US Vice President JD Vance speaks to the media at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, October 27, 2026. Vance is travelling to Michigan to attend a rally ahead of the midterm elections. Saul Loeb/Pool via REUTERS
Vice President JD Vance’s post blaming GOP midterm losses on the Iran war drew a new clash among White House insiders over whether President Donald Trump knew it was coming.
In a lengthy X post on Wednesday, Vance said a pollster told him Republicans’ economic messaging fell short, but argued the war was the real reason they lost.
“The reason we lost is the war,” Vance wrote on X. “The president himself said so last night.”
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, endorsed Vance’s post within the hour. The two had just campaigned together on the eve of the election.
But on Thursday, White House sources offered conflicting accounts of the vice president’s midterms autopsy.
“A White House source tells me that contrary to reports, JD Vance did not work with White House officials to draft his X post yesterday, it was more like an ‘FYI I’m sending this’ and he did it without asking for feedback or permission,” Daily Mail reporter Charlie Spiering wrote on X Thursday morning.
“The President was blindsided by the tweet,” a White House official told the Daily Mail in a report published before Spiering’s post, adding that Trump never approved it.
Other sources speaking to the Mail contradicted those claims, with one saying the White House had run and cleared the post.
“Yes the White House was aware before the post went out,” another White House official told the outlet. “POTUS was briefed beforehand as well and did not have any issues with it. Which is why he backed it up when asked by reporters.”
Trump publicly agreed with Vance’s diagnosis Wednesday but stood by the war.
“I think it’s largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term,” Trump told reporters at the White House ballroom construction site hours later, the Washington Examiner reported. He added, “But at the same time, if I had it to do again, I’d have to do it again.”
“I speak to him about a lot of things, but I mean, we’ll see what happens,” Trump said of Vance’s 2028 plans. “Maybe nobody’s going to run. Maybe he won’t run. I don’t know who’s going to run.”
Fox News Digital reported that Vance is courting disaffected Trump voters ahead of 2028.
An administration official told the outlet that the post’s four fixes, including ending the war and changing the U.S. relationship with Israel, are Vance’s rallying cry to the “new right.”
The official said Vance was not breaking with Trump but sending Republicans who feel betrayed by the president’s foreign policy one message: “Vance is our guy.”
“Every word of this is 💯💯💯,” Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, wrote on X the day Vance posted.
Trump Jr. has played a key role at both turning points in Vance’s political rise.
In 2022, Trump Jr. helped persuade his father to endorse Vance in Ohio’s crowded Republican Senate primary, an endorsement that carried Vance to the nomination, NOTUS reported.
Two years later, when Trump leaned toward another finalist for running mate, Trump Jr. and his brother Eric Trump objected, a longtime Republican operative told NBC News.
“They were basically all like ‘JD, JD, JD,’” the operative said. Trump chose Vance days later, NBC reported.
The vice president’s last campaign push with Trump Jr. also ended in losses.
Two days before the post, Vance and Trump Jr. rallied for Republicans in Toledo, Ohio, and Rome, New York, the Daily Beast reported.
Most of the candidates they boosted lost, the outlet reported, including Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), who was appointed to Vance’s old seat and fell to former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. The race in New York’s 21st District, where they also campaigned, had yet to be called.