{"id":185175,"date":"2026-06-30T22:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T22:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/185175\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T22:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T22:54:13","slug":"vance-and-rubio-take-different-approaches-as-iran-tests-their-2028-prospects-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/185175\/","title":{"rendered":"Vance and Rubio take different approaches as Iran tests their 2028 prospects"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2013 Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio appear to be staking out differing approaches<\/a> to carrying out President Donald Trump\u2019s national security agenda as the possible 2028 presidential rivals jostle for position in a divided Republican Party.<\/p>\n

With vastly different backgrounds and policy experience, they have moved along separate paths to stake out territory: Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants with a long history in the Senate and major interest in Latin America<\/a>, and Vance, a child of the Midwest and Marine Corps veteran who served in the Senate for only two years before being tapped as Trump’s 2024 running mate, with a message of opposing foreign wars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While deferential to each other \u2014 and with the White House and State Department denying any suggestion of a rift \u2014 Vance and Rubio appear the most divergent on the Middle East<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In discussing Iran, Vance has several times been critical of Israel<\/a> and its actions in Lebanon, saying Trump has been frustrated by Israeli actions against the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah that have angered Iran and made negotiations with Tehran more difficult<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Rubio, meanwhile, has remained supportive of Israel or held his tongue, particularly over the situation in Lebanon \u2014 an issue he has taken the lead on and resulted in a preliminary framework agreement<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n

Vance takes the lead on Iran negotiations and Rubio on Lebanon<\/p>\n

“The talk about differences is not idle speculation,” said Dan Fried, a former assistant secretary of state and ambassador to Poland who is now with the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank. \u201cThere is definitely something to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House fired back at any suggestions of a rift.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy is the legacy media obsessed with driving a wedge between Vice President Vance and Secretary Rubio that does not exist? There is one camp \u2014 President Trump\u2019s camp \u2014 and the entire administration is fully behind the president\u2019s efforts to ensure Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon,\u201d White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.<\/p>\n

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott added that “Rubio and the entire administration is 100% in lockstep behind President Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, according to Trump administration officials familiar with the matter, Rubio was so skeptical of obtaining an acceptable deal with Iran<\/a> that he declined to head the U.S. delegation to the first ceasefire negotiations<\/a> in April in Islamabad, Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Vance, however, seeing an opportunity to burnish his foreign policy credentials, jumped on it, asking Trump twice to take the lead before Trump agreed, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations.<\/p>\n

Vance did lead the U.S. delegation to the inconclusive meeting in Pakistan, then again this month to talks in Switzerland<\/a>, which followed the signing of a memorandum of understanding<\/a> between the U.S. and Iran. The truce agreed to in that document is very fragile, tested by repeated exchanges of fire<\/a> between the sides in recent days.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s rather unusual for the VP to be given the lead role in a negotiation, but it\u2019s quite possible that Rubio is happy to let him. It\u2019s a pig in a poke. It\u2019s a loser job,\u201d said Ian Kelly, a retired career diplomat and ambassador during the first Trump administration.<\/p>\n

He added that both men seem to \u201chave equal ambitions to replace\u201d Trump, but that the president\u2019s semi-joking comments this month that he would blame Vance if the Iran talks do not succeed appeared to suggest that he was being \u201cset up for failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vance and Rubio deny any division between them<\/p>\n

Vance has talked up the chances of success for a broad agreement with Iran, albeit with caveats, while Rubio, although publicly supportive, has repeatedly taken a more agnostic line while denying any division.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all focused on the jobs in front of us. I think the president loves to stir the pot a little bit and loves the entertainment of it,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love Marco,\u201d he said. \u201cI think he\u2019s a great secretary of state. He\u2019s become a very, very dear friend. I think both of us are very much focused on accomplishing the American people\u2019s business right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubio also has rejected that there is any schism.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to foreign policy and national security, we have no drama. We have no games,\u201d Rubio told reporters last week during a trip to Bahrain, the last of a three-nation tour of the Arab Gulf countries<\/a> that have been most directly affected by the Iran war.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a group of people that work very well together and closely to execute on the president\u2019s directives, which is why I think we\u2019ve had good outcomes and good achievements, and we\u2019re going to continue to have good outcomes and good achievements,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cEveryone has an important role to play, and everyone is playing that role and doing it in a collaborative process.\u201d<\/p>\n

That has not stopped Trump from fanning the flames of potential rivalry, repeatedly asking crowds of supporters who they would prefer to succeed him and suggesting at one point they might be an unbeatable ticket.<\/p>\n

There is little doubt that the men do not share the same worldview, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cRubio speaks within the rubric of the Ronald Reagan construct of the free world and its importance,\u201d Fried said. \u201cVance is not interested in the free-world construct. He speaks in the language of not wanting to fight what he believes are abstractions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fried said it is impossible to predict how that would translate into policy but warned that \u201cwe\u2019re headed toward a bad place in Iran, which is giving up any support for Iranian civil society and not being terribly good at containing Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead, we seem to be allowing ourselves to be backed into a \u2018sphere of influence\u2019 situation where Iran is weaker but ends up better off than before. I can\u2019t imagine Rubio agreeing to that,\u201d Fried said.<\/p>\n

Aides to Rubio point out that he has said several times he would defer to the vice president should Vance choose to run for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Rubio has used his dual perch as Trump’s top diplomat and national security adviser to make over the National Security Council, installing several close allies in top White House positions in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

Those include his former State Department counselor, Mike Needham, who is now deputy national security adviser. Also, Jeremy Lewin, who oversaw the dismantlement of the U.S. Agency for International Development for Rubio and took charge of foreign assistance last year, is soon to join the NSC as a deputy for the Western Hemisphere. The head of NSC communications, Dylan Johnson, also serves as assistant secretary of state for public affairs.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2013 Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio appear to be staking out differing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[3870,55573,38,12758,55575,34,1096,55572,210,55574,81,3923,12762,771,82],"class_list":["post-185175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-anna-kelly","tag-dan-fried","tag-donald-trump","tag-dylan-johnson","tag-ian-kelly","tag-iran","tag-jd-vance","tag-jeremy-lewin","tag-marco-rubio","tag-mike-needham","tag-politics","tag-ronald-reagan","tag-tommy-pigott","tag-washington-news","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116841523685873662","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}