Trump Pulls Vance Off Iran Talks

Featured image: Official portrait of Vice President JD Vance, January 2025 (file photo). Photo: Daniel Torok, U.S. government work, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

President Donald Trump said Thursday, Nov. 12, that he has asked Vice President JD Vance to leave Iran talks and give his “complete and total attention” to what Trump called corruption and crime in Democratic-run cities and states. In the same Truth Social post, Trump said the United States does not need a deal with Iran.

The directive came a day after The Wall Street Journal reported that Vance was considering face-to-face talks with a senior Iranian security official in the eight-month Iran war.

Nov. 12

Trump, on Truth Social, said the U.S. does not need an Iran deal and told Vance to focus on alleged corruption in Democratic-run states

Nov. 11

The Wall Street Journal reported that Vance was considering a meeting with Iran’s Mohsen Rezaei; Reuters said it had not confirmed those talks

Nov. 4

Vance wrote on X that “the reason we lost” the Nov. 3 midterms “is the war”

March 16

A White House executive order named Vance chairman of the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud

Key dates from Trump’s Thursday post as quoted by Reuters, Axios, CNBC and The New York Post; the Journal report as described by Reuters; Vance’s Nov. 4 post on X; and Executive Order 14395, posted on whitehouse.gov.

Trump says the United States does not need an Iran deal

“We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, according to Reuters, Axios, CNBC and The New York Post. Reuters identified the waterway as the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping route near Iran where, the agency said, the U.S. military has been working to secure passage for international shipping. Trump’s statement that the United States holds “hundreds of billions of dollars” of Iranian funds, and that it has “their Strait,” is his account; those outlets reported the post, not an independent accounting of frozen assets or control of the strait.

In the same post, Trump said: “I have asked Vice President Vance to focus his complete and total attention on the Massive Corruption and Crime taking place in Democrat run Cities and States throughout the U.S.” He named Minnesota, California and Illinois, called those states “poorly run, corrupt disasters,” and wrote that “Billions of Dollars is being stolen each and every month,” according to Politico, Axios and The New York Post. “Our Budget could be quickly BALANCED with the correction of this large-scale criminal activity. CORRUPTION is in the Democrat Leadership’s blood!” he added, Reuters reported. Those are Trump’s allegations; he did not present new evidence in the post, and this article does not treat them as established findings.

Reuters described the comments as a shift in tone after Trump had suggested in recent weeks that Iran would be more willing to strike a deal in the eight-month conflict once the U.S. elections were over. The directive also came two days after Trump said further attacks on Iran were “highly unlikely” and that the war was “militarily effectively over,” while saying a naval blockade would remain in place.

Vance’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters and Axios on Thursday. As of about 12:25 p.m. Eastern Time, Vance had not addressed the directive on his official X account, @JDVance.

The order follows a report of possible new talks

On Wednesday, Nov. 11, The Wall Street Journal reported that Vance was considering a face-to-face meeting with Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, in an effort to end the war. Reuters, summarizing that report, said the Journal’s account would have put Vance at the center of peace negotiations. Reuters said it had not confirmed the potential talks.

According to accounts of the Journal story published by Israel Hayom, Investing.com and The Times of Israel, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials told the newspaper that Trump had said in recent days he was open to Vance restarting contacts with Tehran and had authorized him to lead negotiations. Those accounts said discussions of a direct meeting remained preliminary; that Vance sent Rezaei a letter in October requesting a meeting, which The Boston Report reported at the time; that no date had been set; and that Doha, Qatar, was a possible venue if a meeting went ahead. Investing.com, recounting the Journal report, also said Vance met the Qatari prime minister on Monday, Nov. 9, and later joined Trump.

Investing.com said a Vance spokesman declined to comment on the Journal report. Rezaei has publicly rejected reports of negotiations. Israel Hayom, citing a post on X, quoted him as writing, “FOLD YOUR HAND. STOP manufacturing FAKE NEWS about imaginary talks.” The Times of Israel reported that on Tuesday he told the Lebanese channel Al-Mayadeen there were no plans to meet Vance and that reports of talks in Qatar were “lies and slander.” Those are Rezaei’s statements. They have not been independently confirmed as a full account of contacts through intermediaries.

Rubio, speaking Tuesday, called Iranian demands “totally unrealistic,” according to the Journal accounts, and said: “The economic campaign and the pressure and the devastation that our economic campaign is having on the Iranian regime is working so well that the President really doesn’t have any need to conduct major combat operations.” Fox News reported that Rubio also told reporters, “We don’t need to conduct military strikes if we’re achieving the same objective through economic means and economic pressure,” and, “They’re bleeding. They’re bleeding economically.” Axios reported that Rubio met his Group of Seven counterparts in Paris on Tuesday and said Trump had considered resuming the war or cutting a deal but had settled on strangling the Iranian regime economically. The Journal accounts, citing two officials, said Rubio and White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller favored keeping the blockade and sanctions in place until Tehran backs down.

Vance blamed the war for the midterm losses

The Thursday directive comes a week after Republicans lost both chambers of the U.S. Congress in the Nov. 3 midterm elections. Democrats will take control on Jan. 3, 2027.

On Wednesday, Nov. 4, Vance wrote a long post on X that The Boston Report covered the following day. “The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance wrote. “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.” He added, “But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”

Vance wrote that an unnamed pollster he called one of the smartest people he knows in politics had told him, the day before the election, that Republicans would lose the generic ballot by 13 points, and had asked 2024 Trump voters who planned to back Democrats what would bring them back. Vance said the top four answers, “accounting for nearly all of the responses,” were: “End the war,” “Focus on cost of living/inflation,” “Put America First,” and “Change our relationship to Israel.” He said that while some had attacked Rachel Campos-Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution, “it turns out her political advice was sound.” Those figures and rankings are Vance’s account of a private poll; the underlying survey has not been published in the sources reviewed for this article.

Trump has said the war played a role in the losses while defending the decision to fight, as that earlier report detailed. On Wednesday, Nov. 11, Trump and Vance appeared together at a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, an event also recorded in an official administration video. In his remarks, Trump said, “America did not start a war with Iran. Iran has been waging war on America since 1979,” according to Fox News. Fox News quoted him as continuing: “We fought back, and we fought back. We won. Now the question is when we want to end. We must have a total victory. Not a 93% victory. It’s going to be total.” He also said, “When this conflict is over, and it will be soon, the entire world will be much safer,” Fox News reported. The New York Post, covering the same speech, quoted him as saying, “It’s just a question of when we end it. I want to make sure we have a total victory, not a 93 percent victory.” The war began on Feb. 28, 2026.

Vance already chairs the fraud task force Trump named

Reuters noted that the domestic assignment Trump described on Thursday is one he had already placed in Vance’s portfolio. On March 16, 2026, Trump signed Executive Order 14395, “Establishing the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud,” and named the vice president as chairman. The order, posted on whitehouse.gov, directed the task force to coordinate a national strategy against fraud, waste and abuse in federal benefit programs, including programs administered with states. It cited Minnesota as a “case in point,” referring to federal prosecutions and other cases, and said there was “strong reason to believe that similar problems exist in other States, including California, Illinois, New York, Maine, and Colorado.” Those passages are the administration’s stated rationale in the order, not independent findings by The Boston Report.

Trump’s Thursday post returned to that theme, again naming Minnesota, California and Illinois, and claiming that correcting “large-scale criminal activity” could quickly balance the federal budget. Vance chairs the task force under the March order whether or not he also handles foreign negotiations. What changed on Thursday, in Trump’s telling, is the instruction that this work receive Vance’s “complete and total attention,” and that an Iran deal is not needed.

By the numbers: oil’s Thursday bounce and the November slide

Oil prices moved after Trump’s post, though the gains reported in morning trade were small next to the decline earlier in November. CNBC said U.S. oil prices were mixed Thursday. It reported Brent crude 1.1% higher at $93.73 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate futures up 0.3% at $86.76 a barrel. CNBC also said WTI was down 16% in November and Brent was down 20%, a drop it tied to comments from Trump after the midterms that eased fears of further strikes on Iran.

Those Thursday increases, as CNBC reported them, were modest beside that month-long slide. A 0.3% gain in WTI, and a 1.1% gain in Brent, would retrace only a sliver of the November declines CNBC described, a comparison by The Boston Report from those percentages. John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital, told CNBC that “the market may have gotten ahead of itself on pricing in a cessation of hostilities,” and that renewed doubts about a deal would push the security premium in oil prices higher. Prices fluctuate through the session; the figures above are those CNBC reported in its Thursday dispatch, not a close.

What Trump’s post does not settle is the state of any channel to Tehran, or whether special envoys or other officials will keep talking. Reuters had not confirmed the meeting the Journal described. Vance’s office had not, as of the Reuters and Axios reports, answered questions about the new instruction. Rubio has said economic pressure, not a new round of major combat operations, is the path the president has chosen. The incoming Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, seated in January, will have their own votes on war, spending and oversight. For now, the public record is the president’s Thursday post: no deal is needed, in his telling, and the vice president is to turn his attention home.

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Trump Pulls Vance Off Iran Talks, Says No Deal Needed