Trump tells Vance to shift his focus as US doesn’t ‘need a deal with Iran’
As his VP reportedly seeks direct talks, US president says time has ‘long since passed’ for an agreement with Tehran, claiming ‘we’ve got their money… and we’ve got their strait’
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US President Donald Trump said Thursday that he was directing Vice President JD Vance to focus “his complete and total attention” on domestic anti-fraud efforts and not negotiations toward a deal to end war with Tehran.
“Our Budget could be quickly BALANCED with the correction of this large scale criminal activity. CORRUPTION is in the Democrat Leadership’s blood!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!”
His comments came shortly after the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Vance was mulling face-to-face talks with a top Iranian security official.
The Journal’s report added Trump had told aides and counterparts that he was open to Vance reopening talks with Tehran, and that the president had empowered Vance to negotiate.
Such an in-person meeting would mark an unusual move.
Oil prices rose after Trump’s remarks on social media, while Wall Street futures slipped further.
Trump’s comments also come after his Republican Party was hit by sweeping losses in this month’s midterm elections, with Democrats gaining control of Congress.
Anger over the war with Iran, which has caused fuel prices to surge in the United States, has been seen as a key factor pushing voters away from Republicans.
Vance was among Republicans to blame the Iran war for the party’s losses at the ballot box.
The conflict has been ongoing since US-Israel strikes on Iran that started in late February, prompting Tehran to choke off the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for energy transit. The blockage has wreaked havoc on the world economy, causing energy costs to rocket.
Trump has expressed agreement with Vance’s assessment about the electoral consequences of the war, but has continued to defend it, including this week, as he claimed the US already won but does not want to pull out until there has been a knockout. He also said several days ago that renewed military action against Iran was not currently necessary while asserting the war will end shortly, as he has claimed for months.
“We fought back… and we won. [It’s] just a question of when we want to end it,” Trump said Wednesday during a Veterans Day address at Arlington National Cemetery. “We want to make sure we have a total victory — not a 93-percent victory. It’s going to be total.”
With Trump vacillating between reaching a diplomatic end to the conflict and pursuing escalation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly has pressed him repeatedly to launch a renewed military offensive against Iran following the recent elections in both the US and Israel.
The two spoke by phone over the weekend, with Netanyahu’s office on Thursday denying a report that he engaged in a heated “shouting match” with Trump during the call.
“Fake news, complete nonsense,” Netanyahu’s office told Ynet after unnamed sources familiar with the conversation told the outlet that the call was particularly tense, with one describing it as a “shouting match from hell.”
A senior Israeli official confirmed that the call took place but insisted it was “very much not a difficult conversation,” according to Ynet.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.