EXCLUSIVE: Amidst renewed American strikes on Iranian targets today and responses from the Islamic Republic, JD Vance kept to his schedule and showed up on Real Time with Bill Maher.

Set for a sit-down interview with Marl Twain Prize winner Maher, the Vice President rolled into CBS Television City at Melrose and Fairfax Friday afternoon to promote his recently released Communion book. The former Ohio Senator’s one-on-one chat with Maher is wide ranging, sources tell us.

However, as reports of Iranian retaliation and the latest fracturing of the fragile and decried peace deal resulted, Vance also became the voice of the administration on the flare-up Friday. “If they have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone,” Vance said on X before walking into Real Time. “But violence will be met with violence.”

There had been some talk of the Veep cancelling or postponing his filmed talk with Maher Friday as the situation in the Middle East (which he had gone to Switzerland a week ago to negotiate a road map of sorts to peace for) escalated again. However, tweets aside, it seems Vance was not required back in DC by Donald Trump today.

Trump himself hassaid nothing this evening about the clashes between the U.S. and Iran.

Now scheduled to stay out West until the 27th, Vance has been in the midst of a promotional tour for his best-selling effort about his 2019  conversion to Catholicism over the last week.

That tour has included expected guest spots on conservative outlets, as well as ABC’s The View. Vance’s appearance on the distinctly MAGA unfriendly ABC daytimer was the first for a Trump administration official this term, and the first time he has guested on the program. As well as Fox News appearances and more to pitch his latest book, the Hillbilly Elegy author also touched down at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda, CA on Thursday. Eyeing a 2028 POTUS run of his own, Vance discussed Communion and the merits and legacy of the man widely known as Tricky Dicky.

His appearance on Maher today was also particularly notable given Trump’s attacks on the comedian over the years.

Earlier this year, after an initially pleasant and then contentious Spring 2025 dinner between the two at the Executive Mansion, when news broke that the Trump-controlled Kennedy Center was planning to award the Mark Twain Prize to Maher, the White House denied it. Later A White House official said that the “situation changed” after further conversations between the center and event organizers.

The Mark Twain Prize will take place on Sunday and Maher will be receiving it, but the White House has not said whether the president will attend.

For tonight’s RealTime, the other guests besides Vance are Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Larry Wilmore.