Vice President JD Vance said at the White House on Wednesday that Iran must not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon, repeating what he called the administration’s “red line” as he took questions from journalists in place of Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is still on maternity leave.
Vance also said he had seen reports that Russia might take possession of Iran’s enriched uranium, but said that was not part of the current plan from the U.S. government. He added that he was not going to make commitments on negotiations during the briefing, keeping the administration’s position deliberately narrow even as the subject remained one of the most closely watched in Washington.
The vice president used the session to sketch other parts of the Trump administration’s foreign policy message. He said the topic of fentanyl in the United States, and the role of China in that supply, came up during last week’s talks between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. In Vance’s telling, Xi is willing to work with the United States on the issue, and Trump has made “incredible strides” in reducing fentanyl deaths at home.
That choice of topics mattered because the White House is trying to show progress on several fronts at once: Iran, China, and the domestic opioid crisis. Vance’s remarks came while the administration was trying to project control over a shifting foreign-policy agenda, even as the day’s briefing was being handled by a vice president filling in for the press secretary.
The sharpest domestic exchange came when Vance was asked about the planned compensation fund for Jan. 6 defendants and others swept up in cases tied to the Trump era. He said the government would look at cases one by one and said he was not “trying to give money to anybody who attacked a police officer.” Instead, he said, the aim was to compensate people who were “mistreated by the legal system,” adding that if someone was “unfairly prosecuted” and “deserves just compensation,” the fund should cover them. He also said even Hunter Biden could apply.
The Justice Department has said $1.8bn would be used to compensate people it says were unfairly investigated by prior administrations. Four of the five members of the commission that will distribute the money will be appointed by the attorney general, a detail that is likely to fuel the criticism already coming from Democrats, who have described the proposal as a slush fund for Trump’s political allies. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche spoke on Capitol Hill earlier in the day, underscoring how closely the plan is being tied to the Justice Department’s public defense of it.
For now, Vance’s briefing showed a White House eager to defend a hard line on Iran, signal momentum on fentanyl talks with Beijing and press ahead with a politically charged compensation plan that is already drawing fire. The unanswered question is not whether the administration has a message; it is whether it can keep all three messages intact without one of them undercutting the others.
