‘I wouldn’t call it a war’: JD Vance’s jaw-dropper after reporter asks about Iran timeline

‘I wouldn’t call it a war’: JD Vance’s jaw-dropper after reporter asks about Iran timeline Vice President downplays nature of conflict that has no end in sight after more than six months - Bookmark - CommentsGo to comments More than six months after President Donald Trump announced the start of a war against Iran that has claimed the lives of 18 service members, injured at last 750 more, and cost between $71 billion and $118 billion, Vice President JD Vance now says the war is not a war at all. The vice president was taking a turn at the lectern in the James Brady Briefing Room on Thursday — the first White House press briefing since former press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s departure — when he was asked to offer a timeline as to when the Trump administration would consider the war to be over and whether that point would be reached before the November midterm elections. Vance replied that he “wouldn’t call it a war” and claimed there was “no active shooting” between American and Iranian forces happening while downplaying the exchanges of fire that have taken place as points where hostilities have merely “flared up.” “Major combat operations lasted for about six weeks, and since we destroyed ... their nuclear facilities with Midnight Hammer ... with Epic Fury, we destroyed their defense industrial base for producing weapons, and also a lot of their conventional military. And then we made it harder for them to rebuild that nuclear program,” Vance said. He then complained that the question was akin to asking him when Iranian forces would “stop shooting at ships.” “You would have to ask the Iranians when will the Iranians shooting at ships [and] stop having an effect on world energy markets,” he said. “We're going to do is not depend on the Iranians behaving responsibly or negotiating in good faith — what we're going to do is use the tools that we have at our disposal to ensure that the American people one never have to deal with the threat of an Iranian nuclear program, and ... that world energy markets are properly supplied.” When pressed on whether his response meant it was solely the responsibility of Tehran to determine when the war the U.S. started would end, he said Washington has “a responsibility” to respond to attacks on commercial shipping traffic because the U.S. is the sole country with the “capability to ensure that the Iranians are not destroying world energy markets.” “What I would say is it would be irresponsible for us to write out our strategy and our timeline for an Iranian nation that simply cannot honor its commitments and cannot stop shooting at commercial ships,” he added. More follows... Join our commenting forum Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Comments [Image text:] +** *** UNIT VICE ISE