The vice president’s message assigning blame for the midterm wipeout blindsided many in Washington, but not the recently fired White House chief of staff.
Puce Somodevilla/Getty Images
Susie Wiles knew about JD Vance’s plans to post on social media blaming the Iran war for the Republican Party’s wipeout in the midterms before sharing it, a new report has revealed.
Three sources told Reuters that Wiles, who was fired as Trump’s chief of staff on Friday, was aware of the post and that the vice president was not breaking with Trump by doing so, extinguishing rumors that Vance had gone rogue after Election Day.
“The reason we lost was the war,” Vance wrote in his viral post. “The president himself said it last night.”
Vance added: “If you want to argue that it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do it. Make the case that it was worth paying for. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.”
Vance stood with the president on the war in Iran, until the day after a massive midterm defeat in both houses of Congress.
It was widely interpreted as an attempt to distance himself from Trump on the war, which has become the White House’s least popular issue as he considers his own presidential bid in 2028.
For the first time, the position places the vice president openly in favor of ending the war, even though his position is something of an open secret in Washington.
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Trump has previously acknowledged that the war in Iran played a role in the Republican rout due to the resulting surge in gas prices, but he has continued to defend it.
“I wouldn’t have done anything differently,” he told reporters Wednesday.
Vice President JD Vance, 42, is the Republican frontrunner for 2028 in prediction markets like Kalshi.
Wiles and Vance’s relationship had its ups and downs.
In December, Vanity Fair published a series of interviews with her and other senior administration officials, in which she described the vice president as a “conspiracy theorist for about a decade.”
But Vance rushed to defend her, and Wiles herself called the publication a “dishonestly worded hit piece.”
After her disappearance at the White House was made public, Vance said in a statement on social media: “Very grateful to Susie for her friendship and service to the President and our country. Stephen Miller is an incredible patriot and will do great things. Congratulations to him on a well-deserved promotion!”
Reacting to Vance’s message about the reasons for the election results, Republican strategist Michael Ricci insisted he was “using his vice presidential megaphone to set the terms of the debate” ahead of 2028, as Reuters reports.
This comes as Trump told reporters he understood Vance’s point of view.
“I know how he feels,” he said. “I think it was good.”
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