Iran says US asked Putin to facilitate talks as tanker attacks continue
President Donald Trump on Thursday directed Vice President JD Vance to shift his focus away from the Iran war and instead devote himself to fighting what the president says is corruption and crime in Democratic-controlled cities and states. The instruction came in a social media post, days after Republicans’ sweeping losses in last week’s midterm elections — losses Vance has blamed on the eight-month-old war and its economic fallout.
“We don’t need a deal with Iran,” Trump said in the post. “Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!”
Democrats are set to take control of Congress in January and have promised intense oversight of Trump’s business dealings and other targets, after voters identified corruption as one of their top concerns. Trump’s post about Vance and the war was, in part, a response to a flurry of reports about Democrats’ plans.
The post also followed a Wall Street Journal report Wednesday evening that Vance was weighing a new round of direct talks with a senior Iranian official. The vice president’s office did not respond to a request for comment. The White House press office, in an email, responded to a query by highlighting that Trump had made clear in the post that he sees no need to negotiate with Iran.
Earlier this week, Trump said he believed the war “militarily is effectively over,” and the post directed Vance “to focus his complete and total attention” on his anti-fraud campaign. The president also said mediation efforts led by Qatar are making progress and that it was unlikely he would need to make good on earlier threats to restart the full-scale bombardment of Iran after he was past the midterm elections.
Vance had long advocated for restraint in U.S. military interventions overseas and offered only limited public defense of the conflict after Trump launched it. He became the face of an unsuccessful attempt to end the fighting when he headed negotiations over the summer, serving as lead negotiator for a short-lived truce.
After the Nov. 3 losses, Vance wrote a lengthy post on X about the political cost of the conflict. “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so,” Vance said. “Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.”
The vice president is considering whether to launch a 2028 run for the White House, and voter dissatisfaction with Trump’s handling of the war could weigh down those ambitions. The president has yet to endorse a successor for the 2028 race. In a CBS “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday, Trump said he “may or may not get involved” in offering an endorsement.
The shift in emphasis comes as oil shipments out of the Strait of Hormuz have recovered to near prewar levels after Iran effectively choked the critical waterway for months, stemming the flow of crude and energy resources from its Persian Gulf neighbors. But international tankers now are relying on U.S. Navy escorts to get the oil out of the strait, and the U.S. military has recently carried out limited strikes on Iran, including against its air defenses. Crude and liquefied natural gas exports from the Gulf are climbing, but there also has been an uptick in attacks on ships trying to traverse the waterway.
The British military reported Thursday that at least two tankers were struck by projectiles in recent days while traversing contested waters near Iran. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center, an agency that monitors maritime safety, said one of the tankers was struck Wednesday in the Strait of Hormuz, northwest of Ras al-Khaimah; the crew evacuated safely and no casualties were reported. In a separate incident Tuesday, the agency said a tanker was struck by a projectile in the Persian Gulf. Multiple people were taken ashore for medical assistance while the remaining crew was safe and accounted for.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week he pressed his Group of Seven counterparts during talks in Paris to “step up” and help protect ships from Iranian attacks, but acknowledged making no headway. A Saudi-led coalition, meanwhile, is mired in fighting with Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen — fighting that has made it precarious to transport oil and other goods through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
Iran’s chief negotiator, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said in an interview with Al Jazeera that the United States has asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to facilitate direct negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. “It was the Americans who, during a visit to Moscow, spoke with Mr. Putin and asked him to speak with Iran so that, in any case, Iran would agree to speak directly with them,” Qalibaf said. “Look, Russia and Mr. Putin, the Russian president, are friends of ours. We have strategic relations with Russia. We are very close, and we hold Mr. Putin in particularly high regard.”
The White House did not directly respond to a question about whether the U.S. has asked Putin to facilitate talks with Iran. Qalibaf said Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, traveled to Russia and briefed Putin on details of the negotiations. “He informed him that we had conveyed our positions, which represent the legitimate rights and rightful demands of our people, to the Americans,” Qalibaf said, adding that it is up to the U.S. side to respond.
“It is up to them to decide. If they are truly telling the truth and are sincere about negotiations, then they should respond and begin the process,” Qalibaf said. “But if they want to pursue the path of war, then naturally, we are fully prepared for that as well.”