Michael Goodwin: JD Vance sold Trump out after the midterm shellacking its time to cut him off

Following the Democrats’ extraordinary rout in the midterm elections, it was inevitable that the Trump White House would react with finger-pointing and an off-with-their-heads approach to staff changes.And so it has, and there is certainly more bloodletting to come.My only quibble is that the first person thrown overboard is the wrong person.Instead of removing the capable and loyal Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and replacing her with the combative Stephen Miller, President Trump should have fired Vice President JD Vance.Unfortunately, he can’t under the Constitution because Vance was elected and is not an appointed staff member or a Senate-confirmed Cabinet secretary.Still, Vance’s decision to wave the white flag of surrender early Wednesday morning was a breathtaking breach of loyalty.It was also political weakness writ large.

For once, Trump has been too kind in his noncommittal response.In a long statement on X, Vance shamefully tried to separate himself from the stalemate in Iran and the elections.He offered absolutely no defense of the Trump-Vance administration’s policies and decision-making.He failed to mention what Trump repeatedly says about the war.

To wit, that the goal was and is to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, which it had vowed to use against Israel and the United States.Does Vance instead favor the approach that Dems Barack Obama and Joe Biden pursued for 12 years, which was to bribe the mad mullahs with cash and lift sanctions while accepting that the infusion of dollars would be shared with regional terror proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah?Vance doesn’t say, nor does he mention that he was the lead negotiator in the mediated talks that produced the lingering cease-fire, which led Iran to claim it could control oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.In effect, his own actions and missteps do not appear in his condemnation of the war.A fair conclusion is that, in his mind, he is the innocent good guy with the best of in...