Vice President J.D. Vance talks about the mission objective of the joint US-Israeli strike on Iran in an interview with FOX News host Jesse Watters.

JESSE WATTERS: Vice President of the United States J.D. Vance joins us now. Mr. Vice President, why this operation and why now? VICE PRESIDENT J.D. VANCE: Well, good evening, Jesse. So, to step back just a little bit, if you go back to Midnight Hammer in the summer, what the president wanted to do with that mission was eliminate Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon and we did destroy the nuclear enrichment facilities during Operation Midnight Hammer over the summer. Now, here’s the thing, Jesse, we destroyed Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon during President Trump’s term. We set them back substantially, but I think the president was looking for the long haul. He was looking for Iran to make a significant long-term commitment that they would never build a nuclear weapon, that they would not pursue the ability to be on the brink of a nuclear weapon and after months, really almost a year of painstaking diplomacy, what the president determined is he didn’t want to just keep the president, or excuse me, keep the country safe from an Iranian nuclear weapon for the first three, four years of his second term. He wanted to make sure that Iran could never have a nuclear weapon and that would require fundamentally a change in mindset from the Iranian regime. So, he saw that the Iranian regime was weakened. He knew that they were committed to getting on that brink of a nuclear weapon and he decided to take action because he felt that was necessary in order to protect the nation’s security. WATTERS: So, Secretary Rubio and the president have both said something along the lines of you ain’t seen nothing yet. We could hit three times as hard. What does that mean? VANCE: Well, what it means Jesse is we have a lot of capacity here. I think there’s a lot of chatter about what our objectives is, what our goal is. I mean, I think the president’s been extremely clear about our objectives and it’s that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, but there’s also been a lot of conversation about what are our capabilities and look, I know this stuff. Obviously, I’m not going to reveal classified information here on air, but the president of the United States knows what we’re able to do. He knows that we have much greater capacity to inflict damage on the Iranian nuclear program, but also on various missiles that threaten our troops. As you’ve seen, they’ve been launching those at our troops for much of the past three days. So, I think the president has made it very clear that the United States has a lot of optionality here and, you know, we could go for a little bit longer, we could go for a lot longer, but I think the president just wants to make it clear to the Iranians and to the world that he is not going to rest until he accomplishes that all-important objective of ensuring that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. Not just for the next few years, not just because we obliterated Fordow or some other enrichment facility, but because the Iranians themselves commit long-term to not building a nuclear weapon. WATTERS: You know, after Iraq and Afghanistan, some people say, oh, here we go again. Is that something here you’re thinking about? VANCE: Well, Jesse, if you think back to Afghanistan, 20 years of mission creep, 20 years of not having a clear objective, and 20 years of the United States trying to bring liberal democracy to Afghanistan. Iraq was a little bit shorter, but we were still in that country for nearly a decade with no clear mission, no clear definition. What’s so different about this, Jesse, is that the president has clearly defined what he wants to accomplish and there’s just no way, I said this before the conflict started, I’ll repeat it again, there’s just no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multi-year conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective. What is different about President Trump, and it’s frankly different about both Republicans and Democrats of the past, is that he’s not gonna let his country go to war unless there’s a clearly defined objective. He’s defined that objective as Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and has to commit long term to never trying to rebuild the nuclear capability. It’s pretty clear, it’s pretty simple, and I think that means that we’re not going to get into the problems that we’ve had with Iraq and Afghanistan. WATTERS: Do you and the president care who runs the country now, or you can just kind of sit back and kind of shape it from the sea and the air? VANCE: Well, I guess, Jesse, you know, in a perfect world, yeah, we would love it if somebody came to power in Iran who was willing to work with the United States, who was willing to show some respect to the United States, and again, most importantly, made that long-term commitment that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, but ultimately, Jesse, whatever happens with the regime in one form or another, it’s incidental to the president’s primary objective here, which is to make sure the Iranian terrorist regime does not build a nuclear bomb. So, you know, there are a lot of things that could happen with the regime. Obviously, the president and I would prefer that you have a friendly regime in Iran, a stable country, a country that’s willing to work with the United States, as opposed to, you know, bomb our soldiers and try to build a nuclear weapon, but fundamentally, so long as we achieve the president’s objective to make it clear that Iran can’t build the bomb, I think the president will be happy with the outcome. WATTERS: And you saw evidence that they were still trying to enrich? VANCE: Not just that they’re trying to enrich, Jesse, and this is one of the almost comical elements of the diplomacy that we’ve been engaged in for the past month, the past few, the past year, I should say. You know, Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio, Jared Kushner, they did such a good job, such a deliberate job, but the Iranians would come back to us, Jesse, and they’d say, well, you know, having enrichment for civilian purposes, for energy purposes, is a matter of national pride. And so we would say, okay, that’s interesting, but why are you building your enrichment facilities 70 feet underground, and why are you enriching to a level that’s way beyond civilian enrichment, and is only useful if your goal is to build a nuclear bomb? Nobody objects to the Iranians being able to build, you know, medical isotopes. The objection is these enrichment facilities that are only useful for building a nuclear weapon. Even some international organizations that usually don’t agree with the United States were very clear that Iran’s only purpose in building these underground, highly enriched facilities was to build a nuclear weapon. It just, it just doesn’t pass the smell test for you to say that you want enrichment for, like, medical isotopes, while at the same time trying to build a facility 70, 80 feet underground. WATTERS: Yeah, they were trying to jerk you guys around, and that obviously didn’t work. Mr. Vice President, God bless you guys, and God bless our troops. Thank you so much. VANCE: Pray for our troops, Jesse. Thank you. Thank you.

RealClearPolitics Videos