How JD Vance went from well-known foreign war skeptic to the public face of peace talks with Iran

By Adam Cancryn, Alayna Treene, Kevin Liptak, CNN

(CNN) — Vice President JD Vance spent the last month largely out of the limelight as the US waged a war with Iran that he’d privately worried would spiral out of control.

Yet with President Donald Trump now eager to broker an end to the conflict, he’s emerged as a central player with a major public role.

Vance will travel to Pakistan on Saturday to helm talks aimed at solidifying the fragile truce between the US and Iran — and in the process, elevate himself as the key peacemaker within an administration that has devoted its last several weeks to war.

It’s a daunting mission that carries little guarantee of success. The two sides are far apart and still trading barbs, offering few signs that tensions have substantially eased in the hours since Tuesday’s abrupt ceasefire announcement.

But for Vance, a prominent critic of foreign wars who harbored reservations from the start about striking Iran, the chance to negotiate a lasting deal is one he’s spent weeks working toward behind the scenes, multiple people familiar with the matter said.

And as he mulls a future presidential bid, it will offer the vice president perhaps his best opening yet to emerge in a strengthened position from an otherwise politically damaging period for the administration.

“This is a crucial moment, probably the biggest moment for JD Vance as vice president,” said Curt Mills, executive director of The American Conservative and a Vance ally who’s been critical of the war. “With crisis comes opportunity, and if he solves these problems, it could be very important and effective for his prospects.”

Vance is expected to lead the US delegation alongside Trump’s chief diplomatic envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, in the administration’s first face-to-face meeting with Iran since the war began.

Vance’s presence is meant to lend credence to the talks, White House officials said, given his stature within the West Wing and Trump’s trust in his ability to lay out the administration’s specific demands. Trump personally asked him to lead the renewed talks with Iran, a White House official said.

Dispatching Vance is also a move that some hope could smooth the path toward peace. Iran has signaled that it views him as a more reasonable negotiator, after its previous talks with Kushner and Witkoff ended abruptly when Trump decided to attack.

The regime is also well aware of Vance’s reputation as an outspoken anti-interventionist, having monitored reports of his role as one of the only high-ranking US officials who tried to talk Trump out of striking in the first place, two sources familiar with the matter said.

A White House official disputed assertions that Iran preferred negotiating with Vance, calling it a “clearly coordinated propaganda campaign” that is “utterly false and peddled to attempt to quash negotiations.”

In a statement, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Vance, Witkoff, Kushner and Secretary of State Marco Rubio “have always been collaborating on these discussions, and the President is optimistic that a deal can be reached that can lead to long lasting peace in the Middle East.”

From reluctant war defender to behind-the-scenes peace broker

Throughout the 40-day war, Vance studiously avoided becoming one of the main faces of the fight, ceding that role instead to others in the administration.

Vance’s public profile over the past month marked a departure from the vocal and often pugilistic role he’s played as chief cheerleader of the White House’s other priorities. He’s even sharply dialed back his posting on X, which he regularly used to hit back at critics and explain his own thinking — a shift that White House communications director Steven Cheung said was a result of Vance deciding to give up the social media platform for Lent.

Vance has nevertheless frequently defended the president’s right to wage the war, and insisted that he will draw a hard line on Trump’s demands during talks with the Iranians.

“If they don’t give us what we need, then I think it’s going to be bad,” he told reporters.

But while others in the administration sought to sell a skeptical American public on the conflict, Vance opted for a quieter pursuit, establishing a backchannel with intermediaries in the Middle East in hopes of laying the groundwork for an eventual negotiated settlement, people familiar with the discussions said.

By the time Trump threatened to wipe out “a whole civilization” if he didn’t get his way, Vance had been in regular contact with Pakistani negotiators about an off-ramp, speaking often with the country’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, people familiar said.

Despite those efforts, progress leading up to Tuesday was slow going. At one point last week, Vance responded to a delay in Iranian responses by conveying what one person familiar with the matter described as a “stern message” that Trump was impatient to reach a deal — and ready to escalate pressure on Iran’s infrastructure if they refused.

Though talks were advancing by the time Vance left earlier this week on an overnight flight to Budapest, Hungary, to rally on behalf of embattled Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, it would take another full day of work to get it over the finish line. After appearing with Orbán at a campaign event, Vance worked into the early hours to help broker the agreement.

“I was up very late last night talking about that,” he acknowledged on Wednesday after arriving behind schedule to address a room of Hungarian university students just hours after clinching the ceasefire.

But even as that tentative step toward peace has thrust Vance into a far more public role at the center of a critical next phase of the conflict, he’s downplayed his involvement.

“My key role was I sat on the phone a lot,” he told reporters after the ceasefire announcement.

A chance to preserve his anti-interventionist credibility

The vice president has limited time to make enough headway to convince Trump to extend the two-week ceasefire and ease his threats to unleash a fresh barrage on Iran.

And in addition to determining the course of the war, Vance’s management of the negotiations also stands to shape his own future political trajectory ahead of a 2028 contest that could pit him against Rubio.

Vance is a military veteran with a long history as a skeptic of foreign entanglements, and his political rise was bolstered by long-standing support from the GOP’s anti-interventionist wing. Many of those core Vance supporters have felt betrayed by the war, Vance allies said, even as much of the MAGA base remains in line.

The vice president has so far brushed off any speculation about seeking higher office in 2028, opting instead to stick close to Trump and play a loyal supporting role.

“No one in the vice president’s orbit is thinking about this in the realm of future political considerations,” a person familiar with Vance’s thinking said.

But after five weeks of a broadly unpopular war that has further weakened Trump politically and dismayed Vance supporters who questioned how he could emerge from the war with his anti-interventionist credibility intact, those supporters now see a narrow opportunity.

The odds of a deal with Iran may appear slim, but if Vance can play a central role in clinching it, Mills said, it would be a massive boon for his momentum within the party. And even if the ceasefire falls through, at this point there may be little downside for Vance in making abundantly clear that he’s trying to end the war.

“He needs to have his own identity,” Mills said. “There’s almost no risk. He’s only taken punches in all of this, and so it’s very good to see him punch back.”

CNN’s Kristen Holmes contributed to this report.

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