The hosts of Fox & Friends, the Fox News morning show that helped launch President Donald Trump’s political career and shapes his worldview, have frequently lashed out at Vice President JD Vance over the past few months — and the president appears to be listening. Shortly after co-host Lawrence Jones accused Vance on Monday morning of breaking with Trump’s message on Iran, the president chimed in on Jones’ side.

Jones panned Vance’s declaration during a Thursday interview on Fox that “goal number one” for the Iran war is to “keep oil and gas cheap,” arguing that Vance was “playing into the Iranians’ hands.” 

“Last time I heard, and I was gone last week, but before I left, the president still said that the number one goal is so they don't get a nuclear weapon,” Jones responded in a segment that aired at 6:10 a.m. ET. 

The co-host called Vance’s remarks “an inconsistent message that they need to clarify,” adding, “Obviously the president's word is the one I'm going to roll with, but you can't have your chief negotiator governing this, debating this back and forth to get to a resolution with the goal in mind just to get gas prices down.” 

Trump, who was apparently watching the program, quickly provided the clarification Jones sought — and effectively threw his vice president under the bus. 

The president posted on Truth Social just minutes after the Fox segment aired: “The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon.” 

The president frequently posts on social media in response to segments he sees during the hours of Fox content he reportedly consumes each day, a phenomenon I’ve termed the Fox-Trump feedback loop. And Jones’ remark was not anomalous — he and his Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade have often criticized Vance since June, when the vice president took a lead role in negotiating and selling the controversial memorandum of understanding signed with Iran. 

The president, who has reportedly vacillated over whether Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio should succeed him at the top of the GOP presidential ticket in 2028, may have also heard the Fox & Friends hosts say:

• Kilmeade: The MOU is “not the president's deal. And it's his [Vance’s] deal and Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner together. I just hope they didn't let the president down.” [6/17/26]
• Kilmeade: Trump “can't be into every detail” but maybe Vance “wasn't the right person to bring this conflict to an end.” [6/17/26]
• Jones: “The deal was a joke from the very beginning. We had the vice president of the United States on the program to discuss point by point of the deal. A lot of the things that we said was in the deal initially he said wasn't in it, and it ended up being in the copy of the memorandum that was put out there.” [7/8/26]
• Kilmeade: “The one thing we need is a different negotiating team. If we go to negotiations and that's a big if, this team can't do it. The vice president leading the way with Steve Witkoff and others, they should focus on Ukraine.” [7/9/26]
• Jones: “I’m kind of disappointed in the vice president” for saying “that he found himself to be a moderate on the issue with Israel” which is “not what the president stands for.” [7/16/26]

On one occasion, Kilmeade even asked a Republican senator, “How much better would you feel if Marco Rubio was in that room as opposed to or with the vice president of the United States?”

Dumping blame for the Iran negotiations on Vance not only sends early signals about Fox's preferences for a potential successor to the president, but it also fulfills the network's primary goal for the past decade-plus: insulating Donald Trump from any consequences for his own decision-making.

Meanwhile, the MOU expired Monday with no progress in its twin goals of reopening the Strait of Hormuz and curtailing Iran’s nuclear program.