The White House denied Tuesday that remarks by Vice President JD Vance about military operations in Iran had contained any suggestion of a US nuclear strike against the Islamic republic.
After Vance said US forces have tools they "so far haven't decided to use" to enforce a dramatic ultimatum from President Donald Trump, the White House said on X: "Literally nothing @VP said here 'implies' this, you absolute buffoons." The post was in response to one from an account associated with former vice president Kamala Harris that said Vance implied Trump "might use nuclear weapons."
The context for the confusion stems from Vance’s comments to reporters in Hungary earlier Monday: “We’ve got tools in our toolkit that we so far haven’t decided to use. The president of the United States can decide to use them. And he will decide to use them if the Iranians don’t change their course of conduct.”
Combined with President Donald Trump’s Truth Social warning that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran does not comply, Vance’s remarks prompted speculation online that he could be alluding to nuclear weapons.
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