Washington Secrets: How JD Vance worked a private channel with his fantasy football buddy to try to secure a Canada trade deal

WASHINGTON SECRETS

BY ROB CRILLY

Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of Washington Secrets. Tensions between Canada and the United States are at an all-time high, yet it needn’t have ended up like that. If only the vice president and a pal from his fantasy football league had been in charge of the negotiations, it all might have been different. Plus, what are the takeaways from last night’s primaries (anything you want, probably), and is it time to make the Washington Commanders affordable again?

JD Vance was talking to a private audience in New York when he offered an intriguing detail on how trade talks with Canada went down.

After ridiculing Prime Minister Mark Carney for trying to “out-tough” Donald Trump, Vance revealed that an old friend of his had opened a back channel, helping win what turned out to be a temporary reprieve last week.

“But the quiet sort of behind-the-scenes story is that this, like, random MP who has a good relationship with us has been a pretty effective advocate,” he said, according to a recording obtained by the Canadian Press.

Jamil Jivani is not exactly a random Canadian MP. He has, in fact, been a close friend of the vice president ever since they bonded over their outsider status as students at Yale Law School.

They are so close that the two are in a fantasy football league together, and Jivani delivered a Bible reading at Vance’s wedding.

Vance’s office did not want to talk about contacts with Jivani during trade talks. Nor did the Conservative MP — Jivani did not respond to requests for comment.

But it illustrates once again that personal relationships and unconventional diplomacy remain at the heart of the Trump administration’s approach to negotiations.

Jivani has been open about his backchannel in the past. In February, he met Trump, Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a visit to Washington.

In a video posted to X, he said he wanted to help Carney negotiate a deal.

On my way to Washington, DC. pic.twitter.com/BRUDTpFMs0
— Jamil Jivani (@jamiljivani) February 3, 2026

“Certainly, my 15-year friendship with the vice president played a key role in opening those doors,” he wrote in a column for the National Post.

It is an unorthodox axis, founded by two people who felt like outsiders at Yale. Jivani previously described how he met the future VP at a wine-and-cheese event at Yale. He gazed around the room in bewilderment at the variety of cheeses and spotted another student who “seemed equally unfamiliar” with wine and cheese.

After Yale, Jivani ran Our Ohio Renewal, a nonprofit group set up by Vance to tackle the social problems he had identified in his book, Hillbilly Elegy.

Thanks to the VP-elect and @KemiBadenoch for a great conversation in DC. pic.twitter.com/aEBmDiSR9t
— Jamil Jivani (@jamiljivani) December 8, 2024

Elected to parliament in 2024, Jivani has modeled much of his approach on American conservatism. Last winter, he toured college campuses, reaching out to young men in a strategy compared with that of the late Charlie Kirk.

This time around, he has kept his trade talks under wraps.

In the audio, Vance said that although Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer were leading negotiations, he had been more involved than normal because of his friendship with Jivani. He described him as a “very good dude.”

“Now what’s interesting is [Jivani’s] been like quietly inserting himself into these negotiations,” he told the crowd.

His audience last Wednesday included Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, as well as Cantor Fitzgerald President Brandon Lutnick, the son of the commerce secretary, and World Liberty Financial co-founder Zach Witkoff, son of senior Trump adviser Steve Witkoff.

At the time, Trump had just paused the introduction of 50% tariffs and announced that a deal was SIMPLY a matter of straightening out the paperwork.

That optimism did not last long. Talks broke down over the weekend and by Tuesday the president was trolling Canada on social media, announcing plans to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America.

It puts Vance’s friend in an awkward spot. As a Conservative MP, Jivani is no friend of Carney, even if they share the aim of protecting Canadian exports. And every visit to Washington risks undermining his party leader.

In the leaked audio, Vance called Pierre Poilievre a “non-entity” in talks. No wonder the Conservative leader looked unhappy when he was asked this week if he knew about Jivani’s negotiations.

“I told all my members of Parliament to use every single contact they had to fight for Canada and Canadian jobs,” Poilievre told reporters, urging them to use any contacts they had south of the border to protect jobs.

Let’s take that as a “no” then.

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Quote of the day — sort of

Elections and primaries are always a chance for pundits to cherry-pick results and data in order to say: I told you so. And last night’s result in South Carolina, where Lindsey Graham’s sister won the nomination to fight for his seat, is no exception.

There are lots of reasons why Darline Graham Nordone may have squeaked past Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) in the primary. Her name, the mammoth spending by Trump’s super PAC MAGA Inc, and the fact that she is new to politics. Take your pick.

Last week, Trump made the trip to the state to campaign for her.

“What I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot. Just come and vote. It’s so important,” Trump told his audience.

Is that the takeaway that could help juice the midterm Republican vote?

Make the Commanders Affordable Again

Last week, Secrets brought you details of a populist MAGA uprising among the genteel members of the D.C. Republican Party. This week, John Fredericks, radio host and Ward 2 party chairman, is setting out what it might look like in practice.

He is taking aim at the new Washington Commanders stadium, which will be backed with $1.1 billion of taxpayers’ cash. In return, D.C. residents should be entitled to affordable tickets, he says.

His “D.C. family ticket guarantee” would set aside 10,000 tickets for every home game to be sold to residents for $15 each. Buyers would be limited to four tickets, and resale would be banned.

“D.C. taxpayers are on the hook for more than a billion dollars for this stadium,” Fredericks said. “City Hall calls it ‘the largest economic development project in D.C. history.’ Fine — then it should be for D.C.’s working families too. Not for lobbyists in corporate suites. Not for scalpers charging a thousand bucks a seat.”

Secrets asked Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office if she supported the idea of affordable tickets for residents. A spokesman declined to comment.

Secrets is happy to comment. We live a block from the old RFK Stadium, and we fully back the idea that taxpayers get affordable access to games.

Lunchtime reading

A.O.C., I Have a Question (No, Not That One): Columnist Carlos Lozada is a thoughtful writer. And he is right to drill into what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez means in her rejection of Woke 1. But does he really think that politicians always believe what they say?

Nancy Kissinger, chic wife and no-nonsense ‘conscience’ of Henry Kissinger: Their civil marriage was a surprise — only a few hours earlier, the groom had held talks with Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Dayan, without mentioning it.