Vice President JD Vance argued that Tehran’s actions during negotiations indicated that it was aiming to acquire a nuclear weapon, causing the U.S. strike on the country.

In an interview on Fox News, Vance was asked why the United States chose now to strike Iran and what its assessments were about the country’s nuclear program, alluding to confusion over the Trump administration’s competing claims that Iran was seeking a nuclear weapon but that the U.S. also annihilated the program in Operation Midnight Hammer last summer. Vance argued that the U.S. did destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities but wanted to go further due to its view that Tehran was going to keep rebuilding them to obtain a nuclear weapon as soon as possible.