Vice President JD Vance has been on a whirlwind media tour all week, from co-hosting Fox News’ The Five (which is remarkable in and of itself), to tussling with the co-hosts of The View, to hitting the podcast circuit with the likes of Megyn Kelly. While Vance is out there pitching his new book, he’s also made himself the face of President Donald Trump’s Iran peace deal, which he said was signed electronically over the weekend.
As Vance emerges as the spokesman for the deal, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has raised eyebrows across the political world with his near-total absence. Rubio, who has taken on multiple roles in the administration, was central to the Iran negotiations up until the last week or so, in which Vance, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff stepped in to rush to finalize an end to hostilities.
Axios reported on Monday that as Trump announced the “great settlement,” Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe were all skeptical, based on the latest intelligence, that Iran would be willing to make any actual concessions to end the war.
While the national security team inside the Trump administration appears to be sitting out going to bat for the deal, Vance has tied himself to it so much so that Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade and Marc Thiessen have taken to calling it “JD Vance’s deal.”
Rubio’s calculation here appears clear; he’s sitting back and waiting for the deal to either blow up or go into effect and be annihilated by the conservative pundit class.
Trump offered a preview of sorts on Wednesday morning of the precarious position Vance has put himself in when pressed on whether or not the deal gives Iran access to a $300 billion fund to rebuild the country. As the fund took arrows from the right in the press, Trump worked to deny its existence and jabbed Vance for highlighting it in the first place.
“That’s a false story that got picked up incorrectly from a statement that was pretty well made, I think. Maybe a little bit— Could have been a little more accurate, frankly,” Trump said of the claim, which originated from Vance during his media hits. Vance tying himself so closely to the deal not only risks him taking blame from conservative pundits for its shortcomings, but from Trump if the mood in the GOP turns against it.
The Economist’s chief Middle East correspondent Gregg Carlstrom fleshed out this point on Wednesday morning in reply to a social media comment claiming, “Trump will blame Vance when conflict does not actually stop in the Gulf and Lebanon.”
Carlstrom replied, “Which is why no one has heard a peep from Rubio over the past 48 hours. America’s most powerful secretary of state since Kissinger and yet the moment the deal was signed he magically went into occultation.”
Rubio’s silence makes clear that he’s aware of the many pitfalls in rushing through a deal with Iran, especially at a moment when Trump desperately needs to get the oil flowing again to ease inflation and avert a looming energy crisis. As Carlstrom’s interaction makes clear, there are so many other players in the region and potential flashpoints for the conflict to start again that Rubio’s betting against a quick peace seems like a safe play.
