Vance haunted by unearthed clip on 'dumb presidents' entangled with Middle East
A year-old clip from the vice president is recirculating online following he met with Iranian officials in Switzerland for peace talks15:14 ET, 22 Jun 2026Vice PresidentJD Vanceis being flamed online for a. . .
A year-old clip from the vice president is recirculating online following he met with Iranian officials in Switzerland for peace talks15:14 ET, 22 Jun 2026Vice PresidentJD Vanceis being flamed online for a comment he made a year ago about "dumb presidents" who have gotten the U. S. "entangled in the Middle East. "The clip was recently resurfaced by the popular X account, Republicans Against Trump, whereVance lamentedabout previousU. S. intervention in the Middle East. His remarks were made a year ago after theU. S. launched strikes on Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities, which U. S. PresidentDonald Trumpsaid "completely and totally obliterated" Iran's nuclear capacity. The White House continued to repeat the claim, despite early U. S. intelligence assessments failing to back up their claims. CNNandThe New York Timesconducted early assessments that indicated Iran's nuclear program had only been set back a few months. Article continues belowTrump's "obliteration" claims have continued to come under scrutiny after the U. S. and Israel launched joint military operations against Iran under the purported effort to wipe out Iran's nuclear program less than a year later in February 2026. Initiallyaskedwhy the U. S. decided to resume operations in Iran after claiming a year ago that the Islamic Republic's nuclear "capacity" and "ambitions" were "obliterated," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “Well, there’s many reasons and arguments that one could make for a strike against Iran. ”Among the White House officials who have potentially found themselves in trouble for previous remarks about Iran is Vance. Content cannot be displayed without consent“I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East," he told NBC News' Meet the Press in June 2025. "I understand the concern; but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president that actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives. "This is not going to be some long, drawn-out thing. We got in, we've done the job of setting their nuclear program back. Now, we're going to work to permanently dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years, and that is what the president set out to do," he vowed at the time. "Simple principle: Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. . . . It's going to continue to be a driving force for our foreign policy in the Middle East for the coming years. "Many X users came down on the vice president and accused him of hypocrisy over the remarks, which were resurfaced after Vance met with an Iranian delegation and mediators in Switzerland to advance Iranian peace talks. "Thank goodness for the digital age. So we can PROVE what a hypocrite people are," one X user wrote. "So the problem wasn’t endless Middle East entanglements. The problem was apparently that the previous presidents were 'dumb,' and now the same entanglement is genius because your guy is holding the steering wheel. That’s not foreign policy. That’s just rebranding the same pothole and calling it infrastructure," another X user said. A third X user savagely replied, "Right. Trump is brilliant. Started a war costing lives and billions, drove the price of gas up and closed a waterway that had been open before Trump started bombing. "Article continues below