INTREP360 INTELLIGENCE REPORT
06.19.2026: PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS A JD VANCE PROBLEM
June 19th, 2026
Greetings & Happy Father’s Day Weekend!
Today’s edition of the INTREP360 Intelligence Report is going to be tricky. Especially since we have painstakingly built our brand assuring readers and viewers that our approach to national security analysis is entirely apolitical.
By that, we mean we never infuse our own political views in our work. We truly are solely trying to build a community where fellow Americans — and indeed, citizens of our nation’s allies — of all political stripes can come together to focus on the most important national security issues impacting our global safety.
If we are doing that well, then it should mean readers and viewers can never tell whether we are Democrats, Republicans, or independents. We only analyze and criticize national security policies and decisions, not the political parties behind them.
You get to decide, at least here, your own political beliefs, party affiliations (or not) and who you vote for (or against!).
The only time we might interject is if a reader or a viewer suggests something truly out of this world. That happened to Mark last week while getting his hair cut. He had to assure his barber that despite each of us having been to the White House numerous times over the past four plus decades, neither of us have ever come across any lizard people.
Really.
Alas, Mark’s barber remains unconvinced.
Thus, Friday humor aside, as we dig into today’s issue, be assured we are not critiquing Vice President JD Vance as a Republican. Rather, we are solely pointing out that whether by design or his own diplomatic clumsiness, he is causing major misunderstandings between long-term U.S. allies on the global stage.
Photo credit: White House. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (left), President Donald Trump (center) and Vice President JD Vance meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on February 28th, 2025.
In our view, President Donald Trump has a JD Vance problem when it comes to the global stage. Let’s get started understanding how and why that is jeopardizing U.S. national security interests.
***
PAST IS PROLOGUE
We first witnessed Vance’s propensity for stepping in it, as they say, on the global stage during the Oval Office meeting at the White House between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump on February 28th, 2025.
Zelensky, only four days removed from the fourth anniversary of the start of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine, was understandably emotionally raw and wary of Trump’s insistence that he could settle the war in a day. Forty minutes into that conversation, Vance, in effect, declared war on Zelensky.
Initially, Vance accused the Ukrainian president of being publicly rude to Trump, saying “I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media.” Vance then further berated Zelensky and told him that, “You should be thanking the president.”
By then Trump had enough of the back and forth and accused Zelensky of not having “the cards right now” in reference to fighting Russia. Zelensky retorted, “I’m not playing cards. I’m a president in war.”
Yet as we have witnessed ever since, Ukraine has had numerous cards of their own making to play and play them they have against Russia.
Need an example?
Ukraine provided a definitive one on Thursday in a now iconic video when it blew the lid off of an oil tank at a Russian refinery in Moscow. Much of the Russian capital was then covered in black smoke as a result of the Ukraine long-range attack.
The memes on X and across social media came in fast and furious. Here is just one AI example posted by Douglas Davis on X of Zelensky sending Putin for a ride. The sticky note says “With love, from President Zelensky.
The relevant point here is that when it comes to geopolitical affairs, Vance time and time again is proving to be in over his head. Granted, as Mark pointed out today on Al Qahera News in Cairo, Egypt, it is important to bear in mind that Vance’s public posturing is often aimed at Trump’s most ardent political base.
Mark cautioned viewers across the Middle East not to assume that Vance’s criticisms of Israel were necessarily beliefs held by Trump or that the vice president’s comments were aimed or intended solely for audiences in Tehran or the region. Vance is obviously not in charge of U.S. foreign policy. Constitutionally that falls to Trump and by extension to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
We will leave it to the U.S. political experts to opine on whether that is sage domestic politics. Especially since we are not — and have no desire to be — political experts. However, we will state that on a geopolitical level, Vance’s ill-advised modus operandi of berating allies, as he did to Zelensky in 2025, is causing major damage.
***
OOPS, VANCE DID IT AGAIN
Fast forward to yesterday. Once again Vance was making headlines for criticizing a U.S. ally. Not just any ally, however, the only American ally that agreed to fight the Islamic Republic of Iran alongside U.S. forces.
Yet in a strange apparent attempt to curry favor with the enemy — meaning Iran here — Vance started attacking Israel. As an aside, we cannot help but notice this has become a White House theme: praise enemies while criticizing allies.
That may work in the short run. However, the long-term damage that it is doing to U.S. strategic global relationships will be difficult, if not impossible, to fully repair by future presidential administrations.
During his White House briefing on Thursday, Vance warned Israeli cabinet members that, “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have left.”
It seemed completely lost on Vance that Israel, having been intentionally excluded from the Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Iran, might have serious objections to a deal that provides for Tehran — a regime Jerusalem rightly perceives as an existential threat — to receive up to $500 million in oil and gas revenue a day and as much as $300 billion under a reconstruction fund.
Israel voicing those objections was more than fair. The Israel Defense Forces are the U.S.’ wartime ally.
If the U.S. wants — especially if it ever needs — future wartime allies, then Vance, whether he gets it or not, is laying the foundation for U.S. allies to be just as transactional as Trump’s White House is being against Israel.
That does not bode well for the future. U.S. national security is at its strongest when Washington is working in close partnership with its military allies around the world.
***
ISRAEL RESPONDS TO VANCE
As we noted earlier today in The Washington Star, Israel was not having it. Overnight, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the IDF to hit over 100 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon.
Israel essentially was sending Vance a harsh message: ‘You could not push Zelensky around and he ultimately proved you wrong, and you are not going to push us around either.’ Israel, as both of us have said repeatedly in on-air commentary across various TV networks, is not going to subordinate its national security interests to Vance.
In that regard, Vance’s attacks on the Israeli cabinet members proved self-defeating. Iran, seizing the moment to foment division between Washington and Jerusalem, abruptly canceled talks with the U.S. in Geneva.
Those talks are now back on, but Vance was left cooling his heels and was forced to cancel his own departure to Switzerland.
***
VANCE GOES ON THE ATTACK
Strangely, and yet consistent with its growing tendency to attack U.S. allies, the White House has started attacking pro-Trump critics of the MOU.
Earlier this evening, the White House’s Rapid Response on X attacked Marc Thiessen over an op ed he wrote in the Washington Post noting that Trump said he was willing to militarily attack Iran if it does not live up to its obligations under the terms of the MOU.
Thiessen had shared the op ed on X noting that Vance said, “If they don’t comply with the deal, the straits are still opening, and we can get on with our lives as a country.” Vance was clearly implying that U.S. military action against Iran was off the table one way or the other, which contradicts what Trump is saying.
Yet, Rapid Response lectured Marc Thiessen – a longtime Trump ally at that – saying, “everything the Vice President has said is what the President has said and believes. If you disagree with the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, that’s on you.”
What was even more notable is that JD Vance’s personal X account reposted the Rapid Response post right after it went live.
Again, domestic political experts can sort out Vance’s attacks against a Trump supporter. Our only purpose here is to point out the confusion Vance’s messaging is creating on the global stage, especially since the 60-day negotiations with Iran are only just getting started.
Strategic ambiguity is one thing. However, Vance is likely convincing the Iranians that the U.S. has indeed capitulated to Iran.
***
ICYMI #1
Early today, in our regular weekday foreign affairs column at The Washington Star, we examined how the MOU between the U.S. and Iran began to unravel less than 24 hours after Trump signed it in Versailles, France.
Tensions flared between Israel and Hezbollah, and the Islamic Republic of Iran tried to pretend it was not behind any of it.
Photo credit: Israel Defense Forces. Lt. Col. Dor Gedalia Ben Simhon is one of four Israeli soldiers Hezbollah killed on June 19th, 2026.
You can read it here. It is not paywalled at our request.
***
ICYMI #2
Mark was on Al Qahera News in Cairo, Egypt earlier today. He discussed the latest developments in Lebanon and their impact of the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Iran.
You can watch it here. The segment is in Arabic.
***
Thank you for reading. Please enjoy Father’s Day. We will see you Monday. Please subscribe, comment & share. We truly appreciate it!
Jon & Mark
Follow Jon on X at @JESweet2022 or on Bluesky at @JonSweet.bsky.social. Follow Mark on X at @MCTothSTL or on Bluesky at @MarkToth.bsky.social.
The White House RR seems to follow Trump's own delusion of thinking the most recent "thing" said does not contradict the "opposite thing" previously stated. 🤔
My concern about the technique of writing you and Jon chose is that it places a huge burden on both of you to "crank it out." The advantage is you do keep your finger on the pulse yet the nature of the work begets, at times, fast, more trivial stories. Deep research and thought is displaced for a quick grab. This story fall into that category. Other stories you havrme produced are are magnificent, well researched, OSINT heavy. The political stuff is just dirty.