Vice President JD Vance with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad on April 11, 2026
Wednesday is the big day when President Donald Trump’s two-week shambles of a ceasefire deal with Iran was supposed to expire. And as you can expect, the administration moved with all due haste to ensure that this needless war gets resolved.
Okay, that’s a lie—and we all know it. Instead, Trump dragged his feet, issuing threats that he wouldn’t extend the ceasefire and declaring on social media that “Iran has Violated the Cease Fire numerous times!”
Then, after puffing out his chest all day, he decided late Tuesday to extend that ceasefire indefinitely for reasons only known to him.
Turns out Trump didn’t need our lead negotiator, the absolutely hapless and congenitally unlikeable Vice President JD Vance, to have anything to do with this triumph of peacemaking. Yes, Vance was apparently no longer allowed to go to Islamabad for peace talks with Iran.
Yep, Vance’s wings got clipped. Do you think people figured out how incredibly off-putting he is and thought things might just get worse if we sent him?
Things disintegrated for ol’ JD pretty quickly Tuesday. At first, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. delegation was delayed because it had to stick around for “additional policy meetings.”
Imagine pretending that there’s any policy or strategy at work here whatsoever, much less one that requires additional meetings. But within the hour, we learned that Vance’s trip was entirely off—ostensibly because Tehran hadn’t responded to any U.S. offers.
We also really had no idea what the status of the Iranian delegation actually was. The New York Times had reported that senior Iranian officials were already planning to travel to Islamabad to attend talks with Vance. But that was followed by The Associated Press reporting that Iran hadn’t decided whether it would attend at all.
Meanwhile, even as Trump was saying that it was “highly unlikely” that the ceasefire would be extended, he was apparently negotiating to extend the ceasefire. Or he extended it unilaterally, based on vibes. Either way, Vance was once again ghosted from the whole process.
It’s good that Trump didn’t wait until the very last minute here, given that there didn’t even seem to be an agreement about when, exactly, the ceasefire would have expired. Trump said that the deadline was Wednesday evening Eastern time, but a Pakistani official said that it would expire Wednesday morning at 4:50 local time, which is 7:50 PM on Tuesday Eastern Time.
Sure glad we worked through that minor misunderstanding!
Meanwhile, Vance is either cooling his heels, flushed with relief that he didn’t have to go. Or he’s getting over the adrenaline rush of pumping himself up, telling himself that once they turn him loose, it’s over for those suckers.
Oh, wait. Remember the last time we sent Vance to negotiate, he lasted a marathon 21 hours before throwing up his hands and going home?
To be fair to Vance, it isn’t like Trump really seems to have a negotiation strategy—it’s just threats and ever-shifting demands. Vance should feel lucky to be sent to his room on this one while Trump pulled a TACO yet again.
:Lucky break, JD.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos
- How Tucker Carlson Is Dragging J.D. Vance Down Into The Neo-Nazi Fever Swamp ›
- No Deal: Why Trump's Negotiations With Iran Are So Unlikely To Succeed ›
- Why JD Vance joined Pakistan’s last-ditch US-Iran mediation efforts | US-Israel war on Iran News | Al Jazeera ›
- JD Vance role touted as Pakistan attempts to broker US-Iran peace talks | US-Israel war on Iran | The Guardian ›
- Trump Extends Iran Cease-Fire Before Deadline Expires; Vance’s Trip Is on Hold - The New York Times ›
- Vance was ‘skeptical’ voice in White House on Iran strikes - POLITICO ›
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