US’ Vance says foreign influence campaign funded to 'tank' Iran deal

US Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that a foreign influence campaign had been funded to derail negotiations he was pursuing with Iran.

"There's a literal foreign influence campaign being funded to tank the very deal that I was pursuing," Vance said on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, citing a report published by Time Magazine on Monday.

"Many of the people who were receiving that money were actually attacking me in completely dishonest ways. You know, my response to that is: 'Well, go to hell'. I'm going to do what I have to do for the American people,” he said. “I represent Americans first, and that's the way that I've tried to do this job.”

Vance said, citing the Time Magazine article, that a former Trump campaign person, who he said had been paid by “certain elements within the Israeli government,” had mounted attacks against him for pursuing negotiations with Iran.

"They're attacking me obsessively, saying that we should not be negotiating with Iran," he said.

"What I'm actually trying to do is accomplish what the President of the United States told me to accomplish, which is a settlement that accomplishes our objectives. Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon. We have the free flow of oil and gas," he added.

Vance said foreign governments routinely attempt to influence US policy, but what troubled him was when American leaders let such influence “affect their judgment.”

He said Israel was "losing the public opinion battle" in the US, a point he said President Donald Trump had made publicly as well.

"I'm actually just the guy advocating for a normal relationship with a normal country that's based around shared interest," Vance said, adding that Israel's ambassador to Washington "cares about Israel first," while “I care about America first.”

"I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there have been people within the Israeli government who are trying to actually shift us away from that policy because they want to continue the military campaign, and by the way, like -- there are people within their government that I love, I have good relationships with. I hope, and I don't think that they're part of this," he told Rogan.

The Time Magazine investigation, citing FARA filings submitted to the Justice Department by individuals and organizations acting as agents of foreign principals to influence American policy or public opinion, reported that Trump's 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale was hired last September by the global ad agency Havas on behalf of Israel to run a digital influence campaign, under a deal worth $1.5 million a month.

The magazine reported the operation, run through Parscale's firm Clock Tower X and affiliated companies, was intended to produce at least 50 million digital impressions per month and shape how Israel and the Iran war were characterized, including by AI systems such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.

A senior US official traced a wave of MAGA-aligned social media posts criticizing the June 17 US-Iran ceasefire back to the Parscale-linked network, citing similarities in language and timing across accounts, according to the report.

Parscale denied any role in undermining Trump's diplomacy, according to the report.