'So begins the blame game!': Nicolle on stumbling JD Vance placed in the HOT SEAT by Trump

[0:00] I just wonder if the vice president who was against this, by all reports, was against the [0:05] conflict to begin with. Maybe he wasn't the right person to bring this conflict to an end. [0:11] We'll find out. In my opinion, the vice president of the United States, the chief negotiator on this [0:16] particular project, has not well served the president. Wow, they found their fall guy. [0:23] Hi again, everybody. It's now five o'clock in the east. So begins the blame game. J.D. Vance was [0:28] made the face of the U.S.-Iran deal. And now that we essentially know a lot of what's in it, [0:36] I say that because the memorandum of understanding still leaves a lot of things less than clear. [0:41] It is, though, J.D. Vance in the hot seat for how bad the deal truly is and how unpopular it is, [0:48] even with Trump's own political coalition. Even Donald Trump isn't on the joke, [0:52] saying earlier this week that he will throw his vice president under the bus if things don't go well. [0:58] If it works out, I'm going to take the credit. If it doesn't work out, I'm blaming J.D. You better [1:04] be careful, J.D. Trump's only kidding until he isn't. Last night, we learned of another sign [1:13] of the shortcomings and failures of the Iran deal, the postponing of J.D. Vance's trip to Switzerland. [1:20] He was supposed to go to Switzerland to meet with Iranian officials. Of that, Axios reports this, [1:26] quote, the White House said the reason for the change of plans was logistics, but there were some [1:31] indications that the background for the decision is connected to the shaky ceasefire in Lebanon. [1:36] No matter what the reason is, it illustrates that this so-called peace deal is not the foreign policy [1:44] win that anyone in the Trump administration, especially Vance, is suggesting it is. [1:50] As the vice president attempts to sell a very unpopular agreement with an extremist, [1:56] radical regime, we're also getting a deeper look into his relationship with Donald Trump. [2:02] That's thanks to reporting in the upcoming book, Regime Change, by New York Times reporters Maggie [2:07] Haberman and Jonathan Swan. They conducted more than 1,000 interviews for their book and presented [2:13] their findings, those they mentioned, giving them opportunity to comment. Haberman and Swan report [2:21] that Trump's anger with J.D. Vance over Iran dates back to at least a year when Vance was not [2:27] immediately supportive of Trump's idea to bomb Iran. Trump ultimately did bomb Iran's nuclear sites [2:33] and J.D. Vance appeared on television to discuss the move. From the book, quote, [2:38] after watching the vice president on the ABC News program this week, Donald Trump vented to others [2:43] that J.D. Vance hadn't repeated his own new phrase, that Iran's nuclear program had been, quote, [2:49] totally obliterated. Trump told one associate, everyone needs to effing, everyone needs to say [2:55] effing obliterated. That's the word. Everyone just needs to copy what I say, obliterated, obliterated, [3:02] end quote. There's another very revealing anecdote in their new book, quote, during Donald Trump's [3:07] redecorating spree in the Oval Office, when someone had asked Trump about the near certainty that the [3:13] next president would remove what he had done. The president had replied without missing a beat, [3:19] quote, Cubans love gold. Trump quite blatantly saying that his successor would not be his current [3:25] vice president, J.D. Vance, but the man who currently serves as his secretary of state and acting national [3:31] security advisor, Marco Rubio. J.D. Vance's no good, very bad week is where we begin the hour with [3:38] Democratic Congresswoman Madeline Dean of Pennsylvania. She serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, [3:43] also joining us, Princeton University professor and political analyst, Eddie Glaude. He's the author [3:49] of a brand new book, America, USA, How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries. It is out now. [3:56] Also joining our conversation, Charlie Sykes. He's the author of the newsletter, [4:00] To the Contrary. Congresswoman, I start with you. These stories are sometimes like covering [4:07] tarantulas in a bowl. There's not really anybody to root for, but it is interesting when they all start [4:12] attacking each other. What do you make of the position that J.D. Vance is in, in terms of being [4:20] blamed by prominent media members of the MAGA coalition for the weakness of the Iran deal? [4:28] Good to be with you on this Juneteenth. And I have to tell you, I was just at a Harriet Tubman [4:32] museum. So I think about the breadth of and the courage of people who came before us. And to your [4:39] question, I think about the smallness of what we are talking about, the smallness of the people in [4:45] this White House, the smallness, sadly, of this president, and the smallness of those around him, [4:50] like J.D. Vance. J.D., the vice president of the United States, was against this war. He had very [4:57] strict convictions before he got into this role as sycophant, shill, and vice president. And here he is [5:06] stuck in a terrible, unenviable position. You saw him yesterday spewing lies about the $300 billion [5:13] and where that was coming from. Defending a 14-point MOU that, I'm telling you, this is amateur time, [5:22] writing of this MOU for something so gravely serious. So it's very, very small is what we see [5:29] about something so very, very large and important to our national security, to our global security, [5:34] to our relationships with our allies and our foes. He's in a terrible spot, and he should have stood [5:41] up with a greater spine. I agree with you on the smallness of the entire Trump story. You know, [5:52] we were just covering algae blooms. And it's such a, I mean, just to pull back the curtain a little [5:59] bit, it was such a pleasure to cover the Obama Center opening yesterday. Wasn't it joyful? [6:06] Yes. But it was joyful because it wasn't, they refused to make it about them, right? Like it was [6:12] all about who we are. It was all about the country. And with Donald Trump, even with the reflecting pool, [6:19] it's all about what he wants and how it reflects on him. So when it all goes up in green blooms, [6:26] I guess it's a window into how even the things he purports to care about are badly botched. And with [6:33] that lens, if you could just talk about what's on the line here, what's at stake in a calamitous [6:41] resolution to a calamitous war? Oh, everything is at stake. The world is less safe as a result of this [6:49] president and how he pursued this reckless war without getting the buy-in of the American people. [6:55] And of course, constitutionally not coming to Congress. And what he must do now, though I don't [7:00] believe he will actually understand it, is he must come to Congress in order to safely remove ourselves [7:07] from this conflict. I think of the 50,000 service members who are there, my own constituents, [7:13] one of my own staffers is there in this theater. 13 members are dead. 13 service members are dead. [7:21] Hundreds are wounded. Thousands in Iran are dead. Thousands in Lebanon are dead. 60 or more in Israel [7:29] are dead. What was this all for? This is so silly. The memorandum of understanding is a memorandum to [7:36] reopen the straits. So when we get back to Washington, I know the Senate was in this week, [7:41] but when we get back next week, the House will be back in. I hope somehow we can reclaim, even with [7:48] this very feckless Speaker of the House and Republican majority, I hope we can reclaim [7:55] our constitutional authority around declarations of war and eliminating and reducing the tensions around [8:03] Iran. We've gained nothing. As you read this document, the MOU, [8:09] you see that Iran actually wrote this to their benefit. $300 billion with no oversight and no [8:16] transparency of where those dollars are coming from, going into Iran as we go for a 60-day conversation [8:23] about a conversation about a negotiation? Come on. This country is far better than this. [8:30] Interesting that Mr. Rubio is completely silent and Mr. Vance seems to be stuck in the muck. [8:37] Charlie Sykes, Vance is stuck in the muck because Donald Trump put him in the muck on purpose and [8:43] then went to the microphone and said, if it works out, it was me. If it doesn't, I'm blaming him. [8:49] So one of the features of this second term is that we're not as reliant on things that happen in [8:55] private because Trump, I don't know if it's his age or if it's the staffer that puts all the positive [9:01] press she finds on the internet in front of him. But everything is out loud and public. [9:06] But J.D. Vance did describe Trump as, quote, America's Hitler and, quote, cultural heroine. [9:13] J.D. Vance did rise in the podcast space as staunchly anti-war, staunchly against American [9:24] interventions in the Middle East. And J.D. Vance is now the guy being blamed. I showed you just a [9:30] couple of clips by Ryan Kilmeade and Ben Shapiro for the weakness and fecklessness of the war's [9:35] resolution. Well, and J.D. Vance's book rollout hasn't been going that well either. You know, [9:41] about his conversion to Catholicism, particularly when you have the Pope saying, yeah, J.D., [9:45] you don't really get this Catholicism thing. But, you know, FDR's vice president, one of his vice [9:51] presidents, John Nance Garner, once famously described the vice presidency as a bucket of [9:55] warm spit. Well, I'm not sure that he actually said spit. Well, this is J.D.'s bucket. And you [10:01] have a feeling that he is being set up here, that he's been handed this poisoned chalice. Donald Trump [10:08] joking, joking that he'll blame J.D. Vance. Well, of course he will. And you know how these Trump [10:15] jokes turn into policy very, very quickly. You'll notice again when you look at that clip [10:20] that Marco Rubio does not laugh at that joke. So, you know, I know that there are some people [10:26] around Vance who are thinking that they're comfortable with this because, you know, now [10:29] he can be the face of peace in the Mideast. But the more you look at this MOU, this deal, [10:36] the worse it is. He is being asked to sell the country one of the worst foreign policy crap [10:41] sandwiches in history. I just don't know how you, you know, he can, well, he can deny that there's a [10:48] $300 billion slush fund, but it's right there in black and white. So the vice presidency always [10:55] has that weird paradox where you're one heartbeat away from the president, but you are at the [11:03] president's whim. And I think what we're discovering is, I mean, imagine going into this negotiation, [11:08] knowing that Donald Trump could cut him off at the knees, throw him under the bus, [11:13] change the words that he should use on a dime. So he is really put in a terrible, terrible position. [11:20] And to the Congresswoman's point, I think it's incredibly telling that the secretary of state, [11:25] Marco Rubio, is nowhere near trying to sell this deal.