Vice President JD Vance backed President Donald Trump’s online response to Iranian “trash talk” as the United States participates in peace negotiations in Lucerne, Switzerland.
As U.S. negotiators, led by Vance, participated in the Swiss peace talks with the Iranian delegation through Pakistani and Qatari intermediaries over the weekend, Trump kept up his Truth Social postings. Trump blasted the Iranian regime, declaring Iran “FINISHED” on Friday and saying on Sunday that the U.S. would “hit Iran very hard again” if its proxies didn’t stop “causing trouble” in Lebanon. Vance defended Trump’s rhetoric as a response to Iranian “trash talk,” after the Iranians threatened to walk out on negotiations.
“They did threaten to walk out, or at least there were social media threats that they would walk out, but we were negotiating well past one in the morning yesterday, so they didn’t walk out,” Vance said of Iranian negotiators on Monday morning. “And their technical team is still here in Burgenstock working with our technical team, actually, as we speak.”
Vance said that despite the “little bit of threatening” and “little bit of whining,” the negotiations this weekend still “made great progress.”
“Look, what we told the Iranians yesterday is: When you guys engage in what us millennials might call ‘trash talk,’ you can’t expect the president of the United States not to respond and not to correct the record,” Vance said. “So, when they say things that aren’t true, the president is going to respond to it. I’m going to respond to it. Americans are going to respond to it. When they make threats that aren’t rooted in reality, they have to accept that the president of the United States is actually going to set the record straight.”
As Trump sounded off on social media with several warnings to keep the Iranians in line, Vance was gathered with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and special envoy Steve Witkoff in Switzerland, agreeing to a “roadmap” for a final peace deal with the various parties involved in the peace talks through an oversight committee.
“The High Level Committee has agreed upon a roadmap towards reaching a final deal within 60 days, laying the foundation for the immediate commencement of further technical talks,” Qatari and Pakistani negotiators said in a joint statement Sunday evening.
Vance projected confidence in the negotiations, saying the parties made progress in creating a way to maintain the free flow of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. He also said the negotiators spoke about creating a process for the countries to de-escalate if there are breakout shootings during the ceasefire, which have often occurred throughout the tedious over 70-day ceasefire.
VANCE’S ISRAEL-IRAN EQUIVALENCE IS SURRENDER DRESSED AS REALISM
The vice president said he was “most excited” to announce that the Iranians agreed to let International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear inspectors back within their borders, saying he expected to speak with the inspectors as soon as Monday.
“That is a major milestone for the American people and the first step in permanently denuclearizing or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran, and that’s exactly what we wanted to do,” Vance said.