JD Vance Learns in Real Time Trump Left Him Out of Iran Attack Plans

The White House’s plans to completely annihilate Iran are so haphazard that even the vice president can’t keep up with them.

JD Vance was apparently caught off guard Tuesday when a journalist informed him that Donald Trump had threatened to obliterate the entire Iranian civilization by 8 p.m.. Vance was on stage in Budapest at the time, feet away from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

The exchange began when a Washington Post reporter asked Vance if there had been any recent developments in the war that could inform a peace deal, reported The Daily Beast.

“I don’t—unless I have a text message from Steve Witkoff,” Vance said, referring to Trump’s Middle East envoy.

But as Vance pulled out his phone to check his notifications, it became clear that he did have an urgent notification from Witkoff.

“I do have a message from Steve Witkoff,” Vance acknowledged awkwardly.

“Wouldn’t you like to know the subject of this message?” Vance continued. “But no, uh, I need to read it first before I talk about it. But here’s, here’s … uh, what time is it in the United States right now?”

The uncomfortable lapse became even more unsettling when a Reuters reporter urged Vance to properly read up before speaking with the press about his apparently misinformed analysis of the war.

“I do think you have to read that text because we have reporting that the United States is striking some targets in Kharg Island,” she said. “You did say that the military objectives of this war have been achieved. So could you help us understand why the president is still threatening to attack every bridge and every power plant in Iran?”

Kharg Island is an export hub off the Iranian coast that handles roughly 90 percent of the country’s crude oil exports. The U.S. struck Kharg Island in March, when U.S. Central Command claimed that 90 targets on the island had been hit, including “naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers, and multiple other military sites.”

U.S. officials said that they had struck the island again Tuesday morning, though they claimed that the U.S. did not hit any of Kharg’s oil facilities.

The attack occurred moments after Trump pledged that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” should Iran fail to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, another vital tradeway for the region. Iran has so far rejected potential peace deals. Iranian media responded just after 9 a.m. EST, announcing through diplomatic channels that talks with the U.S. had stalled in the wake of Trump’s explicit threats. Shortly after, international paper the Tehran Times reported that “diplomatic and indirect channels” were not closed, after all.

Vance was supposed to be on “stand by” and prepared to jump into peace talks with Iran should the moment arise, Politico reported Monday.

Nonetheless, Vance backed Trump’s explosive response to the rapidly devolving conflict Tuesday morning, telling the Budapest assembly that he hopes Iran makes the “right response” while emphasizing America’s need for free-flowing oil.

“The president of the United States is a man who recognizes leverage,” Vance said. “That if the Iranians want to exact a certain amount of pain, the United States has the ability to exact much, much greater pain.”