JD Vance Identified as Anonymous Source Behind Story President Trump Used to Ban Politico From White House

Days after President Donald Trump announced his ban on media outlets he dubbed as “fake news,” one of the outlets’ sources was outed as Trump’s No. 2, Vice President JD Vance.

The Trump administration pointed to various stories from the outlets that they claimed “threatened national security and/or spread falsehoods” as justification for the ban, per documents viewed by Globe.

However, according to a new report by Status, Vance, 42, was an anonymous source on at least one of the flagged stories.

The story in question, published by Politico in June 2026, was titled “A deal with Iran is near but not final, senior US official says,” and cited “a senior administration official” as the source. In the article, the source estimated the odds of a deal between the U.S. and Iran being reached at 80 to 95 percent.

According to The Washington Post, Vance’s remarks were made during an official press call hosted by the White House. The outlet reported that the Trump administration specifically required the speaker — later identified as Vance himself — to be identified as “a senior administration official” in reporting following the call.

“I think the second thing is we do expect to be signing this agreement over the next few days,” Vance allegedly said in a recording obtained by The Washington Post. “I can’t give you an exact date. And if I were to give you a confidence that we were going to be finding this agreement, I maybe would have said 75 percent this morning. It’s probably more like 80, 85 percent now, but it’s not 100 percent.”

Following Trump’s ban on outlets he deemed “fake news,” the administration claimed that “the spread of misinformation, especially relating to national security, is a threat that undermines the President’s ability to safeguard the national security.”

Politico, CNN and MS Now filed a lawsuit against the administration on Monday, September 21, arguing that the ban violates the First Amendment. On Thursday, September 24, Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the White House to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” the news outlets’ access.