JD Vance the Day-After Dove: Dissected - Newsweek

The morning after Democrats secured both chambers of Congress, Vice President JD Vance posted 614 words on X explaining why. "The reason we lost is the war," he wrote—adding, with a lawyer’s care, that "the president himself said so last night."

Donald Trump is the boss for two more years after all, and may still play kingmaker for the Republicans in 2028. Don’t bite the hand that feeds. You’ll get fake tan all over your mouth.

On the core point, Vance is right. Republicans lost not because their voters stayed home but because many of them crossed over. Saying that about his own administration’s war took some nerve, though it perhaps would have meant more before the midterms.

Vance’s post is built suspiciously like an alibi. It cites a "smartest data guy," two pollsters, the president and a Fox News host. But it doesn’t mention the man who, two days before the first Iran strikes, said that there was "no chance" of a long war in the Middle East.

Yet here we are, eight months in, no clear end to an Iran conflict that has laid Trump’s final two years in rubble. Vance had said he will decide after the election whether to run for president in 2028.

Well, the election is over. So how should we read his post? Between the lines, of course. In this latest edition of Newsweek's Dissected, we take the scalpel to Vance.

The polls didn’t overstate the blowout. They undersold it. The final Silver Bulletin average had Democrats up about nine points. The national House vote is projected at about 13, a margin no party has posted in a midterm since 1974. Vance’s "smartest data guy" thought Republicans might beat the polls. Gonna need a smarter data guy.

"In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024."

I wouldn’t make too big a fuss about Florida if you want to keep 2028 in play. A certain Ron DeSantis has his eyes on the prize too. And his record in Florida is looking a lot more convincing than yours in the White House. Maybe you could be veep again? Better luck next time.

"One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true."

Well, the messaging had one hell of a gas problem. That’s a whole lot of stink to overwhelm anything good you can say on jobs or growth or the markets. On Election Day, the national average stood at $4.14 a gallon, up 38 percent since the Iran war began. In June, at the White House podium, Vance told reporters that prices, having just dipped below $4, would keep falling. How’d that work out for you?

"But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone."

Everyone except perhaps the president, who spent the run-up to the election telling everyone to vote like he was on the ballot, only to deny that the overwhelming repudiation of his administration had anything to do with him, because he wasn’t on the ballot. Vance also ignores the biggest issue across all voters. It wasn’t Iran or the cost of living. It was corruption. Not enough room in your 614-word X post for that little truth bomb?

The administration had a man for that job. Vance led the U.S. delegation at the Islamabad talks in April, then fronted the memorandum meant to end the war in June. At the G7, Trump said that, if the deal worked he would take the credit, and if it didn’t, he was "blaming JD." Twenty days after the signing, following Iranian attacks on shipping, the U.S. was striking Iran again. Looks like Vance has played a reverse UNO card.

No. 3 asks the America First administration to put America first. The slogan, returned as a complaint. An indictment, even. Was the war in Iran not putting American interests first? Someone should tell Trump. Maybe his second-in-command? No. 4 arrives without any specifics. Vance has a record to point to—unlike Trump, he declined to endorse Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu for reelection—and this looks like a clear pitch to the Israel skeptics in MAGA. But this is probably too little, too late.

"While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)"

Her advice has been on the record since February 20—eight days before the first strikes— when Campos-Duffy said on Fox & Friends that the president needed to "make a better case" for war. Trump watches Fox & Friends regularly. Maybe he should have listened to it too. Then again, he had Vance right there, saying the same things.

"Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty…But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you."

The politicians go unnamed and the proposals unquoted, so it’s a rebuttal still waiting for its argument. What would prompt such calls is real, though. Only about a third of Hispanic voters backed Republican House candidates, down from roughly four in 10 for Trump in 2024. Vance’s one concession—aiming enforcement at "businesses that hire illegal labor"—would be a notable turn for a vice president who defended the aggressive Minnesota immigration operation through a public backlash. Clearly, Stephen Miller wouldn’t be DHS secretary in a Vance administration.

"The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night."

What the president said is that "Iran was a piece of it." Vance has promoted a piece to the whole. But, on February 17, 11 days before the war began, the Silver Bulletin average already had Democrats up 5.4 points. Corruption, cost of living, immigration, the war. Pick your piece. It all adds up to a whole lot of unhappiness with the Trump administration.

"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.…Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest."

Someone already tried: JD Vance, this summer, on Megyn Kelly’s podcast. "If we transformed the Middle East, this is fundamentally worth it," he said. But Vance never quite gets to directly saying it wasn’t worth it in his post. Have the courage of your convictions. As you put it yourself: agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.

"But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there."

An honest conversation might start a little earlier: September 3, when a reporter asked whether the war would be over by the midterms and Vance replied, "I wouldn’t call it a war right now." It’s a war now—and, as of Wednesday morning, the reason his party lost the Senate. A bit rich for someone who just complained about "gaslighting."

"To the people who are pissed off and want to say, ‘I told you so’: you’re right, you did tell us so."

Marjorie Taylor Greene accepted within hours: "You should have listened to me and Tucker [Carlson] and others who told you early." By many accounts, Vance privately opposed the war for months while defending it in public. In September, he urged wavering voters not to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" over it. On Wednesday, he blamed the bathwater.