With Vice President JD Vance, a one-time\u00a0Iran war\u00a0skeptic, now tasked with brokering a deal to end it, President Donald Trump has been monitoring his progress closely and inquiring with various friends and advisers how they\u2019d rank his performance, according to three people familiar with the conversations.<\/p>\n
The president has wondered aloud how they think Vance compares to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a potential rival for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, these people said.<\/p>\n
Never over the course of Trump\u2019s second term has his second-in-command been more in the spotlight than in the past week, when a pair of foreign visits and a dust-up between the president and the leader of the world\u2019s Catholics \u2014 of which Vance is one \u2014 placed him squarely at the center of Trump\u2019s whirlwind.<\/p>\n
For now, Trump seems to have full confidence in Vance\u2019s negotiating abilities, with the vice president on standby to return to Pakistan to resume negotiations with Iran if a deal appears to be coming together, according to sources familiar with the talks.<\/p>\n
But the president, who spoke by phone with Vance as many as a dozen times during the first round of talks in Islamabad last weekend, has made clear he\u2019s watching carefully.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it doesn\u2019t happen, I\u2019m blaming JD Vance,\u201d Trump said, somewhat in jest, of an Iran deal during an Easter lunch this month. \u201cIf it does happen, I\u2019m taking full credit.\u201d<\/p>\n
As momentum builds for another round of talks with Iran, the White House voiced full support for Vance\u2019s role.<\/p>\n
\u201cVice President Vance continues to show why President Trump has tapped him to lead the Iran negotiations along with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. His ability to take on some of the biggest challenges head-on makes him an invaluable member of the Administration full of top performers,\u201d White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement. Cheung traveled to Pakistan with Vance last weekend.<\/p>\n
Navigating the fray poses a challenge for Vance. The staunch Trump loyalist has publicly defended a war he argued against in private, and backed Trump\u2019s criticism of Pope Leo XIV, even amid outcry from some of his fellow Catholics.<\/p>\n
Yet on both fronts, Vance has also offered positions that \u2014 while not at odds with his boss \u2014 allow for a degree of distinction.<\/p>\n
Confronted by hecklers decrying the administration\u2019s Middle East policy at a Turning Point USA event in Georgia this week, Vance deflected the criticism onto the Biden administration. But later in the event, he acknowledged the Iran war\u2019s unpopularity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI recognize that young voters do not love the policy we have in the Middle East,\u201d he told the half-empty arena. \u201cI understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the lead-up to last weekend\u2019s marathon talks with Iran in Pakistan,\u00a0Vance downplayed his role\u00a0in the negotiations as merely \u201canswering a lot of phone calls.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet when Trump convened a Cabinet meeting on March 26, it was Vance he turned to first for an update on the war, not his secretaries of state or defense. By then, the vice president had been in regular contact with Pakistan\u2019s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, to work through proposals to bring the hostilities to an end.<\/p>\n
At the time of the Cabinet meeting, Vance\u2019s initial hesitation about launching a new foreign war was well known. Trump had even acknowledged it, shrugging it off as a minor difference in viewpoint.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was, I would say, philosophically a little bit different than me,\u201d Trump explained in early March. \u201cI think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic.\u201d<\/p>\n