JD Vance Begins 2028 Presidential Audition

Vice President JD Vance has taken the reins in negotiations with Iran in Switzerland and announced that progress is being made. Including, according to Vance, the promising news that Iran has conceded to allow nuclear inspections.

This news, coupled with a string of media appearances, has led many to wonder whether Vance has officially begun his audition tour for the 2028 presidential election.

As reported:

Talks between the U.S. and Iran have made “great progress” despite “threatening” and “whining,” U.S Vice President JD Vance has said.

Speaking on Monday, Vance said the talks in Bürgenstock, Switzerland, were continuing and Tehran had agreed to permit International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors back into Iran. The talks were strained over the weekend when Iran announced it had closed the Strait of Hormuz over Israeli strikes on Lebanon, saying these violated the ceasefire.

“Yes, there was a little bit of threatening, there was a little bit of whining, but at the end of the day, the talks continued, and we made great progress,” Vance told reporters.

Vance said Iran’s agreement for IAEA inspectors to return to their country was “a major milestone for the American people, and the first step in permanently denuclearizing or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran.”

Looking ahead, Vance said a process is now in place to ensure that escalation in the region can be avoided.

“We want a regional ceasefire. We want Hezbollah to stop firing at our friends in Israel. We want Israelis to be able to live in peace. We also want to make sure that, when things happen, they don’t spiral into a broader escalation, and so we’ve been, I think, very good at setting up what we’re calling a deconfliction mechanism,” he added.

Earlier, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the talks had yielded “major progress.”

Vance said that while a “very good foundation for a successful final deal” had been laid, he said that there is “still a lot to do,” particularly around the demining of the Strait of Hormuz, to help ensure the flow of traffic picks up.

It’s hard to discount the potential political implications of Vance’s negotiations because this isn’t typically the sort of thing you’d see a Vice President taking the lead on.

He stated this morning:

Yesterday was a very, very good day. We made a lot of good progress. We did exactly what we wanted to do, which is accomplish four things for the American people. First, we wanted to build a mechanism for keeping the Strait of Hormuz open. It is open.

We’ve seen, of course, gas prices and oil prices come down, millions and millions of barrels of crude and natural gas flowing through the Strait of Hormuz that weren’t flowing before. But we also wanted to make sure that we actually set up the coordination mechanism so that we could demine the Strait of Hormuz so that when there are the conflicts that inevitably come up, we can make sure we work through them rather than that leading to escalation. And that is exactly what we did yesterday.

Now you’re already starting to see the spin from the media, already dooming this deal and the Vice President to fail, which feels unfounded and, honestly, offensive. Will the next 60 days probably get a little messy at times? Most likely.

We know that this is not a final deal. This is only a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). And so, could this round of negotiations go badly? Absolutely. Are there sticking points in there that we know the President is demanding and that Iran likely isn’t keen to accept? Of course.

As for whether Iran will keep its end of this MOU, it will have to make that choice itself. The United States certainly will keep its end of the bargain. We can’t speak for Iran, but we do know that if they don’t, as President Trump threatened, the United States will be back at war. And Iran had better know that as well.

But the bottom line, in the politics of this, is that Vance is taking center stage on a very big stage. If he pulls this off, it would certainly be a major accomplishment for a presidential candidate to run on. 

Today’s Sekulow broadcast included more discussion of Vice President Vance’s potential run for the White House, the ACLJ legal work, and more.

Watch the full broadcast below: