U.S. Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks at a Day of Friendship event with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban at MTK Sportpark in Budapest, Hungary, April 7, 2026. REUTERS/Marton Monus
The Wall Street Journal's editorial board took a thinly veiled shot at Vice President JD Vance on Friday, suggesting he is positioning himself against the Iran war to stay popular with the MAGA base at the expense of his loyalty to President Donald Trump.
In an editorial broadly supportive of Trump's Iran strategy — and explicitly backing the continuation of military strikes and the ongoing blockade of Iran — the Journal's board noted that Vance has notably broken with the administration on the war.
"This week the Atlantic reported that Vice President JD Vance is asking serious questions about the war, as if he’s the only strategic thinker around. Mr. Vance has positioned himself as a skeptic from the war’s beginning, perhaps to stay on the good side of MAGA’s antiwar faction. This is a bad look for a supposedly loyal Vice President, and it doesn’t help with public support," the conservative editors wrote.
The rebuke is notable, coming from a board that has consistently backed Trump's Iran strategy and urged him to stay the course against growing domestic opposition. The board framed Vance's skepticism as part of a broader "whisper campaign sowing doubts from inside Mr. Trump’s own administration" — alongside damaging leaks about U.S. munition stocks that surfaced in the Journal and The New York Times on the same day last week.
The Atlantic reported this week that Vance has been asking pointed questions about the war's strategy and trajectory,and has raised concerns about munitions shortages directly with Trump.
Vance has been reported to be "walking on eggshells" around Trump over his antiwar views, and insiders have said his team is exhausted trying to publicly portray support for a war he privately opposed from the start.