Vice President JD Vance joined New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat on his Interesting Times podcast this week to discuss his upcoming book, “Communion,” but ended up speaking primarily about the Trump administration’s deal with Iran.

Vance swiped at Israel during the conversation and said he didn’t understand the “freakout” in the Jewish state and warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “you can’t kill your way” out of conflict.

“In the best case, do you think that this deal changes how Hezbollah works?” Douthat asked Vance at one point.

“Oh, absolutely. I mean, there is this weird panic almost in the Israeli system that I’ve picked up on, where they assume that everything that is contemplated that is good for Iran will happen — but that will happen without the Iranians changing any behavior. And I just don’t know why anybody would think that’s true,” Vance replied, adding:

That’s not how the deal is written. The United States has all the financial leverage. The president of the United States or the secretary of the Treasury has to release all these sanctions. Do they actually think we’re going to release sanctions on the Iranian system if they’re still funding a terrorist organization?

The answer is: Of course not. So I find this whole freakout in Israel a little bit odd because I think that it comes from a place of mistrust, and I think that America has earned the trust of that region of the world. We’ve done a very good job by that particular country and that particular government, and I think that the idea that we’ve made a terrible deal is not supported by the facts, but just doesn’t make any sense if you consider the broad length of the relationship.

After some more back and forth, Douthat asked, “So I’m just curious: Do you think there’s a misalignment between the U.S. and Israel?”

“Do you think Israel has incentives not to want this deal to continue? And is there a vision for how you get to a point where Iranian support for Hezbollah isn’t sending rockets into Israel on the regular?” he added.

“What I’d say here is: It’s clear that large segments of the Israeli political system and population are very sensitive about this deal. But I also think they’re picking up on some misinformation about the deal and running with it and sort of panicking about it,” Vance replied, adding:

And I fundamentally believe this deal will be good for the entire region and for the world. That includes, of course, the Israelis. Now, I think it’s important to say that, while I do believe that, I do believe this deal will be good for the entire world, fundamentally, we’re worried about what’s in the best interest of the American people.

And the president has shown this. Where he sees misalignment between the goals of the political system in Israel and the goals of the American people, he’s willing to say that we’re going to pursue America’s interests where there are divergences. And so there are certainly going to be disagreements from time to time. I think that’s normal.

I will say, maybe I’ve missed this, but I don’t think Bibi himself has actually criticized the deal. Because I think he’s maybe a little bit more familiar with the details of what’s in it. But you’ve seen people in their system, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who’ve attacked the deal.

And I guess my response to them would be: What is your exact proposal? You’re a country of nine million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.

Look at what we’ve accomplished. First of all, Americans have protected a lot of Israeli lives through our missile systems and through our missile programs over the last few months.

We have destroyed their nuclear program. We have got the Iranians to a point where they’re offering things — again, whether they’ll actually act on them, we’ll see — that would have been the stuff of dreams even six months ago.
So let us play this negotiation out. Let us see if the Iranian actions actually meet the Iranian words, and give a little bit of credit to the United States of America, which I think has been an incredible partner for the Israeli government for a long time.

Watch the full interview above via the New York Times.

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