WASHINGTON (AP) — JD Vance publicly broke Wednesday with President Donald Trump’s defense of the Iran war after the Republican Party’s heavy defeats in the midterm elections, trying to distance himself from voters’ clear rebukes of the president as the vice president faces questions about his own political ambitions.
LEARN MORE: How Trump and Republicans lost the 2026 midterm elections, according to AP Voter Poll
Vance, who said he would decide after the election whether to run for president in 2028, posted a lengthy message on social media blaming the unpopular conflict with Iran for the Republican Party’s defeat. Vance said, “If you want to say that it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do it. »
But arguing that the war was worth it is what Trump did repeatedly during his election campaign, continued to do in his interviews as the election results came in and did it again Wednesday morning. As he led reporters on an impromptu tour of the ballroom he is building at the White House, Trump said: “The Iran file, we had to do it and we continue to do it.”
Trump said he spoke to Vance Wednesday morning and, when asked about the vice president’s job, he called it “good” and responded, “I know how he feels about it” and “I think it was good.”
He also said he “knew the war was going to have an impact” on the midterm elections, but again defended his actions.
Vance, who had long advocated restraint in U.S. military intervention abroad, was lukewarm in his defense of the conflict after Trump launched it and even became the face of a failed attempt to end the fighting.
Voters made clear their disapproval of the war in Iran
About 6 in 10 voters said the United States made the “wrong decision” in launching military action against Iran, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 voters in the United States. Most voters unhappy with the Iran war supported the Democratic candidate in their race for the U.S. House of Representatives, but the survey suggests the Iran war is not the top issue for most voters.
Only about a third of voters said the war in Iran was “crucial” to their congressional vote, well below the roughly half who said that about the cost of living or government corruption.
Nearly all voters who supported the Democratic candidate in their race for the U.S. House of Representatives said going to war with Iran was a “bad decision,” while about eight in 10 voters who supported the Republican candidate said it was the “right decision.”
A former Marine who served in Iraq, Vance criticized that conflict and said after becoming vice president that a Trump administration would not send troops into the “open conflicts” of the past.
After Trump launched war on Iran last spring, Vance was noticeably quiet in speaking about it, a remarkable change for a politician known as a pugnacious defender of the president.
This summer, he tried to argue that the conflict was worth it, saying in an interview with conservative podcast host Megyn Kelly that “if we transform the Middle East, it’s fundamentally worth it.”
Vance says reason for loss ‘obvious to almost everyone’
But after Democrats took control of the House and Senate on Tuesday, defeating Republican candidates even in red areas that Trump won handily two years ago, Vance said in his message that “the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.”
He said Republican voters voted for Democrats because of the war, the cost of living, America not being a priority and the U.S.’s relationship with Israel — a dynamic in which he also struck a different note than Trump.
Unlike the president, Vance has refused to support the re-election of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and this summer publicly chastised members of the Israeli government for opposing Trump’s efforts to resolve the war with Iran.
Vance, who has been a staunch defender of the government’s immigration policies, also appears to be seeking to distance himself from the immigration crackdown that has sparked backlash.
“I am open to the idea that we should change the enforcement of the rules, focusing more on companies that hire illegal labor, for example,” he wrote.
But he said he rejected any politician who might offer amnesty to people living in the country illegally.
Associated Press writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.
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