Internet Wonders If JD Vance Is Cursed After the Pope Died, Iran Walked, and Orban Lost Following His Visits

The internet has declared JD Vance cursed after the Vice President visited the Pope, the Pope died; flew to Pakistan to stop a war, the war did not stop; and travelled to Budapest to save Viktor Orban, Orban lost.

All three diplomatic and political missions collapsed within roughly a year of each other, capped off by a fourth incident that has nothing to do with geopolitics but everything to do with optics: Vance dropped a championship trophy live on the White House lawn.

The sequence of events took place in the span of a year, and social media spent Sunday cataloguing each catastrophe with the enthusiasm of people who have absolutely not moved on. Whether the man is jinxed, simply unlucky, or just doing a difficult job in a chaotic era is a matter of political opinion, but the timeline is, objectively, a lot.

The Pope, Easter Sunday, and What Happened 17 Minutes Later

On 20 April 2025, Vance sat with Pope Francis for a few minutes at Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican residence where the pontiff lived. The meeting was unannounced. According to PBS News, Vance's motorcade was on Vatican territory for 17 minutes in total. The pope gave the Vice President chocolate Easter eggs for his children, a Vatican tie, and rosaries. Vance told Francis, 'I pray for you every day. God bless you.'

Pope Francis died the following morning, 21 April 2025, at the age of 88. Vance was in the air to India when his staff informed him. 'About an hour after we landed, a staffer came over and said, sir, the pope died,' Vance later told Fox News Digital.

He posted on X: 'I just learned of the passing of Pope Francis. My heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him. I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill.'

The Vatican confirmed through its press office that the Easter meeting appeared to be one of Francis' final engagements.

Twenty-One Hours in Islamabad, and Then a Strait Blockade

Fast forward to 11 to 12 April 2026, and Vance was on the other side of the world again, this time in Islamabad as the lead US negotiator in high-stakes peace talks with Iran.

The talks were the first direct face-to-face meeting between Washington and Tehran since 2015, brokered in Pakistan amid a war now in its seventh week. He was accompanied by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

The negotiations ran for 21 hours. Then Vance stepped to a podium at the Serena Hotel and announced they had not worked. 'The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement,' he told reporters. 'And I think that's bad news for Iran much more than it's bad news for the United States of America. They have chosen not to accept our terms.' The core sticking point, he told ABC News, was Iran's refusal to commit to abandoning its nuclear weapons programme.

He boarded Air Force Two and headed home. Within hours, Trump announced via Truth Social that the US Navy would begin blockading the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 per cent of the world's oil and gas passes. Oil topped £78 ($100) a barrel on Sunday. A 21-hour negotiating session had left the situation materially worse than before Vance got on the plane.

Budapest, a MAGA Rally, and an Election Result That Stunned Everyone

Between the Iran talks and his trip to Islamabad, Vance had made a two-day stop in Budapest, Hungary, to campaign alongside Prime Minister Viktor Orban ahead of Sunday's parliamentary election.

On approximately 7 April 2026, Vance appeared at a MAGA-style rally for Orban, calling him 'wise and smart' and telling Hungarians that his leadership 'can provide a model to the Continent.' He phoned Trump mid-rally so the crowd could hear the President call Orban 'a fantastic man.'

Vance also told a Budapest press conference that Orban's opponents were guilty of 'one of the worst examples of foreign election interference that I've ever seen or ever even read about,' a line he delivered, noted multiple observers, without apparent irony, given that he was standing in a foreign country campaigning for a foreign politician. He insisted the US was not using 'economic influence' to sway the vote; Trump simultaneously posted on Truth Social promising US economic support if Orban won.

Orban lost, badly. With 99% of votes counted, challenger Peter Magyar's Tisza party won 138 of 199 parliamentary seats, a two-thirds supermajority. Orban's Fidesz took 55 seats. Turnout reached nearly 80 per cent, a record for any election in Hungary's post-Communist history. Orban conceded defeat, calling it a 'painful' result. CNN's data team had noted before the vote that Vance's visit appeared to have moved prediction markets, but not in the intended direction.

The Trophy Incident: A Brief Note on Symbolism

For those who like their political commentary served with a side of slapstick: on 14 April 2025, Vance broke the College Football Playoff National Championship Trophy on the White House lawn during Ohio State's victory visit. He reached for it, the base separated from the top, and the bottom half dropped to the ground as a crowd of athletes and officials watched. 'We Are The Champions' was playing at the time.

This was the College Football Playoff trophy, which by design comes apart in two pieces. Vance noted this in a self-deprecating post on X: 'I didn't want anyone after Ohio State to get the trophy so I decided to break it.' Some found it charming. The broader internet did not.

The pattern the internet latched onto on Sunday is: one papal visit, one dead pope; one peace mission, no peace; one campaign appearance, one ousted ally; one trophy ceremony, one broken trophy.

Whether this is a curse, a coincidence, or just a rough year in public service depends entirely on who you ask.