Vice President JD Vance has taken multiple hits from President Donald Trump — and might not realize that the joke is at his expense, an analyst suggested.
Dana Milbank, a NOTUS columnist, described in a New York Times opinion guest column published Tuesday how Trump has continued to embarrass Vance as the MAGA coalition has cracked.
"At a closed-door Easter luncheon at the White House, President Trump decided to entertain the crowd by humiliating his understudy," Milbank wrote, revealing the interaction between the two men amid the ongoing negotiations with Iran. Trump asked Vance how the talks were going.
"It’s going good, sir," Vance told Trump, as the president cut off Vance mid-response while he was sitting in the audience.
"Do you see it happening?" Trump asked, referring to "a successful end of the war," Milbank wrote.
"Uh," Vance said. "We’re going to brief it to you."
That's when Trump threw Vance under the bus, saying "So, if it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance." The group was laughing as Trump added, "If it does happen, I’m taking full credit."
Vance's political ambitions have put him in this position, Milbank explained.
"Over and over in recent years, Mr. Vance struck devil’s bargains, first to gain a Senate seat and then to become Mr. Trump’s No. 2," Milbank wrote. "He embraced the anti-immigrant stances he once called 'reprehensible' and other dark elements of the MAGA movement in hopes of positioning himself as its next leader."
But Vance's fate could be similar to other close Trump allies, despite his hope for a 2028 presidential run.
"What once might have been a cruise to the 2028 Republican presidential nomination now looks more like a run through the Strait of Hormuz," Milbank wrote. "Mr. Vance is experiencing a version of the pain experienced by other ambitious Republicans who embraced Mr. Trump only to see themselves used and (eventually) discarded by him."
And while MAGA fractures further, Vance has been forced into a tough position defending the president's moves.
"The ethnonationalist right to which Mr. Vance tethered himself now appears to be faltering at home and abroad," Milbank added. "The Iran war has exposed a rift in the MAGA movement, alienating those who believed Mr. Trump’s 'I’m not going to start a war' promise — and then watched the 'America first' president bomb Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Nigeria, Iraq and Venezuela while threatening Cuba and Greenland."
