J.D. Vance

Called first Switzerland round 'successful' June 22; claimed Iran agreed to IAEA inspectors ('a major milestone'); said talks set 'a good foundation'; Iran denied making any new nuclear commitments

Iran said two oil tankers hit mines and caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz on November 8. A third vessel also burned, bringing the number of ships hit since the start of November to at least 12. The US military disabled a commercial vessel in the Gulf of Oman, and Iran's Revolutionary Guard later disabled navigation systems on four tankers using a route it considers unauthorized. Ship tracking put Hormuz traffic at about 5% of pre-war levels on November 10.

Updated Yesterday

Will preside over a Senate controlled by Democrats in January.

Democrats won control of the House and Senate in the Nov. 3 midterms, according to projections from NBC News and The New York Times. The Times reported that Democrats flipped seven Senate seats and overcame a Republican redistricting effort to take the House.

Updated 2 days ago

Vice president; weighing a 2028 party reset

Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in the 2026 midterms, taking at least 228 House seats and 54 Senate seats. Republicans now hold 139 House seats and 44 Senate seats, with 34 House races still uncalled.

Updated 3 days ago

Led US delegation at failed Islamabad talks April 11–12; returned to US without a deal after 21 hours of negotiations

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran's military sites, nuclear facilities and leadership. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed, and his son Mojtaba was chosen to replace him. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, a route for about a fifth of world oil, and a Pakistan-brokered ceasefire on April 8 was followed by failed talks in Islamabad and a US naval blockade of Iranian ports.

Updated 4 days ago

Remains vice president

Democrats' midterm sweep first sent the Dow up 3% on Nov. 4, but the rally faded fast. A day later, artificial-intelligence shares dragged the Nasdaq down 5.5% into correction territory. The Dow gave back more than 1,800 points as Democratic governors-elect promised data-center limits.

Updated 4 days ago

Publicly blamed the Iran war for the Republican midterm losses

Democrats won the House and at least seven Senate seats in Tuesday's midterms, giving them a Senate majority of at least 54–44 when the new Congress is sworn in January 3. Alaska and Mississippi are still counting; Democratic wins there would push the margin to 56–44. Before the handover, the lame-duck Congress must pass government funding by December 11 or risk a shutdown.

Updated 6 days ago

Reported by Axios to have sent a letter to Iran's national security chief Mohsen Rezaei about possible new talks, the highest-level US contact in months; signaled progress in talks in early November

Iran said on November 2 that it could reopen the Strait of Hormuz within two days and restart nuclear talks, shortening a plan it had earlier said would take a week. The offer kept its conditions: the US must lift sanctions on Iranian oil, accept a ceasefire that covers Lebanon, and let ships use a route agreed with Oman under Iranian supervision.

Updated 6 days ago

Leading White House negotiations on Greenland acquisition

President Trump reversed his tariff threats and ruled out military force on January 21 after announcing a "framework" with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. The framework covers Arctic security cooperation, U.S. access to Greenland's rare earth minerals (1.5 million metric tons—the world's eighth-largest reserves), and Trump's "Golden Dome" missile defense system ($175-831 billion shield against hypersonic threats).

Updated 7 days ago

Sent a letter to Iran's Supreme National Security Council secretary in late October proposing direct talks led by him, with the nuclear program on the table from the start.

Brent reached $116 a barrel by November 1 as OPEC met and Saudi Arabia's economy contracted 3.8% under the cost of the war and disrupted oil exports. Saudi Arabia restarted the East-West pipeline and resumed loadings at Yanbu in late September, but attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz kept traffic about 70% below prewar levels. The U.K. Maritime Trade Operations center recorded 144 maritime incidents in the Hormuz region since February 28, making October the worst month of the war.

Updated Nov 1

Rockbridge Network, which he co-founded, is under investigation and denies the allegations

Brazil's Supreme Court ordered federal police on Oct. 27 to investigate whether foreign money or services reached Flávio Bolsonaro's failed presidential campaign. Justice Flávio Dino's 38-page order names the Rockbridge Network, a donor group co-founded by Vice President JD Vance.

Updated Oct 31

Announced the PERM suspension alongside Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling

Eight technology companies still cannot sponsor foreign workers for green cards. The Labor Department is taking no new PERM applications from Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini, and is not processing the ones already filed.

Updated Oct 26

Said Oct. 9 he would not watch the livestream and questioned whether the Pentagon would broadcast it. Trump canceled the plan on Oct. 15.

President Donald Trump canceled the livestream of Nidal Hasan's Dec. 3 firing squad execution on Oct. 15. The move reversed a Pentagon plan that drew bipartisan criticism.

Updated Oct 23

Has accused Omar of immigration fraud

Federal agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar's Washington home on Oct. 12, 22 days before the Nov. 3 midterms, as part of a criminal investigation into immigration paperwork her family filed decades ago. Omar said on Oct. 21 that she will move out of the apartment because the raid and the attention around it have made her feel unsafe.

Updated Oct 20

Defending H-1B restrictions as pro-American worker policy, December 2025

The wage-weighted H-1B selection rule took effect February 27, 2026, replacing the random lottery. The first registration period under it ran March 4–19. Under the new system, a worker offered a Level IV wage (the top tier) gets four entries in the selection pool; a Level I worker gets one. The rule was designed to curb the duplicate-registration fraud that inflated FY 2024 submissions to 758,994 for 85,000 slots.

Updated Oct 16

Leading the administration's fraud crackdown; announced $2.2B savings

On Aug. 31, CMS canceled 315,000 ACA marketplace policies covering 760,000 people, citing suspected fraud. The White House made the move public Sept. 22, saying brokers enrolled many without their knowledge and some enrollees may not exist; since then, CMS has reinstated a small number of people whose coverage was wrongly canceled and cut subsidies for 189,000 enrollees with duplicate or deceased coverage, saving $738 million.

Updated Oct 15

Attended the Sept. 30 groundbreaking

America built its last major federal shipyard during World War II. On September 30, 2026, Saronic broke ground on Port Alpha, a shipyard designed to end that drought, and construction on the first phase began October 6.

Updated Oct 13

As of October 2026: Advocated for the Middletown project; visited plant August 2026

The Department of Energy redirected a $500 million clean-steel grant into a coal blast furnace upgrade at Cleveland-Cliffs' Middletown Works in Ohio. The move drops a hydrogen-ready steelmaking plan that would have cut annual emissions by roughly a million tons.

Updated Oct 8

As of September 2026: In office

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll left office September 2 after 18 months, the latest departure in a Pentagon leadership shakeup. President Trump named Adam Telle, the Army's civil works chief, acting secretary the next day.

Updated Sep 16

As of July 2026: Visited Budapest days before election to campaign for Orbán

Since taking office on May 9, 2026, Péter Magyar has unlocked €16.4 billion in frozen EU funds, reversed Hungary's ICC withdrawal, and launched a constitutional overhaul to remove Fidesz-era officeholders. The European Commission said on July 17 that Hungary's rule of law had shown 'radical change,' with a senior official noting things had moved 'very, very quickly in the right direction.'

Updated Jul 19

As of June 2026: Named challenger whose 2022 campaign brought the case

For 25 years, a national party could spend only a fixed amount working hand-in-hand with its own candidate. In Ohio in 2022, that cap sat between $130,600 and about $4 million for a Senate race. On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court erased the limit entirely.

Updated Jun 30

As of May 2026: Supporter of psychedelic therapy for veterans

For 55 years, the federal government classified psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, and ibogaine as Schedule I substances. On April 18, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order 'Accelerating Medical Treatments for Serious Mental Illness' directing the FDA to expedite clinical trials of those substances for PTSD in veterans.

Updated May 31

As of May 2026: Led collapsed US-Iran negotiations in Islamabad on April 11-12

Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz on February 28, 2026, after US-Israeli strikes, cutting off roughly a fifth of global oil supply. The US-Iran ceasefire, extended by Trump on April 21, holds formally. But Iran's May 10 counter-proposal demanded Iranian sovereignty over the strait, an end to all US sanctions, and an immediate lifting of the naval blockade. Trump called the response "totally unacceptable," and roughly 1,500 commercial vessels remain trapped inside the Persian Gulf.

Updated May 30

As of May 2026: First sitting U.S. VP to visit both Armenia and Azerbaijan

No sitting U.S. president or vice president had ever visited Armenia until February 9, 2026. JD Vance arrived in Yerevan with $9 billion in potential nuclear investment, advanced Nvidia chips, and surveillance drones — the Trump administration backing its August 2025 peace framework with economic muscle.

Updated May 27

As of May 2026: Visited Minneapolis January 22 to support Operation Metro Surge

The Department of Homeland Security deployed 3,000 federal agents to Minneapolis in what it calls the largest immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history. Two months in, two U.S. citizens are dead: Renee Good, 37, shot January 7, and Alexander Pretti, 37, an ICU nurse, shot January 24; DHS claims self-defense in both cases, but witness videos contradict that.

Updated May 23

As of May 2026: Defended deal structure

For five years, the world's most popular social media app lived under a death sentence. TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, faced repeated ban threats from two administrations convinced its Chinese ownership posed an unacceptable national security risk. On January 23, 2026, that uncertainty ended: TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC became operational, transferring 80.1% ownership to American and allied investors while ByteDance retained a non-controlling 19.9% stake.

Updated May 22

As of May 2026: Cast deciding vote against war powers resolution

Congress hasn't declared war since 1942, though presidents have ordered 212 military strikes without formal declarations. On January 3, 2026, U.S. special forces raided Venezuela, captured President Nicolás Maduro in his residence, and flew him to New York to face narcoterrorism charges.

Updated May 22

As of May 2026: Led White House meeting that ended in 'fundamental disagreement'

The United States has not acquired sovereign territory since 1917, when it purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million. On January 17, President Trump announced 10% tariffs on eight European nations starting February 1, escalating to 25% by June 1 unless a deal is reached for Greenland.

Updated May 21

As of May 2026: Defending ICE agent

ICE agent Jonathan Ross fired three shots in 700 milliseconds, killing 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in her car on a Minneapolis street. Good was a U.S. citizen, a mother of three, standing with her wife to support neighbors during Trump's self-proclaimed "largest immigration operation ever"—2,000 federal agents deployed to Minnesota.

Updated May 20

As of May 2026: Defending ICE shooting as justified self-defense

An ICE agent shot Renee Nicole Good through her car window on a Minneapolis street January 7, killing the 37-year-old mother instantly. Federal officials claimed self-defense, saying Good weaponized her Honda Pilot to ram agents. But video shows something different: a woman slowly backing up and pulling forward, trying to leave, before an officer fires three shots into her head. "Having seen the video myself, that is bullshit," said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. The shooter: Jonathan Ross, a 43-year-old deportation officer who was dragged fifty yards by a vehicle he tried to forcibly enter just six months earlier. Seventeen days later, on January 24, Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse and legal gun owner. Video shows Pretti filming agents with his phone, getting pepper-sprayed, wrestled to the ground by six agents, then shot at least ten times. DHS claimed he was armed and violent. Video evidence again contradicts the official account. At least six federal prosecutors resigned in protest over how investigations were being handled—pressure to investigate victims' families rather than the shooters. On January 24, FBI agent Tracee Mergen, supervisor of the Public Corruption Squad in Minneapolis, resigned over pressure to "reclassify/discontinue the investigation" into Good's killing and focus instead on her widow Becca. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara noted that two of the city's three homicides in 2026 were committed by federal agents.

Updated May 19

As of May 2026: Serving

Trump's second-term cabinet confirmations became the most contentious in modern history. The Senate confirmed all 22 nominees, but only after contentious battles.

Updated May 19

As of May 2026: Named as leading the interagency process described in the divestiture determination

The deal closed on January 22, 2026. TikTok's U.S. operations now belong to TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC—a new entity where Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi's MGX each hold 15%, existing ByteDance investor affiliates hold 30.1%, and ByteDance itself retains exactly 19.9%.

Updated May 15

As of May 2026: Key ideological voice on Europe and migration

On December 5, 2025, the Trump administration released a 33-page National Security Strategy declaring a Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. The document formally revives the 19th-century idea of the Western Hemisphere as a U.S. sphere of influence and promises to reassert American preeminence across the Americas.

Updated May 10

As of May 2026: Framing EU digital rules as censorship and attack on free speech

The European Union is cracking down on U.S.-based Big Tech using the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, and long-standing competition and privacy rules. Since 2023, Brussels designated six platforms as 'gatekeepers,' imposed obligations on core services, and opened proceedings against X, Google, Apple and Meta for monopolistic conduct, opaque algorithms, deceptive design, and failures to police harmful content.

Updated May 10

As of May 2026: Leading U.S. political critic of the DSA fine on X

On December 5, 2025, the European Commission issued its first non‑compliance decision under the Digital Services Act, fining X €120 million for misleading users with paid blue checkmarks, failing to provide a transparent advertising repository, and obstructing researcher access to public data. Regulators concluded the subscription-based 'verified' badge is deceptive because anyone can buy it without meaningful identity checks, and the platform's ad library and data-access rules prevent independent scrutiny of scams, influence operations, and systemic online risks.

Updated May 9