What's Up With J D Vance?

A brief note from Wednesday in the Times of Israel:

US Vice President JD Vance is weighing direct talks with a top Iranian security official, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing unnamed US and Middle East officials.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary-general of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said earlier today that there are no plans to meet Vance.

US officials tell the outlet that Vance has taken the lead role in diplomatic efforts to reach an agreement with Iran, eclipsing White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary-general of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said earlier today that there are no plans to meet Vance.

US officials tell the outlet that Vance has taken the lead role in diplomatic efforts to reach an agreement with Iran, eclipsing White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

Trump has been privately criticizing the June memorandum of understanding with Iran that Vance helped negotiate, two US officials say, insisting that it was a mistake and allowed Iran to recover and bring in oil revenues.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller back maintaining the blockade on Iran until it gives, say two US officials.

Just a day later, Trump took Vance off the Iran detail:

Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said he directed Vance to “focus his complete and total attention on the Massive Corruption and Crime” in blue states such as Minnesota, California and Illinois, among others.

. . . “We don’t need to deal with Iran,” the president added. “Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait.”

Vance is the chair of the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, a group that Trump created through executive order earlier this year.

. . . However, Trump shifting Vance to focus more on the antifraud efforts and less on Iran comes after Axios reported that the vice president was involved in the indirect talks with Iran earlier this month. The Wall Street Journal also reported earlier this week that Vance was considering face-to-face talks with top Iranian security officials.

The vice president has also faced backlash in recent days after tying GOP midterm losses to the Middle East conflict.

Via the Chosun Daily, reporting on New York and Seattle Times stories behind paywalls,

Amid this, as Trump excludes Vance from the Iran line, there are observations that a subtle undercurrent of conflict is flowing between the two, who are “MAGA (Make America Great Again) partners.”

The conflict between the two over the Iran war surfaced when the midterm election defeat became certain on November 4. At the time, Vance posted on his X (Twitter), “The real reason we lost is clear. The Iran war,” and added, “The president himself said so.” He continued, “If you want to claim that the Iran war was worth losing the Senate majority for the next six years, then go ahead.” When asked about Vance’s remarks, Trump said, “I generally agree,” but added, “There are many people around me who do not like Vance’s comments.”

In an interview with CBS released on November 8, Trump was asked if he would support Vance in the 2028 election, to which he replied, “Maybe. Not necessarily.” He then praised Vance’s competitor, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as “excellent.” Following this, he told Vance to “stop focusing on Iran issues.”

Vance had been the most skeptical of the war among Trump’s key aides even before the U.S. launched a surprise attack on Iran in late February 2026. After the war, he sought diplomatic solutions. In April 2026, he led the U.S. negotiation team at high-level talks on the Iran war held in Pakistan, and was directly involved in negotiations that led to the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the U.S. and Iran in June 2026. Last month, he also sent a letter directly requesting a meeting with Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. Although Trump had approved Vance’s negotiation efforts while contemplating military action, he suddenly changed his stance. The New York Times (NYT) reported on the same day that “Vice President Vance’s planned tour of four Caribbean and South American countries (Dominican Republic, Colombia, Argentina, and Chile) during the Thanksgiving week had been abruptly canceled.”

But as the Times of Israel reported in the link above, despite Vance's request, Mohsen Rezaei, secretary-general of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, has "no plans" to meet with him. According to Scott Pinsker, the most consistently inightful of the various Salem Media pundits,

Because of all the blowback, JD Vance — if he runs at all — is now the FINO: Frontrunner In Name Only. He’ll still lead the ’28 presidential polls, but that’s mostly due to name recognition and earlier momentum.

But his lead is now illusory, and his numbers are falling fast. According to Polymarket, Vance went from a 53% probability of winning the GOP presidential nomination in September to 32% today. That’s a 20-plus point crash.

He’s the presumptive nominee no longer. The GOP race is wide open.

It looks as well as if he's the first victim of Stephen Miller's rise to Chief of Staff.

And I checked the Vance memes: like the one at the top of this post, they suggest his beard isn't all that attractive, but if he didn't have it, he'd have a baby face. In fact, he has a baby face anyhow.