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US Vice President JD Vance speaks at a Turning Point USA event held in Phoenix, Arizona, on Dec. 1, 2025. (AP/Yonhap)

By Kim Won-chul, Washington correspondent

“Where the hell is JD Vance? Where is he?”

As a staunch isolationist, the former US Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene is naturally opposed to overseas US military intervention. On a radio show on Monday morning, just two days after the initial US strikes on Iran (that took place at 1:15 am US Eastern Time on Feb. 28), she questioned what Vice President JD Vance, an isolationist such as herself, was doing staying silent at such a critical juncture.

The Donald Trump administration is all about PR. High-ranking officials from the government routinely appear in the interview segments of major Sunday night news shows to sing the praises of Trump and give their take on the amazing things he achieved during the previous week. The strike on Iran took place on Saturday morning EST, and yet Vance failed to make an appearance on any of the promo spots. 

After staying out of the public eye for almost 67 hours, Vance finally appeared on Fox News at 8 pm on Monday evening. “The president has clearly defined what he wants to accomplish,” he said. “There’s just no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multiyear conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective.”

Vance is a former US Marine who was deployed in Iraq for close to six months between August 2005 and February 2006. Although the US invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein on the pretext of the regime possessing weapons of mass destruction, these weapons were never found. The US became bogged down in the war and was unable to extract itself until 2011. In total, the war in Iraq cost America US$3 trillion and the lives of 4,400 service members, and another 32,000 were injured.

Vance’s conviction was firm. The op-ed he submitted to The Wall Street Journal on Jan. 31, 2023, announcing his endorsement of Trump’s presidential bid was titled “Trump's Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting Any Wars.” The subheading read “He has my support in 2024 because I know he won’t recklessly send Americans to fight overseas.”

Vance’s 67 hours of silence are symbolic of the complaints raised by isolationists within the MAGA movement. Former Fox News presenter and well-known MAGA isolationist Tucker Carlson has denounced the war, stating, “This war is not being waged on behalf of American national security objectives.” Greene also wrote, “This is not what we thought MAGA was supposed to be. Shame!” on social media.

During the middle of the US presidential campaign in October 2024, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris was asked what she would have done differently from President Joe Biden over the past four years. “Not a thing,” she replied. And in that moment, the election was over.

Next-term presidents stand on the shoulders of incumbents. This is the fate of politicians. Vance is a forerunner to be the next Republican nominee. With less than two years remaining until the 2028 Republican primaries, he must also stand on the shoulders of Trump. The day Vance turned his back on Trump — staying silent for 67 hours and creating a rift that cannot be bridged — represents the true beginning of Trump’s lame duck presidency. This is yet another seed sown by the US’s war with Iran.

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