Trump orders Vance to drop his work on Iran deal and focus only on finding corruption

Detailed summary

The move comes days after JD Vance publicly blamed the Iran war for the Republican Party's midterm election losses

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Donald Trump has instructed Vice President JD Vance to abandon diplomatic negotiations with Iran and focus exclusively on investigating alleged corruption in Democratic-led states and cities.

In a series of Truth Social posts early Thursday morning, the president signaled that the administration was closing the door on a diplomatic settlement with Tehran.

“We don't need a deal with Iran,” Trump wrote. “Those days have long since passed. We've got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we've got their Strait!"

Following the announcement, oil prices rose and stocks declined as markets reacted to renewed uncertainty surrounding the conflict, according to Axios.

The directive marks an abrupt shift for Vance, who has spent months leading U.S. negotiating delegations to secure a ceasefire and resume nuclear talks. Just days ago, the vice president had been weighing direct discussions with senior Iranian security official Mohsen Rezaei, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The move comes days after Vance publicly broke with Trump over the war’s political toll. Vance, who has long been skeptical of U.S. military interventions, attributed the Republican Party's recent midterm election losses — which cost the GOP control of Congress — directly to the war and its effect on the cost of living.

"The reason we lost is the war," Vance wrote on X last week. "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. But everyone knows why we lost."

Trump has maintained that the military campaign was necessary and said he would not have handled it differently. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told his G7 counterparts in Paris that the president had opted against resuming military action or pursuing a deal, choosing…

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