\n Mere hours after President Donald Trump ordered strikes on Iran\u2019s nuclear program last June, his vice president appeared on two separate Sunday shows to hail the success of the mission. JD Vance was so effusive that he used the word \u201cincredible\u201d or \u201cincredibly\u201d four times in less than one minute.\n <\/p>\n
\n Within hours of Trump\u2019s operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in January, Vance was on X posting a combative defense<\/a> of the legality of the operation.\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s now been two weeks since Trump launched a war with Iran, and Vance has yet to offer anything like these public votes of confidence.\n <\/p>\n \n That continued Friday, when he was asked by a reporter what he had advised Trump initially and more recently.\n <\/p>\n \n Vance gave an extended answer but punted<\/a> on giving his personal view of the war.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI hate to disappoint you, but I\u2019m not going to show up here and, in front of God and everybody else, tell you exactly what I said in that classified room,\u201d he told reporters in North Carolina, referring to the Situation Room.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cPartially because I don\u2019t want to go to prison, and partially because I think it\u2019s important for the president of the United States to be able to talk to his advisers without those advisers running their mouth to the American media,\u201d he continued. (It\u2019s not clear how Vance sharing his opinions would be a crime, and he was asked more broadly about his advice to Trump, not anything classified.)\n <\/p>\n \n It was a strange answer \u2014 but a telling one when it comes to how Vance has avoided this subject.\n <\/p>\n \n In fact, his most newsworthy comments to date have been his assurances that the war wouldn\u2019t be a prolonged one.\n <\/p>\n \n Vance\u2019s lack of strong public support has been conspicuous for a while, but it\u2019s getting even more so.\n <\/p>\n \n CNN has reported<\/a> that Vance initially counseled against another Middle East war but shifted his stance when it became clear Trump favored military action and advocated for the president to attack quickly and decisively. The vice president\u2019s initial reservations square with his past commentary espousing the virtues of non-interventionism.\n <\/p>\n \n As a senator, he wrote an op-ed in 2023 arguing that Trump was a successful president in large part because he stayed out of wars<\/a>. In 2024, he said war with Iran, specifically, was not in the US\u2019 interest and would be a \u201chuge distraction of resources.\u201d He warned about war in 2020<\/a> when Trump ordered the killing of an Iranian commander. And private messages from \u201cSignal-gate\u201d last year suggested he was skeptical of Trump\u2019s strikes on Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n But he is Trump\u2019s vice president. And for a president who often demands obsequious fealty from those around him \u2014 including his No. 2<\/a> \u2014 it\u2019s been astonishing to see Vance try to keep his powder at least somewhat dry.\n <\/p>\n \n Critics of the administration will see politics at work \u2014 i.e. Vance trying to insulate himself ahead of the 2028 presidential campaign. But his hands-off approach could be a political liability too.\n <\/p>\n \n With the war polling poorly in most surveys<\/a>, the White House has often pointed to its strong support within the MAGA movement. Yet here is the second-most powerful MAGA politician in the country who won\u2019t even lend too much of his political support.\n <\/p>\n \n And it\u2019s not terribly subtle, either.\n <\/p>\n \n While Vance was quick to take to X to defend the administration after the Venezuela operation in January, he\u2019s been very quiet on social media the last two weeks. In fact, he\u2019s posted just eight times on his personal account since the war began. (It\u2019s worth noting, however, that Vance seems to have taken a step back on social media in recent months, even before the war began.)\n <\/p>\n \n While some of the posts on his personal and official accounts are about Iran, those are mostly about killed service members and sharing Trump\u2019s comments rather than Vance\u2019s own. He also posted an interview he did with Fox News about Iran.\n <\/p>\n \n But while the subject of that March 2 interview was Iran, Vance largely avoided giving his opinion on the war.\n <\/p>\n \n Tellingly, he repeatedly pointed to what Trump was thinking or saying: \u201cthe president was looking\u201d; \u201cthe president determined\u201d; \u201che saw that\u201d; \u201che wanted to make sure\u201d; \u201cthe president\u2019s been extremely clear\u201d; \u201cthe president just wants\u201d; \u201cthe president\u2019s objective\u201d; and \u201cthe president will be happy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n To some degree, that\u2019s Vance job \u2014 to talk about the president\u2019s views. But after the June strikes on Iran\u2019s nuclear program, he spoke much more in terms of what he, personally, thought and felt<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n