joking” when he said Vice President JD Vance can be the fall guy if the Iran deal falls through, but Republicans are not waiting to criticize him for its perceived shortcomings.
Vance has taken a political gamble by signing up to be the public face of a memorandum of understanding that Republicans already claim is a gift to Iran, giving away too much economic relief in exchange for yet-to-be-negotiated curbs on its nuclear program. Rather than attack Trump directly, they are laying blame at the feet of Vance.
“In my opinion, the vice president of the United States, the chief negotiator on this particular project, has not well served the president,” commentator Ben Shapiro told Fox News Wednesday.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a close Trump ally, has similarly named Vance in expressing his reservations, although he has softened his criticism since demanding that he brief Congress on the contents of a final deal.
The flak is due, in part, to Vance’s central role in winding down the Iran conflict. On top of embarking on a media blitz to defend the White House, he was also part of the negotiating team that reached a ceasefire with Iran.
The criticism he is receiving, however, also continues a strategy many Republicans have adopted when they wish to break with the administration, but don’t want to get on the wrong side of Trump himself: GOP critics from Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to Thom Tillis (R-NC) vaguely blame the president’s advisers and suggest that their advice is misguided, rather than the decisions Trump makes with it.
“I think the president, unfortunately, is receiving bad advice on this deal,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said on Thursday.
His would-be rivals for the 2028 nomination for president also know Vance is vulnerable if the deal goes sideways, and Vance’s allies believe there could be political calculations behind the critiques. Cruz is among the Republicans thought to be considering a presidential run.
“This is JD Vance’s Iran deal,” one Republican operative told the Washington Examiner. “If it succeeds, he goes into 2028 with the upper hand. But if it fails — and Iran uses the time to rebuild its nuclear program — the political consequences will fall on him, not Trump.”
“I think he’s taking most of the hits because potential 2028 opponents are organizing the hits,” Trump ally Alex Bruesewitz added.
At a White House press briefing, Vance told reporters he was not “at all” concerned about being blamed for the Iran deal if it falls short in the eyes of the public.
And he dismissed a quip Trump made on Wednesday calling that blame a “good idea” as nothing more than a joke.
“If it works out, I’m going to take the credit. If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD,” Trump said at the G7 summit. “You better be careful, JD. He’s going to turn his plane around and get the hell out of here.”
Not all Republicans think the president was poking fun at Vance, though. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), a Republican on the outs with Trump after losing his Senate primary last month, said, “It wasn’t a joke.”
Cornyn responded in the affirmative when the Washington Examiner asked whether Vance is susceptible to political repercussions concerning the Iran agreement.
“I don’t think anybody should be under any illusion that [Iranian leaders] have lost interest in developing a nuclear weapon,” he said. “I think this is just intermission.”
At Thursday’s press briefing, Vance denied some of the most pointed criticism, emphasizing any economic relief Iran gets won’t be with American taxpayer dollars, and that the agreement, which allows 60 days to hammer out the technical details, was “performance-based” and not a giveaway.
“I think that when people get to understand not just the agreement but our negotiating posture as a country, they will realize this is an excellent thing for the American people,” Vance told reporters.
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Democrats, for their part, have shown no hesitation in blaming Trump for the war and the way it concluded.
“Trump lost the war,” Sean Savett, one of former President Joe Biden’s National Security Council spokesmen, told the Washington Examiner.