Vice President JD Vance went to bat in defending President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran during a Fox News interview Monday night, despite reports that he voiced reservations behind closed doors in the days leading up to the attack.

In an interview with host Jesse Watters, Vance said the strikes were aimed at the “clearly defined” objective of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

“There’s a lot of chatter about what our objective is, what our goal is. The president’s been extremely clear about our objectives and it’s Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. But there’s been conversation about what are our capabilities? Look, I know this stuff. 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 but also on various missiles that threaten our troop, as you’ve seen they’ve been launching those at our troops for much of the past three days.

…[Trump] is not going to rest until he accomplishes that all important objective of ensuring Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. Not just for the next few years, not just because we obliterated Fordow [Uranium Enrichment Plant] or some other enrichment facility, but because the Iranians themselves commit long-term to not building a nuclear weapon.”

He went on to insist: “There’s no way Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multi-year conflict with no clear end in sight.”

Vance’s public defense comes after sources told The New York Times, confirmed by CBS News, that Vance argued in a White House Situation Room meeting that if the administration was going to strike Iran, it should “go big and go fast,” warning that a limited strike would be a mistake. The meeting reportedly took place on February 18.

At the same time, Vance is said to have “expressed reservations” about military action more broadly in the run-up to Saturday’s strikes, according to The Atlantic, which reported that his concerns were echoed by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine and senior Pentagon official Elbridge Colby.

Vance, who rose within the MAGA movement as a leading voice of its anti-interventionist wing, has repeatedly criticized “forever wars” and cited Trump’s campaign promise not to start keep the U.S. out of conflicts as a key reason for his support in a 2023 Wall Street Journal op-ed.

The vice president’s Fox News interview came as commentators fixated on his public silence since the Iran operation began at the weekend, which alone, according to Politico, had irked some of his most ardent and longtime supporters.

Watch above Fox News.

The post JD Vance Goes to Bat for Trump’s Iran Strikes On Fox, Despite Reported Private Criticism — Insists US Will ‘Not Get Into a Multi-Year Conflict’ first appeared on Mediaite.