Trump says Vance was 'philosophically' different on Iran while downplaying split

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DORAL, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump said his vice president, JD Vance, was “philosophically a little bit different than me” at the outset of the war in Iran even as he dismissed the notion of a disagreement between the two.

Speaking to reporters on Monday at his golf club in Doral, Florida, the president said Vance was “maybe less enthusiastic about going” but insisted that his decision to launch airstrikes in Iran alongside Israel was necessary.

“I felt it was something we had to do,” Trump said. “I didn’t feel we had a choice.”

Heading into a challenging election year, the war in Iran has stoked tension among Republicans, with some expressing reservations about how the operation fits into the “America First,” isolationist-leaning movement the party has embraced during the Trump era.

Few have embodied that movement as prominently as Vance, who over the course of a decade rose from an author to U.S. senator and ultimately vice president. He's now considered a top contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028, giving him the opportunity to carry Trump's movement into the future.

Alongside his political rise, Vance, a former Marine, has often reinforced Trump's vision of an America more focused on solving problems at home than intervening in conflicts abroad. In a 2023 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that's garnered renewed attention after the Iran strikes, Vance wrote that Trump has his support because “I know he won’t recklessly send Americans to fight overseas.”

On the eve of the strikes, Vance told The Washington Post there was “ no chance ” that the U.S. would become involved in a drawn-out war as it did in Iraq.

Since then, the administration has provided conflicting messages about how long the war would last. Trump has said it could go on “as long as necessary.” Amid intensifying economic turmoil on Monday, Trump described the war as a “short-term excursion.”

If Vance has the reservations Trump hinted at on Monday, he has been publicly supportive of the president since the strikes began. In a Fox News interview with Jesse Watters, Vance rejected comparisons of the Iran operation to earlier wars, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“If you think back to Afghanistan, 20 years of mission creep, 20 years (of) not having a clear objective and 20 years (of) the United States trying to bring liberal democracy to Afghanistan,” Vance said at the time. “Iraq was a little bit shorter, but we were still in that country for nearly a decade with no clear mission, no clear definition.”

“What’s so different about this, Jesse,” Vance added, “is that the president has clearly defined what he wants to accomplish.”

On Monday evening, Vance was at Dover Air Force Base to attend the dignified transfer for Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, the seventh U.S. service member to die in combat during the Iran war.

When it comes to Iran, Trump, over his five years in the White House, and long before, has shown a steadiness in his hawkish views toward Tehran, said Behnam Ben Taleblu, a research fellow focused on Iran security issues at the Foundation for Defense Democracies.

The president, in his first term, moved to end a landmark Iran nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration, in the face of strong objections from European allies. Later in his first term, he boasted of serving up “American justice” by ordering a drone strike to take out Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, while jeering Democratic leaders for questioning his decision to carry out the attack without first consulting Congress.

At the time, the killing of Soleimani, the Quds Force commander and arguably the most powerful figure in Iran after the supreme leader, was widely considered the most provocative U.S. military action in the Middle East in years, marking a severe escalation in tensions with Tehran.

Trump’s deep skepticism toward the Islamic Republic’s cleric leadership dates back to his days as a young New York real estate developer when he publicly urged military intervention during the Iran hostage crisis.

“There’s this narrative with Trump on Iran that Bibi’s in his ear,” said Taleblu, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Or that Vance is in his ear. But Trump has had a fundamental view and personal interest on Iran for years.”

And on Monday, Trump insisted there was no disagreement between him and Vance.

“We get along very well on this,” Trump said.

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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Doral, Florida, contributed to this report.