As the war between the U.S. and Iran drags on, Vice President laid some of the blame on Israel in an interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience”, a popular podcast, released this Wednesday. He said that the longtime U.S. ally has been trying to derail his efforts to negotiate with Iran.
“I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there have been people within the Israeli government who are trying to, like, actually shift us away from that policy because they want to continue the military campaign,” Vance told Rogan.
While he also said that there are people in the Israeli government who he “loves,” Vance said there are some who are “manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely.” At the same time, he refuted the idea that the U.S. would not have entered the war at all if not for Israel.
There’s been tension between Iran and the U.S. since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew Tehran’s pro-U.S. government. Since Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel in 2023 and kicked off the Israel-Hamas War, things have become particularly tense. President Donald Trump announced in late February that the U.S. had joined Israel to attack Iran.
Many viewed the move as a surprise, and while Trump initially predicted the conflict would be short, it’s now waged for months. During that time, Iran has often been able to hold a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a key transportation route for much of the world’s oil. That has driven up oil and gas prices worldwide.
A short-lived ceasefire agreement in June brought gas prices down a bit in the U.S., but AAA estimates showed that average national gas prices were hovering near $4 per gallon as of Thursday. Peace negotiations have faced at least one major challenge: Iran is reluctant to abandon its nuclear program and the U.S. is adamant that the country not develop a nuclear weapon.
According to Vance’s interview with Rogan, opposition to ending the conflict among some members of the Israeli government has also prevented the U.S. and Iran from reaching a lasting peace deal.
“People think of the Middle East as like Iran versus Israel. I think a lot of people do,” Vance told Rogan. “There’s also a massive number of Gulf states that are really important, good allies to the United States. They and Israel don’t always see eye to eye, but we’re obviously very close to both Israel and to the Gulf states. The Gulf states actually came to us and said, you know what, if the Iranians are really willing to change their behavior, we’d like to invest in rebuilding their country.”
After hammering out that June peace deal, Trump’s camp was surprised that his supporters on social media didn’t seem more supportive, according to a report published by TIME on Tuesday. It went on to say that a former Trump presidential campaign manager and “digital guru” seemed to be linked to the surprising response.
TIME said that Brad Parscale, the “guru” in question was hired (as the leader of Clock Tower X) to conduct a digital campaign on behalf of the State of Israel. Parscale has denied that his form had any role in turning people against Trump’s objectives, per TIME’s report.
Vance – often a critic of the media – referenced a TIME article multiple times in his interview with Rogan that seems to line up with this report.
“There’s this Time article that came out yesterday. A friend sent it to me,” he said. “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 added: “They’re attacking me obsessively saying that we should not be negotiating with Iran. We should just keep the military campaign going indefinitely. And that is their explicit position.”
The vice president also refuted claims that he is anti-Semitic. Examples of these claims include the Jewish Democratic Council of America’s identification of said Vance as holding “extreme and dangerous views on issues of concern to Jewish Americans” and Ryan Avi Fagan, writing for the Times of Israel, criticizing Vance for not coming down harder on anti-Semitism among American conservatives.
Last year, NBC News reported that Vance brushed off concerns about a rise in anti-Semitism among young voters. Around the same time, Yale’s Youth Poll found that “younger voters are much more likely to hold anti-Israel views than older voters and also much more likely to agree with antisemitic statements.”
“People attack me for being an anti-Semite or anti-Israel, and they don’t see the writing on the wall that I’m actually just the guy advocating for a normal relationship with a normal country that’s based around shared interest as opposed to based around, you know, something else,” Vance said in his interview with Rogan. He also noted that Israel is slipping in the public opinion of people in the U.S.
Trump himself has also reportedly argued with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Israel’s role in continued warfare in the Middle East.
Poll results released this week by The Economist/YouGov found that Trump’s approval rating was at 37%, 54% said the world has worsened since he started his second term, 59% disapprove of how he’s handled Iran and 57% think going to war with Iran was the wrong decision. That poll found that Americans were evenly split on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, with 27% of poll respondents who said they sympathized more with the Israelis, 25% sympathize more with the Palestinians, 24% who sympathize with both sides about equally and 24% who weren’t sure.
Another recent poll from The Washington Post/Ipsos also had the president’s approval rating at 37%. Nearly 70% of those respondents said they disapprove of the way he’s handled Iran, and 66% said they aren’t confident that the war will prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and 55% said the U.S. should reduce or end military support for Israel.
