2026年4月16日 美国东部时间下午3:56 / CNN
记者：克里斯汀·霍姆斯、凯文·利普塔克
杰奎琳·马丁/泳池路透社
据三位熟悉相关对话的知情人士透露，副总统J·D·万斯曾是伊朗战争的怀疑论者，如今被委以促成结束战争协议的重任，唐纳德·特朗普总统一直在密切监督他的进展，并向多位朋友和顾问询问他们会如何评价万斯的表现。
这些知情人士称，特朗普总统曾公开询问他们认为万斯与美国国务卿马可·卢比奥相比表现如何——卢比奥是2028年共和党总统提名的潜在竞争对手。
在特朗普的第二任任期内，他的副手从未像过去一周这样受到如此多的关注：万斯进行了两次外访，还卷入了总统与全球天主教领袖（万斯本人也是天主教徒）之间的争执，这让他直接置身于特朗普的风波中心。
据熟悉谈判的消息人士透露，目前特朗普似乎完全信任万斯的谈判能力，副总统已处于待命状态，如果谈判似乎即将达成协议，他将返回巴基斯坦重启与伊朗的谈判。
但在上周末伊斯兰堡首轮谈判期间，特朗普曾与万斯通了多达十几次电话，他明确表示自己在密切关注局势。
“如果谈判失败，我会责怪J·D·万斯，”本月复活节午餐会上，特朗普在谈及伊朗协议时略带玩笑地说道，“如果谈判成功，我会全权记功。”
随着伊朗新一轮谈判的势头增强，白宫对万斯的角色表示全力支持。
“副总统万斯继续证明了为什么特朗普总统会任命他与史蒂夫·威科夫和贾里德·库什纳一同领导伊朗谈判。他敢于直面重大挑战的能力，让他成为本届政府中一位不可或缺的顶尖成员，”白宫通讯主任史蒂文·张在一份声明中说道。张上周末与万斯一同前往了巴基斯坦。
应对这场风波对万斯来说是一项挑战。这位坚定的特朗普忠实支持者公开为一场他曾私下反对的战争辩护，并支持特朗普对教皇利奥十四世的批评，尽管这引发了一些天主教同僚的抗议。
但在这两方面，万斯也提出了与上司并不相悖、但又带有一定区分度的立场。
本周在佐治亚州的“转折点美国”活动上，面对谴责政府中东政策的抗议者，万斯将批评矛头转向了拜登政府。但在活动后续环节，他承认伊朗战争不受欢迎。
“我知道年轻选民并不喜欢我们的中东政策，”他对座席半满的会场说道，“我理解。”
在上周末于巴基斯坦举行的伊朗问题马拉松式谈判前夕，万斯将自己在谈判中的角色轻描淡写为仅仅是“接了很多电话”。
然而，当特朗普在3月26日召开内阁会议时，他首先向万斯而非国务卿或国防部长寻求战争最新进展汇报。当时，万斯已与巴基斯坦陆军参谋长阿西姆·穆尼尔元帅保持定期联系，商讨结束敌对行动的方案。
瓦希德·萨莱米/美联社
在内阁会议召开之际，万斯最初对发动新对外战争的犹豫态度已是公开的秘密。特朗普甚至对此心知肚明，并对此不屑一顾，认为只是观点上的微小分歧。
“我得说，他在哲学层面上与我略有不同，”特朗普在3月初解释道，“我认为他或许对出兵没那么热心，但他其实相当积极。”
尽管如此，一些特朗普的盟友表示，他们一直在密切关注万斯是否会在伊朗或其他引发部分保守派担忧的问题上，与总统划清界限。
在本周佐治亚州的活动上，万斯被问及特朗普与教皇的争执——许多基督徒、共和党人甚至直言不讳的特朗普支持者都对此提出了反对。
“我非常尊重教皇，我喜欢他，钦佩他，我也略微了解他，”即将出版一本关于重拾天主教信仰的书籍的万斯说道，“坦率地说，即使我不同意他应用某些原则的方式，他就当下议题发表看法也不会让我感到困扰。”
如果说万斯对教皇的态度比特朗普更为温和——特朗普显然对利奥对伊朗战争和移民政策的批评感到不满——但他同时也发出了警告：“我认为教皇在谈论神学问题时必须非常、非常小心，”万斯的这番言论甚至引发了共和党同僚的质疑。
“他谈论神学问题？那难道不是他的本职工作吗？”感到困惑的参议院多数党领袖约翰·图恩在次日说道。他建议特朗普政府停止与教皇的持续分歧，因为这可能会冒犯天主教共和党人和其他共和党选民。
“我认为应该专注于，”图恩说道，“经济问题——也就是我认为大多数美国人关心的钱包议题，让教会回归教会本身。”
随着中期选举临近，选民对生活成本表示担忧，经济议题正是万斯和白宫团队原本以为今年会聚焦的重点。
奇普·索莫德维拉/盖蒂图片社
伊朗战争以及随之而来的油价上涨，只会加剧许多这类担忧。但政府试图将焦点重新转回国内事务的努力一直断断续续。万斯在此之前并未为政府执行过太多高调的外交政策任务，却在过去一周两次飞往国外执行任务，结果都未能如愿。
在通宵飞行、一天的会谈以及为处境艰难的匈牙利总理维克多·欧尔班参加竞选集会后，万斯于上周二返回布达佩斯的住处，深夜仍在工作，试图敲定与伊朗的两周停火协议。
“我昨晚熬夜到很晚，一直在讨论这件事，”他在周三晚些时候承认，当时他比预定时间晚几分钟到场，向一群大学生发表讲话。
尽管停火协议避免了特朗普“彻底摧毁伊朗文明”的承诺，但万斯随后进行的52小时巴基斯坦之行未能达成最终的结束战争协议。
而就在他返程途中，事实证明他深入介入匈牙利选举的行动并未带来他和特朗普所期望的结果。
万斯将欧尔班的决定性失利归因于意料之中，并表示此次访问仍然值得。
“我们前往那里并非因为我们预计维克多·欧尔班会轻松赢得选举胜利，”万斯在福克斯新闻的采访中说道，“我们前往那里是因为支持一个长期以来一直支持我们的人，这是正确的做法。”
尽管如此，万斯如此直接地介入一场他自己承认注定失败的外国竞选活动，几乎无法平息外界对万斯——进而也是对特朗普——影响选民能力的质疑，无论是在匈牙利还是美国。
据知情人士透露，目前支持率处于历史低位的两人都将结束伊朗战争视为提振共和党在中期选举中日益下滑的选情的当务之急。
在佐治亚州的讲话中，万斯并未详述自己对这场战争的疑虑，或是他长期以来反对发动对外冲突的立场。相反，他鼓励幻想破灭的年轻特朗普支持者关注总统政绩的其他方面。
“我不是说你们必须在每个问题上都同意我的看法，”他说道。
“我想说的是：不要因为在一个议题上不同意政府的立场就脱离政治。要更多地参与进来，更响亮地发出你们的声音。这才是我们最终夺回国家的方式。”
Trump put Vance in charge of Iran peace talks. He’s now quizzing people on his vice president’s performance
2026-04-16 3:56 PM ET / CNN
By Kristen Holmes, Kevin Liptak
US Vice President JD Vance arrives for a meeting with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad, Pakistan, for talks about Iran, on April 11.
Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/Reuters
With Vice President JD Vance, a one-time Iran war skeptic, now tasked with brokering a deal to end it, President Donald Trump has been monitoring his progress closely and inquiring with various friends and advisers how they’d rank his performance, according to three people familiar with the conversations.
The president has wondered aloud how they think Vance compares to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a potential rival for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, these people said.
Never over the course of Trump’s second term has his second-in-command been more in the spotlight than in the past week, when a pair of foreign visits and a dust-up between the president and the leader of the world’s Catholics — of which Vance is one — placed him squarely at the center of Trump’s whirlwind.
For now, Trump seems to have full confidence in Vance’s negotiating abilities, with the vice president on standby to return to Pakistan to resume negotiations with Iran if a deal appears to be coming together, according to sources familiar with the talks.
But the president, who spoke by phone with Vance as many as a dozen times during the first round of talks in Islamabad last weekend, has made clear he’s watching carefully.
“If it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance,” Trump said, somewhat in jest, of an Iran deal during an Easter lunch this month. “If it does happen, I’m taking full credit.”
As momentum builds for another round of talks with Iran, the White House voiced full support for Vance’s role.
“Vice President Vance continues to show why President Trump has tapped him to lead the Iran negotiations along with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. His ability to take on some of the biggest challenges head-on makes him an invaluable member of the Administration full of top performers,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement. Cheung traveled to Pakistan with Vance last weekend.
Navigating the fray poses a challenge for Vance. The staunch Trump loyalist has publicly defended a war he argued against in private, and backed Trump’s criticism of Pope Leo XIV, even amid outcry from some of his fellow Catholics.
Yet on both fronts, Vance has also offered positions that — while not at odds with his boss — allow for a degree of distinction.
Confronted by hecklers decrying the administration’s Middle East policy at a Turning Point USA event in Georgia this week, Vance deflected the criticism onto the Biden administration. But later in the event, he acknowledged the Iran war’s unpopularity.
“I recognize that young voters do not love the policy we have in the Middle East,” he told the half-empty arena. “I understand.”
In the lead-up to last weekend’s marathon talks with Iran in Pakistan, Vance downplayed his role in the negotiations as merely “answering a lot of phone calls.”
Yet when Trump convened a Cabinet meeting on March 26, it was Vance he turned to first for an update on the war, not his secretaries of state or defense. By then, the vice president had been in regular contact with Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, to work through proposals to bring the hostilities to an end.
First responders inspect a residential building hit in an earlier US-Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, on March 27.
Vahid Salemi/AP
At the time of the Cabinet meeting, Vance’s initial hesitation about launching a new foreign war was well known. Trump had even acknowledged it, shrugging it off as a minor difference in viewpoint.
“He was, I would say, philosophically a little bit different than me,” Trump explained in early March. “I think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic.”
Still, some Trump allies say they have been watching carefully for signs of Vance placing any daylight between himself and the president, on Iran or other issues that have caused consternation among some conservatives.
At the event in Georgia this week, Vance was pressed on Trump’s spat with the pope, which many Christians, Republicans and even vocal Trump supporters have pushed back on.
“I have a lot of respect for the pope. I like him. I admire him. I’ve gotten to know him a little bit,” Vance, soon to release a book about finding his Catholic faith, said. “It doesn’t bother me when he speaks on issues of the day, frankly, even when I disagree with how he’s applying particular principles.”
If it was a milder approach to the pontiff than Trump, who was clearly bothered by Leo’s criticism of the Iran war and his immigration policy, it also came with a warning: “I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology,” Vance said, drawing questions even from fellow Republicans.
“When he talks about matters of theology? Isn’t that his job?” a puzzled Senate Majority Leader John Thune asked a day after. He suggested the Trump administration drop its ongoing disagreement with the pontiff, which could offend Catholic Republicans and other GOP voters.
“I’d stay focused,” Thune said, “on economic issues – the pocketbook issues that I think most Americans care about and let the church be the church.”
Economic issues are exactly what Vance and the rest of the White House once thought they would be focused on this year, as midterm elections approach and voters express unease about the cost of living.
Vice President JD Vance speaks during a Turning Point USA event in Athens, Georgia, on April 14.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The Iran war, and subsequent rising gas prices, has only exacerbated many of the concerns. But the administration’s attempts to shift focus back toward domestic matters have been halting. Vance, who had not carried out many high-profile foreign policy assignments for the administration before now, found himself flying abroad twice in the last week on missions that yielded disappointing results.
After an overnight flight, a day of meetings and a campaign rally for embattled Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Vance returned to his lodgings in Budapest last Tuesday and worked late into the night trying to bring a two-week ceasefire agreement with Iran across the finish line.
“I was up very late last night talking about that,” he admitted last Wednesday, after arriving a few minutes behind schedule to address a room of university students.
While the ceasefire staved off Trump’s promise to wipe out Iran’s entire civilization, Vance’s subsequent 52-hour trip to Pakistan failed to produce a final agreement ending the war.
And as he was flying home, it became clear his late foray into Hungary’s election did not yield the result he and Trump were hoping for.
Vance framed Orban’s decisive loss as expected and said the trip was still worthwhile.
“We didn’t go because we expected Viktor Orban to cruise to an election victory,” Vance said during an interview on Fox News. “We went because it was the right thing to do to stand behind a person who had stood by us for a very long time.”
Still, the decision to insert himself so directly into a foreign campaign that, by his own admission, was headed toward defeat will do little to quiet questions about the ability of Vance — and by extension, Trump — to sway voters, in Hungary or the United States.
Now at record-low approval ratings, both men see ending the Iran war as an imperative to boosting Republicans’ flagging fortunes in the midterm elections, according to people familiar.
Speaking in Georgia, Vance didn’t detail his own misgivings about the war or his long-held opposition to starting foreign conflicts. Instead, he encouraged young disillusioned Trump supporters to focus on other areas of the president’s record.
“I’m not saying you to have to agree with me on every issue,” he said.
“What I am saying is: Don’t get disengaged because you disagree with the administration on one topic. Get more involved, make your voice heard even more. That is how we ultimately take the country back.”
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