Vice President JD Vance said Friday that Iran’s nuclear program has effectively been crippled, arguing that even if negotiations fail to produce a final agreement, the regime no longer has the capability to produce a nuclear weapon.

Speaking on HBO’s Real Time, Vance maintained that the United States has already achieved its primary military objective by destroying Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities, minimizing the importance of whether a final diplomatic agreement is ultimately reached.

“If we don’t make the final deal, their nuclear program is still destroyed, they’re still much weaker as a country.”

Host Bill Maher challenged that assessment, responding, “But their program isn’t destroyed, the nuclear program isn’t destroyed.”

Vance immediately pushed back, asking Maher, “What part is not destroyed?”

Maher replied, “Well, we didn’t get in there. The whole thing was we have to get in there and see, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing this.”

Vance argued that the key objective was eliminating Iran’s enrichment infrastructure rather than inspecting every facility.

“Well, let me say, first of all, so a nuclear program — and I’m hardly a nuclear scientist, I’m a lowly politician — but the thing that you have to destroy is their ability to enrich uranium, which has been destroyed.”

After Maher interrupted to ask how the administration could be certain, Vance responded, “Well, because you need functioning centrifuges that can actually spin.”

Maher then pressed the issue further, asking, “But what was all the talk about, we’ve got to get in there and we’ve got to get the dust, and we didn’t get in there, so how do we get the dust?”

Vance acknowledged that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium remains a separate issue but insisted that it poses little immediate danger because the regime no longer possesses the infrastructure needed to weaponize it.

“So, that’s actually a separate question. So, there’s the highly enriched stockpile, which, by the way, was allowed to accumulate over 20 years of previous administrations. That enriched stockpile is something that we want to get. But, Bill, if we never get it, and the president wants it, and we are going to get it, but if we never got it, it’s buried deep underground and they don’t have the ability to turn it into a nuclear weapon. So, the program is functionally destroyed. We’re just talking about, can we set them back even further through these negotiations.”

{Matzav.com}