June 15, 2026
WHEN: Today, Monday, June 15, 2026
WHERE: CNBC’s “Squawk Box”
Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC interview with U.S. Vice President JD Vance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” (M-F, 6AM-9AM ET) today, Monday, June 15. Following are links to video on CNBC.com: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/06/15/vice-president-jd-vance-expect-strait-of-hormuz-to-be-opened-in-a-toll-free-way-for-the-long-term.html and https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/06/15/vice-president-jd-vance-a-lot-of-iran-deal-details-to-figure-out-but-u-s-has-all-the-cards.html.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
BECKY QUICK: The United States and Iran reaching a peace deal with the agreement set to be signed on Friday. Joining us right now to talk more about it is Vice President JD Vance. And Mr. Vice President, thank you for being with us this morning. I think there's still a lot of confusion about what exactly is in this deal. Can you lay out the terms for us?
VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: First of all, good morning everybody. Thanks for having us. So, first of all, I think it's a great day for the American people, because what this deal does fundamentally is two things. It immediately reopens the Straits of Hormuz. We're already seeing in the past 24 hours more traffic flow, you see oil prices coming down, but you also have the long-term commitment that Iran will never develop or procure a nuclear weapon. Those are two very big wins for the American people. I think the important thing to understand is that the agreement is fundamentally built around a two-step verification process. We say to the Iranians, you are welcome to have access to an unsanctioned economy, you're welcome to be reinvited into the world economy, but only if you honor the commitments that you make in this agreement. So that's the leverage point, and simultaneously, the enforcement mechanism we have over their nuclear program. And if you step back, the last point that I'd make about this is that we have affirmatively and comprehensively destroyed their nuclear program from what we've done over the last year and a half in the Trump administration. What this agreement does is say to the Iranians that you don't have access to the money to rebuild that nuclear program, but if you're willing to give up that program long term, if you're willing to accept the inspections and verification regime that's necessary to give us the confidence, you're never going to have a nuclear weapon, then we want you to be a prosperous country, and we will reinvite you into the community of nations. And that's fundamentally the two-step process, the choice the Iranians have to make. Do they want access to the world economy? If so, they're going to have to give up the long-term nuclear ambition. If they don't want access to the world economy, and they don't give up that ambition, they're never going to have the resources to rebuild it from where it is today. So, it's a big win for the American people, and I think the Iranians fundamentally have a good choice here in front of them, whether to be a normal country or whether to be a country that continues to be – to pursue a nuclear weapon, which they now have no capacity to do.
QUICK: Okay, sir. Let me just make sure I understand this, though. This is 60 days that they will have to kind of discuss and debate the issues surrounding the nuclear question, but for now they are saying that they will reopen the Strait. The United States is saying it will take down its blockade at the same time. That there will be free passage, that no one will have to pay anything to go back and forth through this. The Iranians, I think, have suggested that this is just for the next 60 days. Do you get the sense that this is a more permanent situation where the Strait will be reopened even beyond that 60-day period?
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: Well, our expectation is that the Strait is going to be opened in a toll-free way for the long term, and that's the sort of thing that we're going to figure out in these technical negotiations. You know that there are a lot of very important details to figure out that we're actually going to sit at the table and discuss together and figure out a path forward on these details. For example, they've committed to destroy and dispose of their stockpile of highly enriched material, that's the highly enriched uranium that they accumulated over the Obama administration and over the Biden administration, and what we've said is, okay, let's talk about how exactly we're going to do that. They want access to an unsanctioned economy. We've talked about, okay, we're open to that, but that would require a long-term commitment to the inspection and verification regime that I just talked about. So, a lot of these details are going to be figured out during those 60-day talks. We feel quite confident that we're in a strong position here. Fundamentally, we have the leverage, we have the diplomatic, economic, and military leverage, but we also are extending an open hand to the Iranians and saying, if you guys negotiate in good faith and you make that long-term commitment not to develop nuclear weapons, then we are going to make sure that your country is successful. If, however, you refuse to meet us halfway, then we're going to continue to apply the pressure that we've seen build up economically, in particular, and that's going to be bad for them, and fundamentally it's going to be bad for the region. So we hope they make the right choice. We feel pretty confident about where we are, and we're just going to sit down and talk with them and see where they're willing to concede, where they're willing to make concessions, and make some progress from there.
QUICK: Who's going to be signing this agreement on Friday from the United States and from the Iranian side of things? Because there's been a lot of questions about who's in charge in Iran and whether – when we're talking to someone – whether they represent all of those parties.
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: Well, one of the interesting things about what's happened just over the last few months is that our relationship with Iran has fundamentally transformed. You hear the President talk about the fact that we're dealing with a totally different group of people. That's absolutely true. If you go back to the Obama administration, we never had the direct line – really, over the past 47 years – we've never had this level of direct connection, where the people at the highest levels of the United States government are talking to the people at the highest levels of the Iranian government. We expect the negotiating team from the Iranian side is going to be the Speaker of the House, Ghalibaf, and also the Foreign Minister Araghchi, along with a number of security officials and people who represent the different constituencies within their country, but we actually see – this is a very interesting thing about these negotiations, is you see people, both the hard liners, but also the more political people, saying our relationship with the United States over the past 47 years has been a mistake. Let's turn over a new leaf. We're of course going to verify that they actually mean it, but if they're willing to turn over a new leaf, the President of the United States has said we want them to be a successful country, and that's what we're aiming to negotiate towards.
BRIAN SULLIVAN: Mr. Vice President, it’s Brian Sullivan. Thank you again for coming on the program. I want to follow up with that, because I think it's incredibly important what you just said, that if Mohammad Ghalibaf, who is seen as a more hard liner, is at the table, that would be construed as an even better symbol, a better sign of where this negotiation may go. Would you agree with that, that getting somebody like a Mohammad Ghalibaf, the Speaker of the House, who is seen as more of a hard liner internally, would be viewed as the best possible outcome here, rather than one of the more moderates that might be seen as a little more pro-White House, and yet you still might have this division and factions inside of Iran?
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: Well, I think the best outcome is a good deal for the American people, which we have. Fundamentally, we're dealing with everybody in the Iranian system. You know, there's the IRGC, the sort of regime hard liners, the military side, there's the political leadership, and within the political leadership you have people who are more hard line and less hard line. We expect to have a full spectrum of representatives at the negotiation on Friday. Again, we've been talking to these people, sometimes indirectly, but sometimes directly, and that's what's fundamentally changed under the President's leadership. We are now speaking directly to the Iranian system. We have some good relationships there. So, this is going to be a successful negotiation, because we're not passing messages through various back channels anymore. We're actually talking to them. And when you talk to them, you figure out what's real, what's fake, what are they serious about, what are they not serious about. And the thing I would add to that is we fundamentally have all the cards here. We don't have to give the Iranians anything if they don't make the commitments that we want long term on the nuclear program, and even if we just stopped here, what would be true? Their military is destroyed, the Straits of Hormuz are open, their nuclear program has been destroyed, and we have incredible economic leverage over them that we didn't have a year and a half ago. So we've got a lot of leverage here, but we also have the President saying to them, we're extending an open hand. If you guys want to meet us, if you guys want to change your relationship with the United States, we will change our relationship with Iran. That's the offer, and we're going to have to see whether they meet us there.
QUICK: Mr. Vice President, what do you do about Israel? Both the right and the left in Israel has been not thrilled with this deal. They've called it a bad deal. Do you get them in line, and how do you handle them when it comes to Lebanon, because they're still there at the moment?
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: Well, first of all, I think there are elements within Israel that like the deal quite a bit, and I also think there's been some misreporting about the deal. One of the interesting things about the Iranian state media is that sometimes you'll have hard line elements really aiming at a domestic audience trying to sell the deal, and in some ways, honestly, misrepresent the deal, and then sometimes you'll see certain elements in the Israeli media pick that up and run with it. I think when people see this deal, we hope to release the text this week, they're going to realize that this is going to make the whole region safer. And this is another way in which this is a transformative agreement. If you go back to, for example, the Obama JCPOA. What did we see? The entire Gulf Coast Coalition hated that deal because they felt like it empowered Iran to be a bad actor. What is the Gulf Coast Coalition saying about President Trump's peace deal? That they love it because they see it as an opportunity to build and create a new Middle East, not just for the next few years, but for the next generation. So I think that new Middle East, certainly Israel, is going to have a seat at the table. We think this is going to be great for everybody in the region, but most importantly, we think it's going to be great for the American people, and that's what we're aiming to do.
QUICK: Vice President Vance, thank you very much for joining us this morning. We appreciate your time and the update on where things stand, and we'll be watching. Thank you.
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: We'll keep you updated. Talk soon.
QUICK: Okay. Thank you, sir.
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Stephanie Hirlemann
CNBC
