Tipsheet

JD Vance Says He Backs Trump's Iran Strategy '100 Percent'

Dmitri Bolt
Dmitri Bolt  |  April 14, 2026 10:30 AM

JD Vance revealed in an interview Monday that, despite his early hesitancy, 21 hours of negotiations with Iranian officials solidified his belief that President Trump is taking the right approach with Operation Epic Fury. He emphasized that while the Iranians may be tough negotiators, that doesn’t mean they can be allowed to walk away with a nuclear weapon, especially after demonstrating a willingness to actively wield any leverage they have against the rest of the world.

"It's being reported that you had real skepticism about this at the beginning, and that you expressed that to the President. Is that true?" Fox News' Brett Baier asked.

"Well, Brett, you know, I give my advice to the President of the United States, and we all do, and I expect that when I give advice to the President of the United States, that it's going to be private, because the president should rely on his senior advisors without them running to the media," the vice president said. "What I will say, Brett, is that I 100 percent agree with the president on the fact that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon."

"I've seen that just in the negotiation that we've had over the last couple of days, that these are tough negotiators, but they're fundamentally the kinds of people where them having a nuclear weapon would impose terrible costs on the entire world," he continued. "If they're willing to engage in economic terrorism on the entire world, what would it mean? What leverage would they have if they had a nuclear bomb in Tehran? That's not an outcome that is acceptable to us or really should be acceptable to anybody. So I 100 percent support the President's goals here to keep nuclear weapons, to keep the worst weapons of war out of the hands of the Iranians."

This comes as the United States has begun a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, preventing ships from reaching Iranian ports and blocking Iranian vessels from leaving the strait, effectively crippling the country’s economy.

The mounting pressure has pushed Iran to remain at the negotiating table, with the regime offering to pause its nuclear program for up to five years. The United States responded with a counteroffer seeking a 20-year halt.