At times, he said, “We seem to be right on the cusp of a major breakthrough in the agreement, and then all of a sudden there’s a major explosion that goes off in a major population center in Beirut, and a lot of people who have nothing to do with Hezbollah lose their lives, and that’s not acceptable.”

Vance said Trump has become frustrated with Israel for attacking Lebanon.

(June 18, 2026)

In response to those attacks, Vance pointed out that two-thirds of Israel’s defense weapons have been built and paid for by Americans and that the problem for Israel “is not Donald Trump.”

“Anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the President of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation in that country,” he added.

Vice President JD Vance on Thursday delivered an extraordinarily direct rebuke to Israeli critics of the U.S.-Iran peace agreement, as he sought to defend the preliminary deal with repeated misrepresentations of some of its terms.

“Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time,” Mr. Vance said. He added, “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.”