Scott Galloway Says JD Vance Should Break With Donald Trump on Iran War

Scott Galloway says Vice President JD Vance will eventually have to break publicly with President Donald Trump over the Iran war, and that doing so could help him win the White House in 2028.

On Monday's episode of Raging Moderates, Galloway, the NYU Stern marketing professor and Democratic-leaning podcaster, said Vance "would be politically well-served to say something along the lines on, look, there's certain issues I disagree with the president on." He compared the choice to Kamala Harris's failure in 2024 to name a single difference with Joe Biden.

"At some point he's going to have to distance himself. And I don't, and quite frankly, I think politically it would be smart," Galloway said.

The advice comes from the other side of the aisle. Galloway is a Democrat urging a Republican to split with his own president, not a host breaking with his own party.

The Town Hall That Set Off the Discussion

The exchange followed Vance's CBS News town hall, which aired Saturday. In it, Joey Amor, whose wife, Master Sgt. Nicole Amor, was killed in a March 1 Iranian drone attack on a U.S. outpost in Kuwait, pressed the vice president on "fundamental failures" that led up to her death, CBS News reported. Six people died in the strike, the deadliest attack on U.S. forces in the war.

Vance said "the whole country owes your family a debt of gratitude that is quite literally impossible to repay," and added, "if there were failures, and I don't doubt there were, I just this literally the first time I've heard of this is this conversation." CBS News has reported that the facility lacked adequate fortifications and drone defenses.

On this point the hosts split. "I actually thought the vice president handled this about as well as he could have," Galloway said. He added that, "supposedly in the situation room," Vance "was the one who said, this is a bad idea going into Iran. And yet he has to just tow the company line right now."

Jessica Tarlov, Galloway's co-host and a Democratic strategist, disagreed. "I thought that it was really poorly handled and sent a message to the public with a couple weeks to go before election day that the administration is not taking this seriously enough," she said.

She added: "I don't think that it helped the Republicans going into the midterms."

What Has Been Reported About Vance and Iran

Galloway pointed to reports that Vance argued against bombing Iran. Vance's private objections have been widely reported. In April, The Boston Globe reported that he was "the strongest opponent of the war" in Trump's inner circle and warned of "regional chaos and untold casualties." When he could not stop the strikes, he argued for overwhelming force to end the war quickly.

In public, Vance has stayed loyal. In September, he said: "I wouldn't call it a war. Right now, there is no active shooting." Trump himself has said Vance was "philosophically a little bit different" on Iran.

The Harris Precedent

The war's numbers explain why distance might appeal. A Pew Research Center survey conducted Sept. 28 to Oct. 4 found 65 percent of adults disapprove of Trump's handling of the Iran conflict. Only 34 percent called the initial decision to use force the right one.

The broader climate is no better for Republicans. A new Ipsos poll that Galloway cited puts Trump's disapproval at 66 percent and Democrats up eight points on the congressional ballot. PolitiKool's polling average has Trump at 38 percent approval and 59 percent disapproval.

The 2028 Republican Field

Galloway called the war "the greatest geopolitical mistake since the Iraq war" and asked whether Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio would "read the tea leaves and start to distance themselves from Trump," adding that he did not think Trump could fire either of them.

For now, Vance leads the field. PolitiKool's polling average puts him at 38.5 percent among potential 2028 Republican candidates, ahead of Rubio at 17.9 percent and Donald Trump Jr. at 14.1 percent.

Tarlov's answer was "I don't think anytime soon," though she said a break could come "as we get closer to 2028." She also asked why Vance did the town hall at all if he did not want to be candid about his concerns, and said he "could have even gotten some more coded language out there" to signal unease.

The midterms are on Nov. 3. How badly they go for Republicans, by Galloway's own reasoning, will help decide whether Vance takes his advice.