President Donald Trump reportedly raged against Vice President JD Vance last year for not using the boss’s chosen line that American planes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program.
“Trump vented to others that Vance hadn’t repeated his own new phrase that Iran’s nuclear program had been ‘totally obliterated,’” according to an excerpt obtained by Politico of the forthcoming Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, from New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.
After the June attack on Iran, Vance had mildly undercut Trump in an interview with ABC News.
“Well, Jon, severely damaged versus obliterated, I’m not exactly sure what the difference is,” Vance said. “What we know is we set their nuclear program back substantially.”
(Intelligence on the strikes at the time reportedly suggested they did not in fact destroy the nuclear program.)
Tensions flared elsewhere between the pair over Iran, according to the book.
Vance, a military veteran and critic of U.S. foreign wars, reportedly appeared “anxious” after the strike and aides thought he was worried about further escalation.
When Vance allegedly suggested Trump soften some lines in his speech about the Iran operation, the president allegedly snapped at Vance, telling him, “I know what I’m doing.”
“Seemingly irritated by Vance’s second-guessing, Trump turned his back on the vice president without saying any more,” Regime Change claims.
The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
Vance has often been one of the administration’s point people on Iran, shuttling between Washington and Pakistan for negotiations.
In recent days, he has taken to the media and the White House briefing room to defend the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran aimed at ending the war, which largely returns conditions to their pre-war status quo and does not represent a finalized peace deal.
Vance has also defended the deal from critics in Israel, the U.S. partner in the Iran war, who were nonetheless sidelined in negotiations to end the conflict.
Israeli leaders have taken issue with the emerging truce, which appears likely to leave existing Iranian leadership in place and eventually yield sanctions relief for Tehran, while kicking nuclear negotiations into the future.
Speaking to reporters this week, Vance chastised Israel, warning that if he were in their position, he “might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.”
Regime Change, which releases on Tuesday, has been sending shockwaves through the administration.
Trump officials believe sourcing for the book includes leaked secret recordings from inside the Situation Room, the strictly guarded area where the president makes and monitors critical national security decisions, one of the most high-security areas on Earth.
“We’re afraid some of our most sensitive conversations were being recorded,” an administration source said of the potential leak in an interview with Axios. “And we have no idea which ones.”
The book also reportedly captures the tension inside the administration over the Epstein files.
Regime Change reportedly describes a Situation Room meeting about how to handle the fallout from the administration’s slow-walking the release of the Epstein files, and it details a reported incident where then-FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino allegedly blew up at then-Attorney General Pam Bondi for what he called the “dumb f***ing charade” of giving an early batch of files to right-wing influencers, then declining to release much more for months.
