Vance and Rubio take different approaches as Iran tests their 2028 prospects

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio appear to be staking out differing approaches to carrying out President Donald Trump’s national security agenda as the possible 2028 presidential rivals jostle for position in a divided Republican Party.

With vastly different backgrounds and policy experience, they have moved along separate paths to stake out territory: Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants with a long history in the Senate and major interest in Latin America, and Vance, a child of the Midwest and Marine Corps veteran who served in the Senate for only two years before being tapped as Trump’s 2024 running mate, with a message of opposing foreign wars.

While deferential to each other — and with the White House and State Department denying any suggestion of a rift — Vance and Rubio appear the most divergent on the Middle East.

In discussing Iran, Vance has several times been critical of Israel and its actions in Lebanon, saying Trump has been frustrated by Israeli actions against the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah that have angered Iran and made negotiations with Tehran more difficult.

Rubio, meanwhile, has remained supportive of Israel or held his tongue, particularly over the situation in Lebanon — an issue he has taken the lead on and resulted in a preliminary framework agreement last week.

Vance takes the lead on Iran negotiations and Rubio on Lebanon

“The talk about differences is not idle speculation,” said Dan Fried, a former assistant secretary of state and ambassador to Poland who is now with the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank. “There is definitely something to it.”

The White House fired back at any suggestions of a rift.

“Why is the legacy media obsessed with driving a wedge between Vice President Vance and Secretary Rubio that does not exist? There is one camp — President Trump’s camp — and the entire administration is fully behind the president’s efforts to ensure Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott added that “Rubio and the entire administration is 100% in lockstep behind President Trump.”

Yet, according to Trump administration officials familiar with the matter, Rubio was so skeptical of obtaining an acceptable deal with Iran that he declined to head the U.S. delegation to the first ceasefire negotiations in April in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Vance, however, seeing an opportunity to burnish his foreign policy credentials, jumped on it, asking Trump twice to take the lead before Trump agreed, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations.

Vance did lead the U.S. delegation to the inconclusive meeting in Pakistan, then again this month to talks in Switzerland, which followed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran. The truce agreed to in that document is very fragile, tested by repeated exchanges of fire between the sides in recent days.

“It’s rather unusual for the VP to be given the lead role in a negotiation, but it’s quite possible that Rubio is happy to let him. It’s a pig in a poke. It’s a loser job,” said Ian Kelly, a retired career diplomat and ambassador during the first Trump administration.

He added that both men seem to “have equal ambitions to replace” Trump, but that the president’s semi-joking comments this month that he would blame Vance if the Iran talks do not succeed appeared to suggest that he was being “set up for failure.”

Vance and Rubio deny any division between them

Vance has talked up the chances of success for a broad agreement with Iran, albeit with caveats, while Rubio, although publicly supportive, has repeatedly taken a more agnostic line while denying any division.

“We’re all focused on the jobs in front of us. I think the president loves to stir the pot a little bit and loves the entertainment of it,” Vance said.

“I love Marco,” he said. “I think he’s a great secretary of state. He’s become a very, very dear friend. I think both of us are very much focused on accomplishing the American people’s business right now.”

Rubio also has rejected that there is any schism.

“When it comes to foreign policy and national security, we have no drama. We have no games,” Rubio told reporters last week during a trip to Bahrain, the last of a three-nation tour of the Arab Gulf countries that have been most directly affected by the Iran war.

“We have a group of people that work very well together and closely to execute on the president’s directives, which is why I think we’ve had good outcomes and good achievements, and we’re going to continue to have good outcomes and good achievements,” Rubio said. “Everyone has an important role to play, and everyone is playing that role and doing it in a collaborative process.”

That has not stopped Trump from fanning the flames of potential rivalry, repeatedly asking crowds of supporters who they would prefer to succeed him and suggesting at one point they might be an unbeatable ticket.

There is little doubt that the men do not share the same worldview, however.

“Rubio speaks within the rubric of the Ronald Reagan construct of the free world and its importance,” Fried said. “Vance is not interested in the free-world construct. He speaks in the language of not wanting to fight what he believes are abstractions.”

Fried said it is impossible to predict how that would translate into policy but warned that “we’re headed toward a bad place in Iran, which is giving up any support for Iranian civil society and not being terribly good at containing Iran.”

“Instead, we seem to be allowing ourselves to be backed into a ‘sphere of influence’ situation where Iran is weaker but ends up better off than before. I can’t imagine Rubio agreeing to that,” Fried said.

Aides to Rubio point out that he has said several times he would defer to the vice president should Vance choose to run for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination.

At the same time, Rubio has used his dual perch as Trump’s top diplomat and national security adviser to make over the National Security Council, installing several close allies in top White House positions in recent weeks.

Those include his former State Department counselor, Mike Needham, who is now deputy national security adviser. Also, Jeremy Lewin, who oversaw the dismantlement of the U.S. Agency for International Development for Rubio and took charge of foreign assistance last year, is soon to join the NSC as a deputy for the Western Hemisphere. The head of NSC communications, Dylan Johnson, also serves as assistant secretary of state for public affairs.