J.D. Vance

This is, by the way, Megan, one thing I would say about the Iranians.

that is just really weird to me, and I don't understand their system, and I frankly think that it makes diplomacy with them extraordinarily difficult, is the person who makes the decisions in Iran is the supreme leader.

The president, our sense is, doesn't have a lot of juice, doesn't really matter.

The foreign minister seems to talk to the supreme leader, and that's mainly the person that we've communicated with, but it's a very weird country

to conduct diplomacy with, when you can't even talk to the person who's in charge of the country, that makes all of this much more complicated.

And it makes the whole situation much more absurd.

Like, he can pick up the phone and call Putin.

He can pick up the phone and call Xi.

Even countries that we have very hostile relations with, he can pick up the phone, you know, North Korea.

He met the guy at the 38th parallel.

It is bizarre that we can't just talk to the actual leadership of a country.

It's really...

It makes diplomacy very, very difficult.

Nobody wants this.

No, it's not.

The president's view is we don't want to create an unnecessarily antagonistic relationship with China.

There are certainly some disagreements.

There are some things where our interests collide.

But

we can protect our intellectual property in the president's view without creating an unnecessary conflict with the Chinese.