Why Vance Still Trumps Rubio

For the first year of the second Trump presidency, JD Vance served primarily as the White House’s designated tough guy. Rather than a softener of Trumpian harshness, he was charged with being (or chose to be) tougher than the president himself, whether that meant publicly pressuring Volodymyr Zelensky or defending the Minneapolis immigration crackdown or making a symbolic flight to Greenland, the frozen object of the president’s desire.

In the past several months, Vance’s role has changed. He was the most prominent internal skeptic of the president’s decision to attack Iran and then the would-be diplomatic disentangler of the Iranian knot. (He has also embarked on a — somewhat — culturally........

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