Vice President JD Vance is poised to enter ceasefire discussions with Iran.
As Trump’s war intensifies, negotiations are currently being led by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.
However, a report last month claimed that Iran was done with the pair and would deal only with Vance. Iran had insisted that it wanted to deal with the vice president directly, rather than through intermediaries such as Kushner and Witkoff.
“With the previous negotiating team, there’s no chance,” one diplomatic source told The Guardian.
The source claimed that Iran sees Vance as a more acceptable diplomatic figure than Witkoff and Kushner, especially because, at his core, Vance is a skeptic of U.S. military action in the Middle East.
During an Easter Egg roll event at the White House on Monday, Trump told reporters that Kushner and Witkoff were talking with intermediaries in Pakistan.
“They’re all unified and they’re all talking,” Trump said, adding that Vance “could be” part of an in-person meeting.
“We are dealing with them,” Trump said of his Tuesday night deadline for Iran to accept his ceasefire offer. “Essentially they have until 8 o’clock tomorrow night eastern time. But we are dealing with them. I think it’s going well. Mr Witkoff’s here. JD is involved in the dealing.”
Sources told Politico that Vance “could be tagged” to meet directly with Iranian officials, especially if sufficient progress is achieved in the sensitive discussions.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and Vance’s office for comment.
Speaking to Politico, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly claimed Vance was part of an “extraordinary national security team” including Witkoff, Kushner and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“The Vice President has always been a trusted voice on all foreign policy topics, and the President appreciates his work to see whether the Iranians can meet the reality of this current moment,” Kelly said.
“In the meantime, the United States Military will continue to annihilate all of its military targets, and Iran will be sent back to the stone ages tomorrow night if they fail to engage in a serious way.”
Vance has been involved in some discussions. The vice president has been communicating with Pakistan’s Gen. Asim Munir to negotiate a ceasefire between Iran and the U.S and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, according to Reuters.
The closure of the passage, halting oil tankers, has led to soaring prices around the world.
Pakistan has played the role of intermediary between Iran and the U.S. during the conflict. Reuters said Vance spoke to Munir on Sunday about a 45-day ceasefire proposal.
Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, had been in contact “all night long” with Vance, Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, according to the publication.
The potential 45-day ceasefire would be part of a deal known as the “Islamabad Accord,” after the planned venue of the final-in person talks. The deal would see the Strait reopen immediately, with a wider settlement to be finalized after 15 to 20 days of discussions.
Trump flagged Vance entering the ceasefire discussions during an Easter lunch last week. “He’s working on a deal, right? How is that moving? Is that it? OK, the big deal — so if it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance,” Trump said.
Since the president first launched strikes against Iran alongside Israel on Feb. 28, 13 U.S. service members have been killed, and hundreds have been wounded.
Vance has spoken less about the ongoing military action than other key members of the Trump administration, apparently annoying the president. In the last six weeks he has posted more about the war on fraud on his social media than Trump’s war with Iran.
Vance did appear to support Trump in a brief comment posted on X on March 3. “Iran can never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon,” the vice president wrote. “That is the goal of this operation and President Trump will see it through to completion.”
During the 2024 election campaign Vance touted himself and Trump as the pro-peace ticket and claimed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed the prior year that Trump “won’t recklessly send Americans to fight overseas.”
At the start of the war, Trump said Vance was “philosophically a little different from me” when it came to military intervention.
“I think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was still quite enthusiastic,” Trump said.
