As President Donald Trump weighs what to do next with Iran's nuclear program, spending Tuesday morning in the White House Situation Room, Vice President JD Vance is speaking out about his view "from the inside.
Here is his statement about the situation in full, which was posted on X:
Look, I'm seeing this from the inside, and am admittedly biased towards our president (and my friend), but there's a lot of crazy stuff on social media, so I wanted to address some things directly on the Iran issue:
First, POTUS has been amazingly consistent, over 10 years, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Over the last few months, he encouraged his foreign policy team to reach a deal with the Iranians to accomplish this goal. The president has made clear that Iran cannot have uranium enrichment. And he said repeatedly that this would happen one of two ways--the easy way or the "other" way.
Second, I've seen a lot of confusion over the issue of "civilian nuclear power" and "uranium enrichment." These are distinct issues. Iran could have civilian nuclear power without enrichment, but Iran rejected that. Meanwhile, they've enriched uranium far above the level necessary for any civilian purpose. They've been found in violation of their non-proliferation obligations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is hardly a rightwing organization.
It's one thing to want civilian nuclear energy. It's another thing to demand sophisticated enrichment capacity. And it's still another to cling to enrichment while simultaneously violating basic non-proliferation obligations and enriching right to the point of weapons-grade uranium.
I have yet to see a single good argument for why Iran needed to enrich uranium well above the threshold for civilian use. I've yet to see a single good argument for why Iran was justified in violating its non-proliferation obligations. I've yet to see a single good pushback against the IAEA's findings.
Meanwhile, the president has shown remarkable restraint in keeping our military's focus on protecting our troops and protecting our citizens.
He may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the president. And of course, people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy.
But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue. And having seen this up close and personal, I can assure you that he is only interested in using the American military to accomplish the American people's goals. Whatever he does, that is his focus.
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Over the past twelve hours the White House has been heavily promoting President Trump's consistency on Iran, which has always been that the regime cannot have a nuclear weapon.
“You have to view them as people and I don’t want it to be a violent thing, but they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.” (5/16/25)pic.twitter.com/vtdRMVTZMp
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 17, 2025
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