Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) tore into Vice President JD Vance on CNN after he refused to say the United States could account for Iranian nuclear material after the strike on the country's military installations over the weekend.
Vance generally deflected in a recent Fox News interview, saying that it was "not the question" when anchor Bret Baier asked him whether the United States had achieved its goals in the operation.
"So, Senator, he very clearly did not say that he knew where the uranium was, which would mean that, obviously, that would flow from there to not know how much there was or its state," said anchor Erin Burnett. "Do you think that we know what we need to know here?"
"Well, again, I mean, we'll know more in the Senate tomorrow. But yes, that looks like a deliberate dodge," said Murphy, who has previously sounded the alarm on the Trump administration's attacks on political dissent. "It does appear that the administration knows that it did not, in fact, eliminate all of — and maybe not even most of — their enriched uranium."
"Yes, if you have damaged some of their equipment that allows for you to continue to process and convert that uranium, there is a temporary benefit," Murphy continued. "But equipment is just equipment. It can be rebuilt. And what we have really done here is empower the Russians, because the Russians have always hinted at being more deeply allied with Iran, and perhaps a nuclear research component to that alliance."
What all that means, he added, is that "if Russia decided it was going to help Iran rebuild their nuclear program, we wouldn't be setting them back years. We would probably only be setting them back months, and at a moment when we really don't want to give Russia and Vladimir Putin any more leverage. We've handed them some pretty substantial leverage because the uranium is still there. Likely, all Iran needs is some new equipment. Russia's got plenty of that."
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