Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Blaise Malley
“In a Thursday address at the GOP midterm convention that exalted President Donald Trump and demeaned his opponents as ‘extremists who openly hate our nation,’ Vice President JD Vance hardly spoke about foreign policy. He did not mention the war in Iran directly, and he only brought up foreign policy as an example of an issue that divides the party’s base. He urged voters not to ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’ because ‘you happen to disagree with us on a policy issue here or there.’ The acknowledgement of foreign policy as a divisive issue in the MAGA coalition is a stark retreat for Vance, who staked his 2023 endorsement of Trump on the fact that ‘he started no wars despite enormous pressure from his own party and even members of his own administration,’ framing the president’s America First record as a much-needed deviation from decades of bipartisan hawkishness.” (09/11/26)