[00:00] Bret Baier: Let's talk about the Iran negotiations and maybe what went wrong in Islamabad. Joining us now, Vice President J. D. Vance. Mr. Vice President, thanks for the time.
[00:08] J. D. Vance: Thank you.
[00:10] Bret Baier: What happened, and where do we go from here?
[00:14] J. D. Vance: Well, first of all, Bret, I wouldn't just say that things went wrong. I also think things went right. We made a lot of progress, but we also made very clear—and I think this is part of the progress we made—what the terms where the United States could make some accommodation, what terms we were flexible on, and what things we absolutely needed to see in order for the President of the United States to feel like he was getting a good deal. And so, we laid those things out, we had some good conversations. I think it was the first time that you had ever seen the Iranian government, the US government meet at such a high level, maybe in the history of the current leadership of Iran. So that's I think a positive. And again, we did make some progress in the negotiation. The big question from here on out is whether the Iranians will have enough flexibility, whether the Iranians will accept the critical things that we need to see in order for things to get done.
[01:06] Bret Baier: Well, what are the red lines, like, for Iran, and what didn't they accept? Why are we at the place we're at now?
[01:12] J. D. Vance: Yeah, so back out just a little bit, Bret. What the President of the United States has said is number one, Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. So all of our red lines flow from that fundamental premise. Because it is one thing for the Iranians to say that they themselves are never going to have a nuclear weapon, they are willing to say that and that's good. But you have to of course verify these things. And there are two things in particular where the President of the United States really said we have no flexibility, we have to get to the outcome that the President set. On the first of those things: what some people call the dust, which is the enriched uranium that the Iranians currently possess, we have said that we want that to come out of their country and we would like to take possession of it. Now why does that matter? That doesn't matter, of course, because they have access to that material now. That material was actually buried underground by Operation Midnight Hammer. But if you think about this over the long haul, the President doesn't want to leave the next president or the president after that to be worrying about this program. And so we would like to get that material out of the country completely, so that the United States has control of it. That's number one. And the second thing is that, again, to this point about verification, it's one thing for the Iranians to say that they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. It's another thing for us to put in place the mechanism to ensure that's not going to happen. Part of that is of course to ensure that they don't have the ability to enrich uranium, which is how they got so close to a nuclear weapon before. So those are really the two things where frankly the Iranians I think did make some progress. They moved in our direction, which is why I think we would say that we had some good signs. But they didn't move far enough. And so what we decided is, you know what? Given that we don't think this current team and this current timeline is going to be able to make a deal, let them go back to Tehran, we're going to go back to Washington, and that's where we are today.
[03:02] Bret Baier: So is there a next step? Are there more talks coming? Do they happen in Pakistan and are you leading them?
