Vance: U.S. Has ‘Much Greater Capacity’ To Take Out Iran Nuclear Program

Vice President JD Vance said Monday that the U.S. military has “much greater capacity” to destroy Iran’s nuclear program if necessary. 

Speaking with Fox News host Jesse Watters, Vance said that President Donald Trump would take every necessary action to ensure that Iran could not get a nuclear weapon. He said that the operation launched in June 2025 to take out multiple Iranian nuclear facilities damaged its ability to build nuclear weapons in the short term, but that the president wanted to block Iran’s capability for the long term. 

“We have a lot of capacity here,” Vance said. “Obviously, I’m not going to reveal classified information here on air, but the President of the United States knows what we’re able to do. He knows that we have much greater capacity to inflict damage on the Iranian nuclear program.”

“So I think the president has made it very clear that the United States has a lot of optionality here,” Vance added. 

Trump has estimated the operation could last four to five weeks, but has said it could continue longer to permanently eliminate Iran’s capacity to have a nuclear weapon. 

“We could go for a little bit longer, we could go for a lot longer, but I think the president just wants to make it clear to the Iranians and to the world that he is not going to rest until he accomplishes that all-important objective of ensuring that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon,” he said. 

Vance, a former Marine who fought in Iraq, has been critical of previous American interventions in the Middle East. Watters asked whether the conflict with Iran could turn into another Iraq or Afghanistan. 

“There’s just no way that Donald Trump is gonna allow this country to get into a multi-year conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective. 
What is different about President Trump, and it’s frankly different about both Republicans and Democrats of the past, is that he’s not going to let this country go to war unless there’s a clearly defined objective,” Vance said. “He’s defined that objective as Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and has to commit long-term to never trying to rebuild the nuclear capability.”