Some rare daylight showed up today, displaying for the first time that J.D. Vance and his best friend and boss, Donald Trump, do not march in lockstep.
In an jaw-dropping report today from The Atlantic, editor Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that earlier this month he was added to a private Signal chat group with senior Trump officials called “Houthi PC small group.” The members appeared to include Tulsi Gabbard, Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance, and senior representatives across various government agencies. They had gathered to debate the merits of doing some bombing in Yemen. (They then did the bombing, which was when Goldberg realized the group chat was real.)
Apart from everything that’s notable about that, also J.D. Vance disagreed with Trump in the group chat. The person who appeared to be Vance wrote that delaying bombing in Yemen might be best:
I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.
For ten days now, the U.S. has stepped up bombing Yemen, with the stated goals of preventing further attacks in shipping lanes in the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. (We have low-key been at war with the region since January, 2024; President Biden had also bombed lots of people.) Vance’s point was that, while the U.S. does ship plenty of material through those lanes, it is a small percentage of our total intake, compared to Europe at large. “3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does,” he said. “There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary.”
“I just hate bailing Europe out again,” he added to the person who appeared to be Pete Hegseth, the secretary of Defense.
Hegseth agreed that Europe sucks. “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC,” Hegseth wrote. But, he pointed out, America was the only power that could get it done. A few days ago, Hegseth committed a second Navy carrier group to the region. Bombings will continue until Americans understand we’re doing it for them, not those idiots in Europe.
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