U.S. Vice President JD Vance suggested on Wednesday that some elements within the Israeli government backed an influence campaign aimed at undermining the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran, while emphasizing that Israel remains a U.S. ally.
Speaking on Joe Rogan’s podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Vance said, “I think you have seen this very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation and try to derail the deal.”
“There was a Times story that came out yesterday that basically there are certain influencers in America who are being paid in order to attack the deal,” Vance said. “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.”
He said he has been accused of taking “marching orders from Tucker Carlson” and that “there’s just so much bullsh** out there when what I’m actually trying to do is accomplish what the president of the United States told me to accomplish.”
The vice president said he had no objection to Israel attempting to influence U.S. policy, calling such efforts a routine part of international diplomacy.
“A lot of other countries do,” Vance said. “I think some are better at it than others. I think the Israelis are definitely more effective at it than most. But I wouldn’t say that they’re the only effective country by any means that tries to influence American politics.”
“I mean, why wouldn’t you?” he said. “It’s a country of 9 million people. We have 330 million people. And so, of course, they’re going to try to persuade Americans. They’re going to try to move Americans in one direction or another. I think that’s just the nature of the beast.”
‘Manipulate American public opinion’
Rogan responded that there are concerns about whether Israel is “spying on American politicians” and “about influence.”
Vance said he understands those concerns, but “my sense is that the way that all foreign influence works in the United States is people try to manipulate American public opinion. And then from manipulating a public opinion, they try to get the outcomes that they want.”
He said, as an example, that when it came to his negotiating strategy with Iran, “I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there have been people within the Israeli government who are trying to actually shift us away from that policy because they want to continue the military campaign.”
“There are people within their government that I love, I have good relationships with, and I don’t think that they’re part of this,” he said. “But there are some people within their system we know beyond a shadow of a doubt who are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely.”
Vance said that he thinks U.S. President Donald Trump would have pursued a military campaign against Iran without pressure from Israel.
During the interview, Vance rejected accusations that he is antisemitic, saying he has “a ton of respect for the Jewish religion” and describing Israel as an ally. He said he has been labeled anti-Israel for advocating “a normal relationship with a normal country that’s based around shared interest.”
He also pointed to what he described as a growing generational divide among Republicans over Israel, arguing that public support for the Jewish state has declined among younger Americans.
Separately, Vance revived longstanding speculation surrounding convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, saying he believed Epstein might have been “Mossad or CIA or some other deep state, whether in America or Israel.”
“He clearly had connections to the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence,” he said, offering no evidence for the claim and saying any Israeli links, if they existed, would have involved “left-of-center” elements of Israel’s security establishment rather than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
