Vice President JD Vance was criticized after he slammed previous presidents as “dumb” for how they handled past conflicts in the Middle East.
President Donald Trump announced Saturday that the U.S. struck Iranian nuclear sites after days of threatening the country with a possible attack. The strikes came after Israel launched its own attack against Iran, which Israel claimed was close to acquiring a nuclear weapon.
In an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker on Sunday’s“Meet the Press,” Vance fiercely defended Trump’s decision and said the president did not need congressional approval.
“First of all, the president has clear authority to act to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. And the worst weapon of mass destruction of them all is nuclear. The idea that this was outside of presidential authority, I think any real serious legal person would tell you that’s not true,” Vance said.
He also said that the U.S.’s involvement in a Middle East conflict is different now than with previous administrations because past presidents were “dumb.”
“I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern. But the difference is that back then we had dumb president and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objectives,” Vance said.
“So this is not going to be some long, drawn-out thing. We’ve got in. We’ve done the job of setting their nuclear program back. We’re going to now work to permanently dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years. And that is what the president has set out to do,” he added.
His comments were mocked on social media platform X.
Podcaster Hemant Mehta wrote: “Of all the things MAGA cultists have been saying the past 24 hours, this is the one that’ll be replayed a decade from now.”
And journalist Molly Jong-Fast wrote: “I didn’t think this was real until I saw the clip“.
“Lol good luck selling that,” another user wrote in response.
Another user said: “This is about the dumbest, most slanderous, and incoherent thing I’ve ever heard uttered by anyone, let alone a VP.”
The U.S. attack on Iran has divided Trump’s supporters, with many of them pushing the president to not get involved in another war in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Democrats have criticized Trump for not getting approval from Congress for the strikes.
Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, and U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb. However, Trump and Israeli leaders have claimed that Iran could quickly assemble a nuclear weapon, making it an imminent threat.
The decision to directly involve the U.S. in the war comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that aimed to systematically eradicate the country’s air defenses and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities. But U.S. and Israeli officials have said American stealth bombers and the 30,000-pound (13,500-kilogram) bunker-buster bomb they alone can carry offered the best chance of destroying heavily fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear program buried deep underground.
“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” Trump said in a post on social media. “All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home.”
Trump added in a later post: “This is an HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISRAEL, AND THE WORLD. IRAN MUST NOW AGREE TO END THIS WAR. THANK YOU!”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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