The day after the Republican Party suffered a historic smackdown in the midterm elections, JD Vance took a provocative step that raised plenty of eyebrows. The vice president blamed the GOP’s devastating losses on the ongoing war with Iran that Donald Trump launched eight months earlier.

“The reason we lost is the war,” Vance wrote online, concluding in his missive that “any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”

The analysis suffered from a variety of flaws, though the Ohio Republican was apparently doing more than just playing the role of pundit. Axios reported a few days after Election Day that Vance had become “personally involved in indirect talks with Iran aimed at reaching a new ceasefire and resuming nuclear negotiations.” The Wall Street Journal added earlier this week that the vice president was also eyeing “face-to-face talks with a top Iranian security official as he emerges as the lead negotiator with Iran.”

It was against this backdrop that Trump published a statement to his social media platform, which effectively told his vice president, “Stop.”

The president’s post read, in part:

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. […]

We don’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! Thank you for your attention to this matter.

It’s worth emphasizing that Trump’s statements often bear no resemblance to reality, so there’s no reason to assume that his post reflects the current (or future) White House agenda.

But if the missive is correct, it matters quite a bit.

There were already concerns, for example, that the faltering anti-fraud “task force” that Vance leads is an inherently partisan political scheme, and by explicitly telling the vice president to focus on Democratic officials, Trump effectively confirmed what had been widely assumed.

Just as notable, it was striking to see the president tell Vance — publicly and in writing — that his efforts to resolve the ongoing war were no longer needed.

But perhaps most important was Trump’s assertion that “we don’t need a deal with Iran.”

If he believes that, it leaves us with an unavoidable question: Can anyone explain the administration’s current position on Iran?

Because as recently as Monday, the president stood at the briefing room podium and declared, “Look, Iran, I hope we’re going to be able to make a deal with them.” Three days later, he published a statement that said, “We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed.”

So, which is it? Does he want a deal or not? If not, why not just end the conflict? By the White House’s own reasoning, the only reason the war isn’t over is that the United States and Iran haven’t settled on an agreement — and as of Thursday morning, the sitting American president said he was no longer seeking an agreement.

What we’re left with is a president who appears to have benched his own vice president, while creating global uncertainty about his own administration’s policy, and whether or not such a policy actually exists.

The post Vance gets new marching orders from Trump: Focus on blue states, not Iran appeared first on MS NOW.

Author: Source Author

From MS Now.