US Vice President JD Vance said on Wednesday that President Donald Trump would “keep his options open" on Iran and could ultimately use military force should diplomacy fail.
Speaking to Megyn Kelly on SiriusXM, Vance said Trump “will ultimately decide how we handle this particular Iranian situation, just like he decided on Operation Midnight Hammer."
“What he has been very clear on, if you go back to 2015, 2016, 2021, 2025, the President has said consistently we can't let these people have a nuclear weapon. Now, why? Why does that matter to America? Number one, [Iran is] the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism," continued Vance.
“You think it's bad when we have a domestic terror attack where a couple of people die, and you're right. What happens when the same people who are shooting up a mall or driving airplanes into buildings have a nuclear weapon? That is unacceptable. And it's not just them, because if the Iranians get a nuclear weapon, you know who gets a nuclear weapon the next day? The Saudi Arabians. And then somebody else in the Gulf Arab state. And so you have nuclear proliferation on a global scale. The biggest threat to security in the world is a lot of people having nuclear weapons. So what the president has said is Iran's not going to get a nuclear weapon," the Vice President stated.
He stressed, “Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. That is the stated policy goal of the president of the United States. It's so funny. Sometimes you have people who are saying, ‘Well, the president's too belligerent.’ And then sometimes you have people who say, ‘Well, the president, he's talking about diplomacy and he's talking about negotiating with the Iranians. We shouldn't negotiate. We should just bomb them.’"
Explaining Trump’s method of operation, Vance continued, “What the president's going to do is he's going to keep his options open. He's going to talk to everybody. He's going to try to accomplish what he can through non-military means. And if he feels like the military is the only option, then he's ultimately going to choose that option."