Vance Reveals When The Iran Agreement's 60-Day Negotiation Period Begins

[00:00:03]All right, good morning everybody. Last night, 12.5 million barrels of oil went through the Straight of Hormuz. That is a high since the beginning of the conflict. Oil prices are down nearly at their level from the pre-war conflict.

[00:00:16]Gas prices dropped below $4 a gallon today for the first time since the conflict. And importantly, they're going to keep falling further given how low price low oil prices are. Um on the uh military side, the Iranians for the second night in a row did not shoot at any ships in the straight of Hormuz. So so far they are honoring their end of the commitment. And on the blockade, Sentcom has allowed north of a dozen ships to go through our naval blockade.

[00:00:41]And so we're also honoring our end of the early part of the agreement. I would say the 60-day period officially started today. It was signed late and it may have even been signed technically, you know, because of the time shift. I think it's signed technically today, Iran time. So yes, the the the deal started yesterday. We're going to start the 60 clock today. So we destroyed a substantial number of their ballistic missiles and their excuse me, ballistic missile launchers themselves. It's not just the bullets, but it's the actual gun. And that's what we were extremely effective at in destroying during the last three months of the campaign. All the president said yesterday is that of course region countries don't give up the right of self-defense. Israel doesn't give up the right of self-defense if Hezbollah fires rockets or drones at Israel. The Iranians don't give up the right of self-defense in their country, but we do expect that as part of the final deal, they are not going to be able to build the kind of missiles that can broadly threaten the entire world.

[00:01:38]>> Thank you, Mr. Vice President. You were just saying that um you're hoping this deal would prevent Iran in the future from getting a nuclear weapon. But from what's been put out there of theou um I'm I'm curious how does the MOU reflect that in the future Iran will not in fact get a nuclear weapon. What's stopping them from down the road to your point rebuilding and restarting from where we were pre the war?

[00:02:00]>> Well, number one, they would have to get a lot of money in order to rebuild the nuclear program. You're talking about billions and billions of nuclear infrastructure that the United States destroyed. In order for them to rebuild that program, they would have to get a lot of money. and we have them in an economic chokeold right now that we're not going to release until they fundamentally change their behavior.

[00:02:17]Yeah. So, I talked to James Brad, our head of OA. We do plan to brief Congress very soon. I believe that they got the formal copy of the signed document this morning and if not, they're going to get it some point later today. Uh we are planning a briefing. I believe right now the House is out of session, the Senate is in session, though maybe I've reversed that. But we're we're going to ensure that the team briefs Congress and of course answers their questions. We've been doing that informally, of course, talking to a number of of people in Congress just over the last week. We'll keep on doing that and we'll have a formal briefing. I won't say exactly when that will be because it depends a little bit about session schedule. Uh your point about the sanctions is is I'll go back to what I said earlier, which is really the choke point on Iranian oil was never the sanctions. We didn't see that as a major concession to the Iranians. Frankly, the Iranians didn't see that as a concession to them because the what prevented them from selling oil was not the sanctions. They were selling plenty of oil without any discount because the sanctions were just fundamentally ineffective at that point.

[00:03:13]What the sanctions did do is move the Iranian financial system to sort of the shadow banking system. So by lifting the blockade, that's the significant thing that has changed. And by lifting the sanctions, we're actually going to be able to see a little bit where their financial system actually sends money and receives money. That's a real benefit to the American people. And that's really the only thing that is changed by the the change in sanctions.

[00:03:35]Oh, sorry, sorry. Yeah, sorry. I forgot that part of the question. No, we don't think so. We actually have an opinion from OLC. We feel quite confident about that. You know, Congress does there are certain things that require congressional approval. There are certain things that don't require congressional approval. We feel quite confident that we can temporarily lift those sanctions without going to Congress and seeking their approval on that.

[00:03:55]>> Look, the president has been very clear.

[00:03:56]He he does not withdraw from Israel. No one could withdraw from another country the right of self-defense. Israel has the right to defend itself. But fundamentally the the Israelis just like everybody else have to respect this peace process that is fundamentally good for them and good for the entire region.

[00:04:13]What the president has grown frustrated sometimes is that we seem to be right on the cusp of a major breakthrough in the agreement and then all of a sudden there's a major explosion that goes off in a civilian population center in Beirut and a lot of people who have nothing to do with Hezbollah lose their lives. That's not acceptable. That's the sort of thing that we've asked for closer coordination so that we ensure it doesn't happen. You asked about you asked about Switzerland. Our our plan is to go to Switzerland. I don't know exactly when. The way that we're setting up this technical negotiation is that obviously you you're going to have the political leadership involved. Excuse me. We're going to have people on the ground actually driving the technical talks, the nuclear talks, how do you destroy this highlyenriched uranium, all that stuff uh that you really just have to get into the nitty nitty-gritty on.

[00:04:56]So, you know, I plan to go to Switzerland exactly when, you know, we thought we think these technical negotiations are going to start sometime this weekend. That's still the plan, but that could change because it's not an easy country, Iran, to get out of, and so we're trying to figure out exactly when that's going to happen. I I I I suspect this weekend, but I'm not sure what you mean.

[00:05:16]>> Yeah. So, I'm certainly planning to lead uh the US negotiating team. But on the first question, you know, you talked about an intelligence report that was anonymously leaked to a reporter that was not with context and that frankly is not accurate. What has changed about Iranians about the Iranian ballistics missile program is it matters much less the number of missiles they have, the number of bullets. What matters much more is the number of launchers they have and importantly the teams on the ground that have the capacity to launch those missiles. their ability to launch missiles has been substantially degraded. Is it zero? No. But it's substantially degraded and in that sense we haven't abandoned the mission. We've accomplished that particular part of the mission. If you Okay. So, so the draw down contemplated again this is the final deal. This is assuming that the Iranians comply that they give us verification that they take real substantial conduct towards this peace agreement. What we're saying is that we will withdraw troops to the preconlict level. meaning we're not going to keep a couple of extra aircraft carrier groups over there. The Iranians don't want that. Frankly, we don't want that either.

[00:06:22]>> Yeah. Well, I don't want to get into hypotheticals that could torpedo the deal because I think the president's expectation is that all of our friends, the Israelis, the Arabs in the region, we're going to work together and actually see this deal to completion.

[00:06:34]Now, I saw the Axios report uh you know that that that Netanyahu is fuming.

[00:06:40]That's not reflective of the conversations that I've had with him, but maybe he's saying something to somebody else that he's not saying to me. What I will say, and this does bother me, is that you have seen people within BB's cabinet who have come out and attacked the deal and in some ways very personally attacked the president of the United States. And I guess my message to them would be twofold. Number one, Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time. And he happens to be the head of state of the world's superpower. If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.

[00:07:23]And the second message I would give to some of those cabinet members, BB to his credit has not gone down this path, but to some of these cabinet members in Israel who are attacking the president of the United States. The other thing that I would say is that over the last 3 months, twothirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars. The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump. And anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in. Thank you all.