Vice President JD Vance’s dismissal from Iran negotiations: what this says about a potential 2028 run
Vice President JD Vance has taken a remarkably nuanced tone when it comes to the war with Iran, the U.S. relationship with Israel, and pursuing diplomacy with the Middle Eastern country. Will his stance affect his 2028 presidential chances if he chooses to run?
Opinion-analysis by Summer Lane | November 13, 2026
The U.S. midterm election cycle has ended, and despite President Trump’s dizzying campaign efforts, Republican candidates simply could not bring home the victories needed to secure continued GOP control in the U.S. Congress.
With Democrats poised to take total control of both chambers in 2027, much conversation has swirled about the future of the Republican Party, and who could possibly run as a presidential nominee in 2028 in a climate that is so openly hostile to the GOP.
For a few years now, Vice President JD Vance has widely been viewed as the heir apparent. Young, energetic, well-spoken, and considerably more likable than other politicians, it made sense: President Trump, after one concluding term in office, would lend Vance his endorsement, and the Republican Party would coalesce behind Vance.
In 2025, this seemed like a no-brainer. Now, the future is not so clear.
The midterm elections have served as a kind of litmus test for the political environment, and the message sent by voters was unmistakable: Republicans had two years to codify a very simple and very clear-cut agenda, and they failed to do so.
Voters’ repudiation of the GOP at the ballot box was shockingly harsh, and it begs a question: if this midterm season is any indication of what the future holds, does a Republican stand a chance in 2028?
The vice president gets sidelined at the White House
This week, President Trump announced that he was removing Vice President JD Vance from leading negotiations with Iran – a surprising twist indeed.
“I have asked Vice President Vance to focus his complete and total attention on the Massive Corruption and Crime taking place in Democrat run Cities and States throughout the U.S. The Blue States, such as Minnesota, California, Illinois, and many more, are all poorly run, corrupt disasters,” the president explained.
He said the U.S. didn’t “need” a deal with Iran: “Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!”
President Trump’s decision to remove Vance from Iran talks didn’t happen in a vacuum. The announcement comes on the heels of the vice president’s extremely blunt statement last week, in which he robustly blamed the Republican Party’s tidal losses in the midterms on the war with Iran.
“The reason we lost is the war,” Vance noted. “The president himself said so last night. 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. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest. But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”
The statement was raw and lengthy, with a measure of self-reflection that is, admittedly, admirable. Of course, it was also a distinct break with President Trump, as the Iran conflict certainly did exact a heavy political cost.
It has also been widely reported that the vice president, behind closed doors, opposed the war from the beginning. This suggests that while Vance has projected public support for the president’s decision to take the U.S. to war with the Middle East, behind-the-scenes chats may look a little different.
President Trump told reporters recently that the vice president’s public comments about Iran after the midterms had not impacted his relationship with his second-in-command.
“A lot of people didn’t like JD Vance’s comments…but not me,” he said.
There are really only two ways to analyze this.
Vance is on the outs, or there’s a plan in place
On X, author Saul Sadka observed that President Trump’s public announcement that Vance would be taken off Iranian negotiations was a “stern” rebuke.
“This looks like Trump’s (uncharacteristically polite) reply to Vance blaming Trump’s handling of the Iran War, and Israel, for the midterm apocalypse for the Republicans and corroborates reporting from the WSJ that Trump blames Vance’s MOU, not the war, for the defeat,” Sadka wrote.
He continued, “This is about as stern a public rebuke as a president could give a vice president while maintaining an outward pretence of unity. Vance has a choice to make at this point, but he won’t be getting any Trump endorsement for a 2028 run.”
Whether Vance would nab the president’s endorsement is anyone’s guess, but Sadka’s observation here is largely accurate.
It appears that the president’s action was indeed a public repudiation of Vance’s work on the Iran situation – and, perhaps, public statements.
This could mean that the president and the vice president are indeed truly at odds about the situation, which does suggest that Vance may not have President Trump’s endorsement in 2028, should he choose to run for the presidency.
Will this hurt Vance? Maybe. Or maybe not.
The second possibility here is that the vice president and President Trump are working together behind the scenes to coordinate a political distance between Vance and the war with Iran, to give him a shot at running for president in 2028.
If the midterm elections proved anything, it’s that the war with Iran is a politically radioactive situation. Voters do not want another war in the Middle East, and if Vance is going to have any chance at all in winning the presidency, he has no choice but to refute the war and step away from it.
Whether this distance is being created behind the scenes or Vance is doing it independently to protect himself may never be known – but the distance is growing every day.
Would Vance really run in 2028?
It’s hard to say if the vice president will run for the presidency in two years. As mentioned earlier, he was once positioned as the heir apparent, but the political landscape in America has left everything in flux.
Vance is young and well-spoken. He is taking the policy stances that voters supported in 2024. That’s a sign that he is keeping the door open for a 2028 run, although he’s likely giving it a serious second thought.
A recent report, for example, from CNN alleged that Vance was reconsidering his presidential aspirations – and that seems accurate.
Could he run in 2028? Sure. Would it be better, politically, if he ran in a few years, when the war with Iran is no longer the topic of conversation? Possibly.
The future for the vice president may hinge entirely on who the Democrats run for president in 2028. An eloquent, anti-war Democrat, however disingenuous they may be, could be a serious contender for the White House as the national party pendulum has begun to swing left once more.
The future is unwritten and unknown, but one thing is certain: there is a kind of observable divide between President Trump and Vice President Vance when it comes to the war in Iran.
The question boils down to how badly Vance wants to be president, and whether the Republican Party – and America – will embrace him in 2028 with the Iran conflict attached to his political past.
Photo: Adobe Stock
