On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” Vice President JD Vance said that even if we don’t make a final deal with Iran on their nuclear program, “the program is functionally destroyed. We’re just talking about, can we set them back even further through these negotiations.”
Vance said, “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 responded, “But their program isn’t destroyed, the nuclear program isn’t destroyed.”
Vance then cut in to ask Maher, “What part is not destroyed?”
Maher responded, “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 countered, “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 cut in to ask how we know that, Vance answered, “Well, because you need functioning centrifuges that can actually spin.”
Maher then cut in to ask, “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 responded, “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.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett