America's vice president just turned on his own president's war
2 hours ago · 5 November 2026Share
Vice President JD Vance stands for portrait in the Vice President's ceremonial office at the White House. File photo. Emily J. Higgins · Public domain
JD Vance just blamed his own president's war for losing Congress.
Here's what happened. Democrats won both the House and the Senate this week. And about a day later, the Vice President wrote a 614-word post on X explaining why.
His line was simple. He wrote quote "The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night."
So that's the Vice President, in public, saying the Iran war cost his own party Congress.
And this wasn't some angry post dashed off in anger. According to a report from Politico, Vance wrote it himself and told the White House he was about to publish it. A senior White House official told Politico that Trump was totally fine with it.
Donald Trump Jr. reposted it within the hour. He called it "100, 100, 100."
And Trump himself didn't push back either. He said, "I know how he feels about it. I think it was fine." He told the Wall Street Journal that Iran was a piece of it. So Trump is accepting the war played a part in the losses, without saying he regrets starting it.
But here's the thing. Trump isn't changing course.
He said he'd do the Iran war again. He called it, long term, the only answer. And he said America will not let Iran get a nuclear weapon.
So the Vice President and the President agree on why they lost. They just don't agree on what to do next.
Now, some background. This war started in late February 2026. Trump originally said it would last four to five weeks. It's now in its eighth month.
And Vance has history here. He's a former Marine who served in Iraq. He's criticised America's long wars before. After becoming Vice President, he said this administration wouldn't send troops into the open-ended conflicts of the past.
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The Washington Monument reflected in water. File photo.Crglenn · CC BY-SA 4.0
In the spring, he actually led the US team trying to end this war. He got a ceasefire deal with Iran. It later fell apart. He even flew to Islamabad in April for more talks.
Trump had already noticed the gap between them, months before the election. He said Vance was "a little bit different philosophically" and "perhaps less enthusiastic about going" to war — while saying there was no rift.
So do the numbers back Vance up? Kind of.
An ABC News Voter poll found 34% of voters called the Iran war crucial to their vote. Cost of living was 49%. Government corruption was 55%. So the war wasn't the top issue. A separate Associated Press survey of more than 100,000 voters found roughly six in ten Americans thought going to war with Iran was the wrong call.
And Trump still isn't budging. Two nights before Vance's post, he told the New York Times he was absolutely willing to accept the midterm results and would work with Democrats. But he also called the Iran strike a very wise decision.
There's a bigger game here too.
Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, is seen as a possible 2028 contender. If Vance manages to pin this war on the administration as a mistake, Rubio could be the one left exposed.
And Hakeem Jeffries, about to become Speaker of the House, told CNN that Democrats will push to end the Iran war as part of a wider fight over the cost of living.
Reaction split along the obvious lines. Mark Pfeifle, a former deputy national security adviser under President George W. Bush, told Al Jazeera that Vance was owning up to a political failure of the administration's own making. Nick Rahall, a former Democratic member of Congress, told Al Jazeera that Vance is definitely trying to distance himself from Trump.
So what don't we know? Whether this is the start of a real policy reversal, or just an early move in a 2028 campaign. Vance has criticised this war before, and he's also the one who tried hardest to end it. Trump has given no sign he's changing anything.
Right now, both men are telling the same story about what went wrong.
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