Vice President JD Vance did not give a clear answer on Thursday about whether the conflict with Iran will end before the midterm elections.
More than six months after the U.S.
started bombing Iran, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked when the fighting would stop.
She asked, “Will this war be over by the time of the midterm elections?”
Vance deflected by insisting it’s not a war:
JD VANCE: I don’t, I wouldn’t call it a war. Right now, there is no active shooting I recognize there is been places where this has flared up.
Major combat operations. Again, major combat operations lasted for about six weeks, and since then, we destroyed, of course, third nuclear facilities with Midnight Hammer. With Epic Fury, we decided to industrial base for producing weapons and also a lot of the conventional military. And we made it harder for them to rebuild that nuclear program.
But When you ask, when will this end? You’re asking me a question like, when will the Iranians stop shooting at ships? I think the reality is, I don’t know the answer to that question. You’d have to ask the Iranians.
When will the Iranians shooting at ships stop having an effect on world energy markets, question and the answer is it has a less effect day by day. So what we’re going to do is not depend on the Iranians behaving responsibly or negotiating in good faith. But what we’re going to do is use the tools that we have in our disposal to ensure that the American people, one, never have to deal with the threat of an Iranian nuclear program, and, too, the world energy markets are properly supplied.
KAITLAN COLLINS: So it’s up to the Iranians when this war ends?
VANCE: Welcome, if the Iranians keep on but Kaitlin, if the Iranians keep on shooting at commercial ships, again, we have I think, a responsibility, but certainly we’re the only ones with the capability to ensure that the Iranians are not destroying world energy markets.
And attitude is we’re not going to set an artificial timeline because let’s just say hypothetically, let’s say I told you three months, let’s say I told you three days. Okay? And the Iranians start blowing up oil and gas ships, and the United States is the only country with the capability to ensure that those oil and gas ships get to market.
Well, what I would say is it would be irresponsible for us to provide our strategy and our timeline for an Iranian nation that simply cannot honor its commitments and cannot stop the shooting at commercial ships.
The midterms are 61 days away.
This was the first press briefing for the White House Press Corps in 40 days.
The most recent Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, left her job on August 12, just weeks after coming back from maternity leave after giving birth to her second child.
Leavitt, who was 29 years old, was the youngest person to ever hold the position, and her departure caused a big reaction in politics.
Her replacement has not been announced yet.
A conservative CNN commentator, Scott Jennings, was thought to be interested in the job, but he denied the rumors publicly.
Jennings reportedly sent clips of himself to the White House supporting presidential aide Natalie Harp, who became the focus of a political controversy last month.
This happened when Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) joked at a campaign event that Trump wanted to “travel with Natalie” instead of doing his job.
However, Trump is not sure about having Jennings in that role, according to a report.
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