about what happened with Iran in the
Middle East and some breaking news
coming just now. Joining us this
evening, Vice President J. D. Vance. Mr.
Vice President, thanks for coming.
Absolutely. Thank you. Just seconds ago,
uh, the president went to Truth Social
and typed this. It has been fully agreed
by and between Israel and Iran that
there will be a complete and total
ceasefire. Complete and total ceasefire
is what he typed. Yep. What does that
mean? How did it come about? What’s the
development here? Well, we were actually
working on that just as I left the White
House to come over here. So, that’s good
news that the president was able to get
that across the finish line. I think
what it means, Brett, is quite simple.
First of all, the president without
knock on wood having a single American
casualty obliterated the Iranian nuclear
program. We are now in a place where we
weren’t a week ago. A week ago, Iran was
very close to having a nuclear weapon.
Now, Iran is incapable of building a
nuclear weapon with the equipment they
have because we destroyed it. So that’s
a very very big thing. Now what that
means I think is we have to talk to Iran
and of course to Israel about what the
future holds because while we have
obliterated the Iranian nuclear program,
our hope and our expectation is that
they’re not going to try to rebuild that
program. And I think that’s what the
president is really trying to figure out
here is to build a long-term settlement
here to where we can have peace in the
region where our regional allies and of
course the American people most
importantly can be secured but where we
can ensure that the destruction of the
Iranian nuclear program that has already
happened is not something they try to
rebuild. I want to get to the
obliterated part in just a minute but I
just want to read this fully so I get
the context here. Congratulations to
everyone. It has been fully agreed by
and between Israel and Iran that there
will be a complete and total ceasefire
in approximately 6 hours from now when
Israel and Iran have wound down and
completed their inrogress final missions
for 12 hours at which point the
ceasefire for 12 hours at which point
the war will be considered ended
officially. Iran will start the
ceasefire and upon the 12th hour Israel
will start the ceasefire and upon the
24th hour an official end to the 12-day
war will be saluted by the world. During
each ceasefire, the other side will
remain peaceful and respectful on the
assumption that everything works as it
should, which it will. I would like to
congratulate both countries, Israel and
Iran, on having the stamina, courage,
and intelligence to end what should be
called the 12-day war. This is a war
that could have gone on for years and
destroyed the entire Middle East, but it
didn’t and never will. God bless Israel.
God bless Iran. God God bless Iran. God
bless the Middle East. God bless the
United States of America. And God bless
the world. He seems confident that this
is all coming together. That’s right.
And when you left the White House, were
you thinking this was all jelling here?
When I left the White House, I thought
that we might be able to get it across
the finish line before this broadcast.
And it looks like the president has been
able to do that. I mean, look, he’s been
working the phones constantly. Frankly,
before the 12-day war started, but
certainly over the past 12 days, the
president’s been extremely clear about
America’s national objective here. It is
to create a world where Iran cannot
build a nuclear weapon. We of course
destroyed the nuclear program that they
had and the president told the entire
team, “We’re going to work to make sure
that they don’t try to rebuild that
nuclear capability in the future.” And
it’s, look, this is a great thing for
Israel. Think about this. They’ve
accomplished an important military
objective. They’ve helped us destroy the
Iranian nuclear program. They’ve also
destroyed the conventional missile
capability of Iran that threatened the
country of Israel. For the Iranians, I
think this is a new opportunity to
actually pursue the path of peace. As I
said yesterday, what the Iranians have
showed through their support of terror
networks, through their now failed
effort to build a nuclear weapon, is
that they’re just not very good at war.
And I think the president really hit the
reset button and said, “Look, let’s
actually produce long-term peace for the
region.” That’s always been his goal. I
actually think when we look back, we
will say the 12-day war was an important
reset moment for the entire region.
Would you be surprised if Iran is
sending out signals that it doesn’t have
a specific ceasefire plan? How would the
communication have been with the
Iranians to get this level of confidence
to put out that detailed statement?
Well, one of the things I’ve learned,
Brett, about the Iranians in the past,
you know, four or five months that I’ve
been in this job is what they say
publicly and privately can sometimes be
very different. I think what the
Iranians have shown very clearly is they
don’t want this war to go on for much
longer. Their air defenses have been
totally destroyed. Their conventional
missile program has been largely
destroyed and of course their nuclear
program has been obliterated as I said
before. So I think the Iranians entered
a place where they don’t want to keep on
fighting. You you saw the president and
I don’t have the the truth in front of
me but he talked about the next 6 hours
finalizing the attacks. I mean what what
I think what he’s talking about is right
now for the American people watching
it’s dark over there. That’s typically
when the Israelis and the Iranians have
been shooting at each other. I think
there’s some recognition that that might
continue for another few hours. And
tomorrow really is a new day, the end of
the 12-day war, the end of the Iranian
nuclear program, and I really do believe
the beginning of something very big for
peace in the Middle East. So, you said
totally obliterated, the president has
said totally obliterated the Iran
nuclear program. Um, do you know for
sure where all the highlyenriched
uranium is? Well, Brent, I think that’s
actually not the question before us. The
question before us is can Iran enrich
the uranium to a weaponsgrade level and
can they convert that fuel to a nuclear
weapon? And we know based on the success
of our mission, of course the leadership
of the president, but the incredible
scale of our military that the two
mission objectives are completely
successful. We know that they cannot
build a nuclear weapon. Now you asked
about the highlyenriched uranium like
900 lb. But what we know Brett is that
in uranium is something that exists in
very large supply. Our goal was to bury
the uranium and I do think the uranium
is buried but our goal was to eliminate
the enrichment and eliminate their
ability to convert that enriched fuel
into a nuclear weapon. And I actually
just I think this is an important point,
Brett, because so many of the folks who
have focused on the highlyenriched
uranium
main focus, Brett, has been to destroy
their enrichment capacity because we
don’t want that 60% in radanium to
become 90% in radium. That’s the real
concern and that’s what was so
successful about our mission. So after
all this, if the Iranian government
survives as is, what’s to stop it from
rebuilding over time if they in fact
move the 60% highlyenriched uranium? You
know that’s a concern. No, the the the
big concern, Brad, and this is again
what we destroyed is their ability to
enrich uranium. If they have 60%
enriched uranium, but they don’t have
the ability to enrich it to 90% and
further they don’t have the ability to
convert that to a nuclear weapon, that
is mission success. That is the
obliteration of their nuclear program,
which is why the president, I think,
rightly is using that term. But here’s
the question. If Iran is desperate to
build a nuclear weapon in the future,
then they’re going to have to deal with
a very, very powerful American military.
Again, our hope is that the lesson that
the Iranians have learned here is look,
we can fly a bunker buster bomb from
Missouri to Iran completely undetected
without landing once on the ground and
we can destroy whatever nuclear capacity
you build up. I think that lesson is
what’s going to teach them not to
rebuild their nuclear capacity.
Yesterday, were you speaking on the
president’s behalf when you said he was
not interested in regime change? Well,
Brett, what I’ve said is the American
military, that is not our mission as
regime change. Our mission was to
destroy the nuclear facilities and the
nuclear program of Iran, which we of
course did. I think what the president’s
also said is that the Iranian people
want to make a decision about regime
change. That’s between the Iranian
people and the regime. Of course, we
support freedom fighters all around the
world, but our mission was to destroy
the nuclear facilities, and that’s what
we did. So you don’t think there’s any
mixed message when he goes to truth
social and says it’s not politically
correct to use the term regime change.
But if the current Iranian regime is
unable to make Iran great again, why
wouldn’t there be a regime change? Miga.
Well, I think what the president is
saying very clearly, Brett, is if the
Iranian people want to do something
about their own leadership. That’s up to
the Iranian people. What the American
national security interest here is very
simple. It’s to destroy the nuclear
program. That’s what we’ve done. And now
that the 12-day war appears to be
effectively over, we have an
opportunity, I think, to restart a real
peace process. And and and Brett, this
is not just about two countries, Iran
and Israel. All of these Gulf Arab
states, they want peace. They want to
invest. They want to build artificial
intelligence hardware. They want to sort
of come into the new economy. And that
was impossible when you had Iran that
was, as the president said, acting like
a bully across the Middle East. We
really think that if the Iranians are
smart about the path forward, this could
be a new dawn of an economic age of
prosperity. Of course, for our Gulf Arab
allies, for us, for the Israelis, for
everybody, but it’s going to require the
Iranians play it smart from here. The
president called it very weak, the Iran
missile firing on the US base in Qatar,
uh, Aluded. Um, was it a face-saving
move? How do you get from that firing
missiles at a US base to a ceasefire as
he details in this truth social? Well,
as the president said, they actually
gave us some warning here and we think
they gave us some warning because they
didn’t want to kill Americans and they
didn’t want to escalate. There’s
definitely some symbolism to this,
Brett. If you look at the Iranian
attack, it was 14 missiles that they
telegraphed ahead of time. We dropped 14
bunker buster bombs. As the president
told me earlier, our missiles, our bombs
were a little bit bigger than their
bombs. our bombs actually accomplished
the goal of eliminating their nuclear
program. But look, we’re happy again to
restart the peace process as the
president just did today. Was the
message delivered directly to the US or
through an emissary? The message is
always delivered through some sort of
intermediary. That’s been consistently
true of the Iranians. Of course, we’d
love to talk to them. The president’s
been clear about this. We’d love to have
a direct conversation about how we move
this thing forward. Because again, we
got to step back here. Why did the
president do what he did over the past
week? It’s so that we could destroy
their nuclear program. If they try to
rebuild it, they’re going to be on the
wrong end of American power once again.
We don’t want that. I think they don’t
want that, but the ball’s in their
hands. You’ve been reluctant or at least
cautious about getting engaged uh
previously and that has been public. Um
what made you sign on to this action
this time? Well, I think the president
has been very clear and I’ve always
agreed with the president that Iran
can’t have a nuclear weapon and you try
to run the diplomatic process as much as
you possibly can. When the president
decided that wasn’t going to work, he
took the action that he had to take.
Now, we’re in a new phase. That action
was successful. We had a wildly
successful military operation to take
out their nuclear program. Now, let’s go
on to the next phase. And I think the
president, look, sometimes he’s willing
to use peace, sometimes he’s willing to
use the military. I think it really
depends on what the Iranians do from
here. And what do you think they do from
here? Well, it’s an open question,
Brett. I I don’t want to predict what
the other side will do, but I think that
I I know what we’ll do if they continue
to pursue a nuclear weapon, and I hope
they don’t choose that path because I
know the president wants to see the
Middle East become peaceful and
prosperous in the future. That’s not
going to happen if Iran pursues a
nuclear weapon again. And for the
people, so we talked about the people
who who believe that this is going
towards World War II, especially in your
own party. There’s a section that’s very
vocal. There’s another section that says
you should take out this regime because
it’s evil and horrible and has done
horrible things for decades. How do you
square those two sides? Uh and can this
regime stay in place and still have a
peaceful ne, you know, reaction
relationship with the US? Well, I think
the president has squared those two
sides quite well. One, because he’s the
leader of the movement and a lot of
people trust the president as they
should. They recognize they’re not
seeing the same intelligence. They’re
not seeing the same classified
documents. They trust the president to
do a good job. But importantly, Brett, I
think he’s threaded the needle quite
well here. We had a very particular
objective. It was profound and difficult
to accomplish the elimination of the
Iranian nuclear program and I think the
president su successfully did that.
You’re asking were the Iranians close to
nucle nuclear weapon? Brett, they were
very close to a nuclear weapon. And what
I’d encourage my fellow Americans to
think about here is that a week ago, the
Iranians were quite close to achieving a
nuclear weapon. Now, they cannot build a
nuclear weapon. That is the biggest
testament to the president’s leadership
and to the success of our mission. In
one week, without, thank God, so far,
not losing a single American casualty,
we have taken what was a threatening
nuclear program that could have
destabilized the entire world. Now that
program is gone. We did it through
effective presidential leadership and
also some very very competent work from
our troops. How often does it happen
where you’re going to do an interview
and you get a true social seconds before
you have some sense of it, but it’s
pretty detailed where you are being
asked about something the president has
just put out. In this administration,
Brett, it happens quite a bit actually.
But we knew this was coming. Um the the
draft, it was interesting. I just read
the draft about two minutes before we
went on the air. It was a little bit
different from what the president had
showed me a couple of hours ago, but
again, I knew that he was working the
phones as I was on the way over here.
So, I knew exactly what we were going to
do. And and look, I I I love that about
this presidency and this administration
is he’s always working. He doesn’t say,
you know, the vice president’s going to
do an interview, so I’m going to stop
doing anything. He says, you know, we’re
going to do the American people’s
business. The vice president knows what
I’m trying to accomplish and if I get it
done, great because we’re going to talk
about it and celebrate it because it is
a thing to celebrate. I can’t emphasize
this enough, Brett. We have destroyed
the Iranian nuclear program. Zero
Americans have died. That’s an amazing
amazing thing. Americans, whether
Democrats or Republicans, we should be
celebrating that. Mr. Vice President, we
appreciate you coming and rolling with
the punches as well. Uh, thank you for
the time. Thanks for
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