President Donald Trump is “annoyed” that not everyone in his administration is cheerleading his warmongering, according to a new report.
White House sources tell Zeteo that Trump has been making “snide, annoyed comments” about Vice President JD Vance and DNI Director Tulsi Gabbard, “knocking them for not being as enthusiastic” about launching a new war in the Middle East.
Vance, 41, was a “skeptical” voice in the White House ahead of the February 28 strikes against Iran, senior White House officials told Politico, and he has not been going to bat for the war on social media or network news as fervently as he has for other MAGA issues.
Vance touted himself and Trump as the pro-peace ticket in 2024 and even raved in a Wall Street Journal op-ed the prior year that Trump “won’t recklessly send Americans to fight overseas.” He has a track record of questioning U.S. intervention abroad and did the same ahead of the latest strikes against Iran, according to officials who spoke to Politico.
One official texted the site that Vance “just opposes” war with Iran and that he was “worried about the success” of the so-called Operation Epic Fury, which has failed to deliver regime change. Another reportedly said that Vance’s job is to provide the president with different points of view, but, as a loyal lieutenant, he ultimately supports whatever Trump decides.
Vance, who was notably mum on the day of the strikes, has not spoken against the war—even as it has spiked gas prices and tanked Trump’s approval rating. However, his lack of enthusiasm has allegedly irked the president, taking aides by surprise.
Zeteo reports that some in the White House were taken aback by Trump’s comments about his VP, “if only because they had not heard the president talk that way about Vance in the past year and a half.”
Others in the White House painted a different picture behind the scenes, telling Zeteo that Trump and Vance’s “relationship is as warm as ever.”
The White House called Zeteo’s reporting “totally false” in a statement to the Daily Beast.
“Efforts by the legacy media to sow internal division are a distraction that will not work,” said White House spokesman Davis Ingle. “President Trump has full confidence in his entire exceptional national security team. This ‘story’ is totally false—Vice President Vance and DNI Gabbard are important members of the President’s team and their work continues to serve him and this country well.”
Vance’s office also disputed the report.
“This is a laughably false report from a fake website that no one has ever heard of and led by disgraced Mehdi Hasan who was fired from MSNBC, has zero legit sources and has no idea what he’s talking about,” a spokesman told the Daily Beast.
Vance has not been sidelined on the issue of war. Rather, Trump is sending the VP to Pakistan to lead the U.S. peace talks with Iran in a bid to end the nearly month-long conflict. Daily Beast Chief National Correspondent David Gardner writes that it is a peace mission doomed for failure, likely leaving Vance holding the bag.
Iran signaled that it prefers to negotiate with Vance over Trump’s special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, whom it has accused of “backstabbing.” Discussions are expected to center around reopening access to the Strait of Hormuz—something that was open prior to the strikes.
When pressed for his thoughts on the war and his advice to the president by an Associated Press reporter on March 13, Vance danced around the question, claiming that sharing his thoughts on the matter could somehow land him in prison.
Vance’s ramble began, “Imagine the situation. We’re in the situation room where you can’t even take your, you know, iPod in there or your AirPods, I guess what they’re called. You can’t take your iPhone in there. You can’t take anything in there because it’s the most classified space anywhere in the world, and I sit there with Pete Hegseth and General Caine and Marco Rubio and the entire White House team and the president and I and the entire senior team are talking about the options and about what we need to do and about how we must best protect the American people.”
He continued, finally getting to the point, “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not going to show you here and in front of God and everybody else, tell you exactly what I said in that classified room, partly because I don’t want to go to prison and partly because I think it’s important for the President of the United States to be able to talk to his advisers without those advisers running their mouth to the American media.”
On February 28, the day before bombs rained down on Tehran, Vance insisted there was “no chance” there would be a prolonged conflict with Iran—a statement that has since aged like milk.
“The idea that we’re going to be in a Middle Eastern war for years with no end in sight, there is no chance that will happen,” he said.
Reps for Gabbard did not respond to a request for comment.
