Donald Trump has challenged JD Vance to say whether he would support launching the Iran war again, while insisting that the vice president’s criticism of the conflict has not damaged their relationship.
Speaking before boarding Air Force One in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday night, the US president said “a lot of people” had disliked Vance’s comments blaming the eight-month war for the Republican Party’s crushing midterm election defeat.
“No, not at all. But a lot of people didn’t like his comments, but not me,” Mr Trump said when asked whether the remarks had caused a rift between the pair.
He said Vance had been right about the election result except for failing to answer one question: whether he would make the same decision to go to war if given the opportunity again.
“If you had to do it again, would you do it again? The answer is ‘yes’,” Mr Trump said.
The president argued that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon justified the military campaign, despite its political cost. “I can tell you if I had to do it again this historically, for history this will go down as one of the best things we ever did,” he said.
Mr Trump made similar remarks in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes, broadcast hours earlier. Asked whether he agreed with Vance’s assessment of the Republican defeat, including criticism of America’s relationship with Israel, he replied: “I don’t disagree.”
He again returned to the question of whether Vance would support the decision a second time, saying: “You know he was part of a decision-making process and my answer is an emphatic ‘yes’ because you can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
Mr Trump acknowledged that the decision might not be politically beneficial in the short term, but said history would vindicate it. “Is it a good decision for today and tomorrow? Maybe not, but you know I have to go with what’s right for our country,” he said.
Vance, who is regarded as a potential contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028, caused surprise when he directly attributed the party’s loss of both chambers of Congress to the war.
“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance wrote in a post on X. He said polling indicated that former Trump supporters had turned against Republicans over the conflict, rising living costs, America’s “America First” agenda and its relationship with Israel.
Vance said disillusioned Trump voters wanted the war ended, inflation tackled and Washington’s relationship with Israel changed. He also challenged supporters of the military campaign to acknowledge its political consequences, writing: “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.”
The comments prompted questions over whether the vice president was seeking to distance himself from Mr Trump’s increasingly unpopular foreign policy before a possible presidential campaign. Mr Trump, however, has continued to present their relationship as strong while defending the decision to attack Iran.
Iran has maintained that its nuclear programme is peaceful, although international inspectors have raised concerns about its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Diplomatic efforts to secure a lasting resolution have so far struggled, while US forces have continued limited operations, including strikes against Iranian air defences.
