Vice President JD Vance’s high-profile role negotiating a possible end to the war between the United States and Iran this weekend in Pakistan presents a major test for the 2028 presidential race.
The talks offer Vance a rare opportunity to position himself as both a dealmaker abroad and a bridge builder between competing factions of the MAGA coalition, including noninterventionist conservatives such as Tucker Carlson and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Republican strategist John Feehery, who has been critical of the Iran war, told the Washington Examiner that the “stakes are very high” for Vance.
“This war is not very popular and has pretty deep, economic ramifications, and so if … the vice president can bring this negotiation in for a landing, it would be very good for his political prospects,” Feehery said.
A RealClearPolitics poll average shows support for U.S. military action against Iran is underwater, with 53.6% disapproving and only 40.3% approving.
That political backdrop creates a clear moment for Vance. Bringing an end to a war the public did not want would likely solidify the vice president’s front-runner status for the 2028 Republican nomination.
It would also give him something few vice presidents ever secure: a tangible foreign policy achievement he can claim as his own.
Such an outcome could also pull skeptical noninterventionists such as Carlson and Greene back into alignment with the administration, easing tensions within the MAGA base.
Vance, who as a senator was well known for his noninterventionist views, is seen as sympathetic to MAGA critics of the Iran war.
Vance, himself, reportedly opposed launching strikes against Iran, warning Trump of regional chaos and death, according to the New York Times. Yet, once Trump made his decision, Vance loyally backed the president and has publicly defended the war.
“What the president said consistently, going back to 2015, and I agreed with him, is that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon,” Vance said last month. “We have taken this military action under the president’s leadership.”
Greene, who has called for the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump over the war, told the Washington Examiner that she trusts Vance’s foreign policy instincts.
She said it remained unclear whether Vance’s peacemaking efforts could unite the MAGA base.
“The baby boomer generation for example, that watches Fox News all day long, are more likely to be pro-war neocons,” Greene said in a text message. “But the younger generations, pretty much 50 and under, are very much supporting JD Vance and him being successful and ending the war.”
“The younger generations want to see the vice president break from President Trump and Israel and lead an America First agenda,” Greene said.
A source familiar with Vance’s thinking told the Washington Examiner that “no one in the VP’s orbit is thinking about this in the realm of future political considerations. Any insinuation of that is blatantly incorrect.”
Vance, for his part, has his work cut out for him in Pakistan.
The two-week ceasefire agreed to by the U.S. and Iran is on shaky ground, with Iran accusing the Trump administration of violating the terms of its 10-point proposal. But the White House has denied that it agreed to Iran’s 10-point plan. Instead, it says Trump agreed to a “more reasonable and entirely different and condensed plan.”
But the biggest rift is over whether or not the agreement included the halting of attacks from U.S. ally Israel against Lebanon. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf described it as an “inseparable part” of the ceasefire in a post on X Thursday.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, denied that it agreed to halt Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah, with Vance saying that while he thinks Iran believed the ceasefire included Lebanon, it “just didn’t.”
“We never made that promise,” Vance said. “We never indicated that was going to be the case.”
Vance confirmed that U.S. officials have been in contact with Israel and that Israeli leaders had offered to “check themselves a little bit in Lebanon.
“That’s not because that is part of the ceasefire,” Vance said. “I think that’s the Israelis trying to set us up for success, and we’ll, of course, see how that unfolds in the next few days.”
VANCE TO LEAD IRAN PEACE TALKS IN PAKISTAN: ‘THE PRESIDENT’S RIGHT-HAND MAN’
Despite the fragile state of negotiations, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement that Trump is “optimistic that a deal can be reached that can lead to lasting peace in the Middle East.
“President Trump has a proven track record of achieving good deals on behalf of the United States and the American people, and he will only accept one that puts America first,” Kelly said.
