WASHINGTON (AP) — JD Vance publicly broke from President Donald Trump 's defense of the Iran war Wednesday after the Republican Party's deep losses in the midterm elections, attempting to distance himself from voters' clear rebuke of the president as the vice president faces questions about his own political ambitions.
Vance, who has said he would decide after the election whether to run for president in 2028, issued a lengthy social media post blaming
the unpopular conflict with Iran for the GOP's drubbing. Vance said, "If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so.”
But arguing that the war was worth it is what Trump repeatedly did on the campaign trail and continued to do in interviews as election results came in. Trump told The New York Times late Tuesday that the decision to go to war this year was “very wise" and told Politico it was “an absolutely correct one.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday about the vice president's post.
The Republican, who had long advocated for restraint in U.S. military intervention overseas, was lukewarm in his defense of the conflict after Trump launched it and even became the face of an unsuccessful attempt to end the fighting.
About 6 in 10 voters said the U.S. made the “wrong decision” in taking military action against Iran, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 voters in the United States. Most of those voters dissatisfied with the Iran war backed the Democratic candidate in their U.S. House race, but the survey suggested the Iran war was not the leading issue for most voters.
Only about one-third of voters said the war in Iran was “crucial” to their vote for Congress, well below the roughly half who said that about the cost of living or government corruption.
Nearly all voters who backed the Democratic candidate in their U.S. House race said going to war with Iran was the “wrong decision,” while roughly 8 in 10 voters who backed the Republican candidate said it was the “right decision.”
A former Marine who served in Iraq, Vance had been critical of that conflict and said after becoming vice president that a Trump administration would not send troops into the “open-ended conflicts” of the past.
After Trump launched the war with Iran this past spring, Vance was noticeably quiet in speaking about it, a conspicuous change for a politician known for being a pugnacious defender of the president.
This summer, he tried to argue the conflict was worth it, telling conservative podcast host Megyn Kelly in an interview that, “If we transformed the Middle East, this is fundamentally worth it."
But after Democrats swept control of both the House and the Senate on Tuesday, defeating GOP candidates even in deep-red areas that Trump carried by wide margins two years ago, Vance said in his post that “the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone."
He said Republican voters cast their ballots for Democrats because of the war, the cost of living, America not being prioritized and the U.S. relationship with Israel — a dynamic where he's also sounded a different note than Trump.
Unlike the president, Vance declined to endorseIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for reelection and this summer publicly chastised members of Israel’s government for opposing Trump’s efforts to resolve the war with Iran.
Vance, who has been a staunch defender of the administration's immigration policies, also appeared to be seeking some distance from the immigration crackdown that drew a backlash.
“I’m open to the idea that we should change enforcement — by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance,” he wrote.
But he said he rejected any politicians who might propose amnesty for people living in the country illegally.
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Associated Press Writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.
