‘Countries Don’t Give Up the Right of Self-Defense’: JD Vance Confronted Over Trump’s Ballistic Missile Flip-Flop

Vice President JD Vance was confronted on President Donald Trump’s “shift” on the question of whether Iran should possess ballistic missiles amid a new deal.

Vance held a White House press conference on Thursday, where he answered questions about the current memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the United States and Iran. The 14-point agreement includes a ceasefire, the reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the lifting of sanctions, and a framework for a reconstruction fund for Iran.

The deal has received bipartisan backlash with even some vocal supporters of the president arguing it benefits Iran too much. Trump and Vance have both insisted the current deal will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and said if the country sponsored terrorist networks after the deal then the U.S. will go back to striking them.

Vance was asked during Thursday’s press conference about Trump saying this week that Iran should be able to have ballistic missiles.

“I’m saying that ⁠if other countries have ​them, it’s a little bit ​unfair for them not to have some,” mused Trump.

Vance was asked to explain the “shift” as Trump said on the first day of the war that “we’re going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground.”

According to Vance, Iran will not be allowed to “build the kind of missiles that can broadly threaten the world.”

The vice president said:

We destroyed a substantial number of their ballistic missiles and their 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, 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. And that’s what the president of the United States said yesterday. And look, I mean, it’s very simple. You can’t tell a country, whether Israel or Iran, they’re not allowed to have any self defense. That’s not what the president has asked.

He added that Iran will not be allowed to be “funding regional terrorism” and “instability.”

Vance said:

As part of final deal what we want to see is Iran not funding regional instability funding regional terrorism, and of course try to rebuild their nuclear weapons program. That’s the main thing. The nuclear weapons program is destroyed. It is gone. If the Iranians decided tomorrow to build a nuclear weapon, they simply don’t have the capacity in order to do that. What we’re trying to ensure is they don’t rebuild that capacity, not just a year from now, two years from now, but many, many years from now, so that our children never have to worry about a state sponsor of terrorism having a nuclear weapon.

Watch above via Fox News.

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