In a new interview on the world's largest podcast, Vice President JD Vance warned that "elements" of the Israeli government want to keep the Iran war going "indefinitely," and were pursuing an aggressive campaign to manipulate US public opinion -- going so far as to vilify Vance for his role in pursuing a diplomatic solution. In his nearly three-hour interview on the Joe Rogan Experience, Vance also tried to gently distance himself from Trump's decision to join Israel in launching a war on Iran and said the White House had botched its communications regarding the Epstein files. 

"There are some people within [Israel's] system, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, who are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely. Again, not towards any objective, but just indefinitely," Vance said, noting that the attacks have not only been directed against US policy, but against him personally. He directed Rogan and his audience to read a recent Time article describing the big-budget mechanism Israel has sponsored to try to shore up Republican support for the war and for Israel. 

"It’s like worth reading because it lists a bunch of people who have quite literally been paid by a former Trump campaign person who was himself paid by certain elements within the Israeli government. And those people are attacking me viciously for quite literally trying to accomplish the negotiation objective that the president set for the country."

Vance was referring to former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, who now runs a communications firm called Clock Tower X. He is also Chief Strategy Officer of Salem Media Group, a conservative multimedia conglomerate. Last summer, Israel started paying Parscale's firm $1.5 million a month to create 100 pieces of digital content every month to be shared across multiple social media platforms. Controversially, Parscale also promised the “integration of narrative messaging into Salem Media Network properties and aligned distribution channels.”

As for how to end a war that's even less popular than the Vietnam War at its worst polling, Vance defended diplomacy and ridiculed hawkish critics whose grand plan is to only to "bomb them to oblivion." While Trump has been threatening to go on a rampage against Iran's bridges and energy infrastructure if the country doesn't bend to his wishes, Vance echoed the wisdom of many military and geopolitical observers who lampoon the idea that the US military can conquer any country -- much less one that's as large as Western Europe -- using only air power: 

“You can bomb them. You can take away their radar. You can take away some of their drones and some of their missiles, but it’s just too easy to fire at ships in the straits. So, you’ve got to actually be willing to talk and to try to figure out the problem.”

With each passing week and month, the unpopularity of the war on Iran looms larger and larger where Vance's 2028 presidential ambitions are concerned. Vance has been using interviews to delicately distance himself from the decision to attack, and he did so again with Rogan. When the podcaster asked Vance about the extent to which he agreed with Trump's decision to launch a war on Iran, Vance deftly used Trump's own characterizations to distance himself from the decision:

"Well, the president said publicly that 'JD was less enthusiastic about it.' I think that was the exact phrase that he used. I mean my attitude towards this, man, as you know, is the vice president— I’m not a public commentator. My job is to give the best advice I can to the president of the United States. I think he’s said a little bit about what that advice was. 

In April, a lengthy New York Times report on the decision to start the war portrayed Vance as a skeptic who warned that a war could unleash regional chaos and involve a high number of casualties -- including damage to Trump's coalition, a large segment of which was attracted by Trump's repeated promises not to start new wars. Describing the fateful meeting on Feb 26 that preceded the war's launch two days later, the Times paraphrased Vance as saying, "You know I think this is a bad idea, but if you want to do it, I’ll support you."

Now, nearly five months later, 14 American service members are dead, more than 400 wounded, more than $100 billion has been squandered, the US arsenal significantly depleted, the Strait of Hormuz is largely closed, fuel prices have soared, a global economic catastrophe lurks, and the Iranian people have rallied around their government. Given the war has turned into such a fiasco, it's not clear how much credit Vance will get for having been anything less than a zealous opponent willing to publicly challenge the war from the start.  

Regarding the Epstein files, Vance disputed the notion that the Trump administration sought to hide anything from the American people, instead attributing the controversy to poor public communications about the files. “We absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files,” Vance said. “We just did. But do I think the reason we screwed up the comms is because we were trying to hide something? No.” He faulted then-US Attorney General Pam Bondi for having "overstated what we had and what we didn’t have,” as she was caught up in "the political moment." 

Though he stopped short of saying Epstein was working for Israel, Vance emphasized Epstein's links to both US and Israeli intelligence agencies. "He clearly had connections to the upper— the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence," Vance said, later adding, "I’ve asked whether there were documents connecting Jeffrey Epstein directly to our intelligence agencies or anybody else’s, and the answer is no. But if that stuff existed, it wouldn’t exist in 2026." 

Here's the full interview: