Trump and WH Spark Confusion With Numerous Contradictory Statements Over Whether JD Vance Will Attend Iran Peace Talks

President Donald Trump and White House officials sparked confusion Sunday over whether Vice President J.D. Vance would be attending the upcoming second round of peace negotiations with Iran in Islamabad, Pakistan.

ABC News’s Jon Karl posted Sunday following his interview with U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz, “@USAmbUN Mike Waltz tells me JD Vance will lead the American delegation to Islamabad for talks with Iran.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright also told CNN, shortly after 9 a.m. ET, that Vance would be going to Pakistan for the talks.

But Karl posted again about a half hour later after a phone call with Trump — which took place during a commercial break in the middle of ABC’s This Week.

“President Trump just told me Vance will not be going to Islamabad. He said the issue is security — the Secret Service couldn’t do it on 24 hours notice. ‘It’s only because of security,’ he told me. ‘JD’s great.’”

But then, roughly 90 minutes later, Karl wrote, “Per @PressSec – @VP Vance will be going to Pakistan for the Iran talks along with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.”

MS NOW Contributor Inzamam Rashid reported from Islamabad that Vance’s advance team has, in fact, landed in Pakistan.

He told host Alex Witt, “I’ve been speaking to a Pakistani security official who said to me that U.S. vice president’s advance team has started arriving in Islamabad today. Four flights landed with call signs linked to the same team that traveled with the vice president during the last visit.”

“They also added that the Serena Hotel is being prepared once again to be the venue for talks, which may happen as early as tomorrow. So good signs, I think, that talks are going ahead and the vice president will be there, but the Strait of Hormuz issue will be very much at the top of the agenda,” Rashid said.

Witt quipped, “Still can’t figure out why it is that the president doesn’t seem to know that his vice president is going there.”

Later on Alex Witt Reports, the host said, “Back to this whole back-and-forth, Vance goes, doesn’t go. This morning, the president told our own MS NOW’s Jackie Alemany that Vance would not be going to Pakistan this week. Then you have two senior U.S. officials later telling MS NOW Vance is, in fact, leading the U.S. Delegation.”

Witt cited a Wall Street Journal report on “White House officials who say that top aides urged Trump to limit interviews with reporters because he’s only convincing the public that he’s sending contradictory messages.”

Witt added that Trump conducted phone interviews Sunday with MS NOW, ABC News, The New York Post,  and Fox News.

Watch the clip above via MS NOW.

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