WASHINGTON – U.S. Vice President JD Vance rebuked Israeli cabinet ministers critical of the emerging U.S.-Iran deal, saying they should not be “attacking the only powerful ally” Israel has left “in the entire world.”
Vance said he was “bothered” by members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet whom he accused of personally attacking President Donald Trump, calling Trump “the only head of state in the entire world that is sympathetic to the nation of Israel.”
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Vance said two-thirds of the defensive weapons supplied to Israel were built and paid for by “American tax dollars.”
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U.S. Vice President JD Vance holds a press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., Thursday. Credit: Eric Lee/Reuters
U.S. Vice President JD Vance holds a press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., Thursday. Credit: Eric Lee/Reuters
“Anyone in Israel that thinks their biggest problem is the president needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in,” Vance said. The comment amounted to the most forceful on-record condemnation of the Israeli government by a senior U.S. official in recent memory.
According to the vice president, reports Netanyahu was “fuming” over the agreement were not reflective of the conversations the two had, but Vance added, “maybe he’s saying something to someone else that he’s not saying to me.”
Vance said Trump maintains Israel has a right to self-defense but noted Israel must respect the peace process. “It’s fundamentally good for them and for the entire region,” he said.
Earlier on Thursday, the vice president criticized Israeli far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir and other Israeli officials for their response to the emerging agreement with Iran in an interview with The New York Times.
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From right, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz in the Knesset plenum, 2025. Credit: Noam Moskowitz/Knesset
From right, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz in the Knesset plenum, 2025. Credit: Noam Moskowitz/Knesset
Marking the first time a senior Trump administration official criticized the Israeli ministers by name, Vance addressed Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, saying, “What is your exact proposal?” adding, “You can’t just kill your way out of … every national security problem.”
Vance said that, to his knowledge, Netanyahu has not criticized the deal himself because he is “a little bit more familiar with the details of what’s in it.”
Vance described the reaction among some Israeli officials as a “weird panic,” noting that they assume Iran will benefit from the deal without “changing any behavior.”
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“I just don’t know why anybody would think that’s true,” Vance said. “That’s not how the deal is written.”
The vice president added that negotiations with Iran should be allowed to play out. “Let us see if the Iranian actions actually meet the Iranian words,” he said, asking Israeli officials to give the U.S. credit for being “an incredible partner for the Israeli government for a long time.”
Click here to read the full text of the MoU, as read out by a U.S. official on Wednesday
Vance has been the face of the Trump administration’s Iran diplomacy in recent days, being both the lead negotiator and the public face of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding.
He has also expressed explicit consternation with Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stating that U.S. and Israeli interests may not always be consistent and that the prime minister has gotten things wrong. Netanyahu’s allies have subsequently centered their criticism of the deal on Vance.
According to the vice president, the United States still maintains financial leverage over Iran. “The president of the United States or the secretary of the Treasury has to release all these sanctions,” he told The Times. “Do they actually think we’re going to release sanctions on the Iranian system if they’re still funding a terrorist organization?”
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U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks to The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat in this screengrab from the “Interesting Times” podcast. Credit: The New York Times
U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks to The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat in this screengrab from the “Interesting Times” podcast. Credit: The New York Times
Vance told Douthat he found “this whole freakout in Israel a little bit odd because I think that it comes from a place of mistrust,” adding that the United States has earned the trust of countries in the region.
Addressing Israel, he said: “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.”
Iran has begun implementing parts of the deal, Vance told The Times. “The Strait of Hormuz is open immediately,” he said, noting that overnight into Wednesday was “the first night in over 100 days of conflict where the Iranians were not shooting at commercial traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.”
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The vice president said there are internal Iranian divisions as to when the deal becomes official, but noted the U.S. has observed “some coalescing with both the hard-liners and the pragmatists behind the idea” of a peace deal.
“There are very significant wins in the MOU itself, but the big wins are fundamentally conditional. Conditional on whether the Iranians actually transform the way that they behave vis-à-vis the region,” Vance told Douthat.
Asked if Iran has agreed to destroy its stockpile of enriched uranium, Vance said the deal includes a “minimum methodology for the destruction” of the material, but said it was not “a blood oath.”
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A screenshot from the IRNA website, showing Iranian President Pezeshkian holding a signed copy of the memorandum of understanding between Iran and the U.S. Credit: IRNA Screenshot
A screenshot from the IRNA website, showing Iranian President Pezeshkian holding a signed copy of the memorandum of understanding between Iran and the U.S. Credit: IRNA Screenshot
According to the vice president, the Iranian military was destroyed alongside the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. “They have no capacity right now to enrich uranium, to stockpile uranium. The facilities that they built have now been buried under rubble,” he said.
The economic benefits included in the agreement, Vance said, were conditioned on the Iranians “fundamentally [transforming] their country.”
The vice president also noted the war in Iran had changed the way the regime approached negotiations. “They’re talking to us in a way that I don’t think has happened diplomatically with the Iranian system in a very long time,” he said.
