US President Donald Trump has turned on Vice President JD Vance in the wake of the Republican defeat in the midterm elections, Dr. Kobi Barda, a US affairs expert at the Holon Institute of Technology’s (HIT) Multidisciplinary School, said in an interview on 103FM on Friday.
“One of the interesting things happening in the last 24 hours is the sacrificing of JD Vance,” Barda said, pointing to two signs that Vance has fallen out of favor with the president.
“The first is his (Trump’s) post in which he said he instructed Vance to stop dealing with Iran, and the second is a leak to The Wall Street Journal in which Trump sees him as to blame for halting the war.”
On Thursday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he had asked Vance to turn his attention to alleged corruption in Democratic-led states, and declared that the US no longer needed a deal with Iran. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Trump had privately questioned whether the June memorandum of understanding Vance helped negotiate with Iran was a costly mistake that gave Tehran time to regroup.
Trump-Vance rift is a ‘family feud’
Barda said the rift could be traced back to the post Vance published the day after the November 3 midterms.
“In the post JD put up a day after the defeat, he listed four reasons for the Republican collapse,” Barda said. “He supposedly did some soul-searching, blaming the campaign in Iran, encouraged by Israel, and at another point he says the relationship with Israel needs to be reconsidered. A few minutes later, Trump’s son, Don Jr., reposts it and writes ‘100%.’"
According to Barda, the dispute goes beyond the political relationship between the president and his deputy.
“This is a family feud,” he said. “We remember that there were two significant figures behind bringing Vance in as vice president. One is Susie Wiles, who was abruptly fired. The claim is that it was done to cut JD out of decision-making. The second is Donald Jr., who was the one who pushed for him.”
Trump replaced Wiles as White House chief of staff with Stephen Miller on November 6.
Republican midterm loss ‘of biblical proportions’
Barda said the Republican defeat shook the White House and forced a rethink of its next steps.
“Trump’s loss made him stop and think about where to go from here. It was a loss of biblical proportions,” he said. “Just so you understand, the last time a Democratic senator was elected from Kansas was 94 years ago.”
He said the shift on Iran was visible even among the war’s most enthusiastic backers. “The day after the election, it was Senator Ted Cruz who said, ‘Gentlemen, the Iran story is over,’” Barda said, describing the Texas Republican as “the person who was most in favor of the war in Iran” and a personal friend of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In a podcast episode the day after the vote, Cruz said the war should have been “brief, decisive, and over,” Al Jazeera reported.
Trump’s Iran plan: Economic pressure over strikes
Barda said he expected Trump to focus on tightening economic pressure on Tehran rather than continuing the military campaign.
“Overnight, there was a Trump PR offensive. In one of the interviews, the host asked him whether, if his term ends and the ayatollahs’ regime remains in place, he would see that as a failure. He answered, ‘Yes,’” Barda said. “He is going with the model of an economic siege, and he is giving it two years’ grace.”
Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday that it would “absolutely” be a defeat if Iran’s leaders were still in power when he left office, adding that he saw no need for military force for now because the US controlled the Strait of Hormuz.
Barda added that Trump’s window to resume military action in Iran was closing.
“After January 3, he will no longer be able to keep fighting beyond 60 days from the declaration of a military campaign," he said. "Those days already ran out in September. Until then, he still has a Republican majority."
Simcha Pasko contributed to this report.
Follow us on GoogleSource: The Jerusalem Post · 103FM VIA MAARIV ONLINE
At a glance
- Topic
- Business
- Country
- 🇮🇱 IL
- Publisher language
- EN
- Added to Allnira