And joining me now this morning with more on the president's peace deal is Vice President JD Vance. Mr. Vice President, congratulations to you, President Trump and the administration for this incredible deal.
Thank you, Maria. It's a great morning. It's a big deal for the country and just a great credit to the president and the entire team. So we're very excited about it. And look, knock on wood, but these hostages should be at home in the next 24 hours.
Well, that's what I wanna ask you, because we are expecting the hostages to begin to get released today. When specifically would you expect that release to begin?
You know, it, it's hard to say, Maria, because obviously this is a war zone. They have to locate the hostages, they have to gather them up, they have to take them to a safe place, and then transport them so it's a little bit unpredictable. But we've been told to expect them by tomorrow, uh, I -- I -- Israel time, which, of course, would be early morning here in the United States.
We'll see what happens. But the president is extremely confident these hostages are gonna come home. He's actually flying to the Middle East later today so that he can welcome them in person. And, Maria, one thing I have to say about the president's leadership style, about his diplomatic style, which, of course, has been criticized by much of the corporate media for a very long time, is it actually got results.
And I think this story of how this historic peace deal came to fruition is that you had Secretary Rubio, you had Jared Kushner, you had Steve Witkoff, who were empowered by the President of the United States in very nonconventional ways to bring the Gulf Arab States and Israel to the table, and really force them together to hammer out a peace deal.
I, I, I take a special pride in Steve Witkoff, who was attacked mercilessly by the press. You know, oh, he wasn't experienced, he wasn't a, a well-heeled diplomatic negotiator. Well, the fact that he brought a fresh set of eyes to this, and the fact that he brought such great energy to it, I think is one of the reasons why we are at this moment where we can say we're on the cusp of a lasting peace.
And the fact that President Trump didn't go down the failed pathway that every president of both parties had pursued is, again, why we are on the cusp of getting these hostages home. So it's an amazing thing, but I think that it shows the power of President Trump's nonconventional leadership style, and that's why we're here.
I think the whole country, we should just be proud. We should be proud of this negotiating team. We should be proud of our country because these hostages are going to live their lives, thanks to what the United States of America did.
Yeah. And we're hearing that mostly on both sides of the aisle, actually. Uh, mostly. [Laughs] But, but let me get your take on what Hamas reportedly told Israel and the mediators that they can't locate the deceased bodies. They're not sure. How will we locate those who are deceased, that they can't find the bodies?
What, what is the effort there?
Well, I think we'll locate most of them. And obviously, I think especially for religious Jews, it really matters that they have those bodies back to give them a proper religious burial. So that matters a lot, of course, to us, of course, to everybody who cares about these hostages. I think the reality is that some of the hostages we may never get back.
But I do think that most of them, with some effort, we'll be able to give them to their families so they, they at least have some closure. Our focus has been on the living hostages. Those are the people that we've been most focused on. But we do wanna give these people the ability to have a proper burial with their loved ones, who were murdered by brutal terrorists.
And that matters to us. It matters to the families, and it will remain a focus, but it's gonna take some time. And, and, and, Maria, here's what, here's a guess. Uh, I can't say this with certainty because nobody can predict the future. I think that we will eventually get most of the bodies, but we won't get all of them.
I see. What are America's commitments post this war, Vice President Vance? I know that in the past, President Trump has talked a lot about developing the Gaza Strip. W- -- What are the commitments in place right now as far as America and the Gaza Strip?
Well, the only major commitment that we've made is that we're gonna monitor this peace. And we're sort of the, the, the, we're the one party, the President of the United States in particular, is the one person that everybody really trusts. And so the Gulf Arab States and the Israelis, they need a sort of, you know, an independent mediator to say whether the terms of the ceasefire are holding, to ensure that both, uh, the, the, the, the, the people in Gaza, but also the Israelis are actually living up to the terms of the deal.
We're confident that's gonna happen, but it's gonna require some monitoring. I've seen some reporting, Maria, that suggests that you're gonna have American boots on the ground in Gaza. That is not true. That is not the President's intention. What we are is gonna use the troops that we already have at Central command, and we've had these troops for many, many years.
They're gonna make sure that everybody's actually keeping up their terms of the deal. Meanwhile, and this is another great diplomatic breakthrough, Maria, is you've got Muslim-majority nations from all over the world, both the Arab nations but also in Southeast Asia, like Indonesia, they're offering to put troops on the ground to ensure that Gaza is properly policed, that there's pub -- public safety, and of course, the Gulf Arab states.
It's a beautiful part of the world. They wanna rebuild Gaza so that everybody who lives there can have a safe and prosperous life. We're not there yet, but that's the sort of thing that peace unlocks is that incredible prosperity that comes along with a real durable and lasting peace deal.
So, so beyond that, there's no further economic commitment from America to the region?
Well, well, I, I think that we're gonna work with our Gulf Arab states. Most of the money is gonna come from our Gulf Arab friends, and I'm sure some will come from the Israelis. This is actually not gonna require many resources from the United States of America. What it will require is our constant supervision and --
Yeah.
-- our diplomatic engagement. That's what we're bringing to the table. But the resources are mainly gonna come from the Gulf Arab states.
What, what is, what is the function of this Qatar facility? People are wondering, is this an air base? What is Qatar going to be developing i -- i -- in Idaho?
Yeah, I, I saw some reporting about this, Maria. I actually talked to the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth this morning. Uh, this is b- -- largely a fake story. We continue to have -- with countries that we work with, we have relationships where, you know, sometimes their pilots work on our, on our bases, sometimes that we train together.
Sometimes we work together in other ways. The reporting that somehow there's going to be a Qatari base on United States soil, that's just not true. Uh, we are continuing to work with a number of our Arab s- -- our, our, our Arab friends to ensure that we are able to enforce this peace. But we're not gonna let a foreign country have an actual base on American soil, so there was a bit of misreporting on that, as there often is, as you know, Maria.
Mm, Vice President, let me get your take on the government shutdown. The president said that, uh, the military will get paid despite this shutdown. The next pay period is October 15th, and we were expecting that the military would miss that paycheck. What are the plans?
Well, the plan is that, when you're in a shutdown, and we're in this shutdown, of course, because Schumer and the Democrats shut down the government because they were trying to force us to give healthcare benefits to illegal aliens, and now that we're in this shutdown, we're trying to figure out how to ensure that as many Americans receive essential services as possible.
We're doing a lot to ensure that, that low-income women and children get their, their food benefits. We're trying to make sure that flood insurance and other insurance programs don't, don't disappear during the height of hurricane season. But we're also, Maria, doing some pretty, uh, nonconventional things, as President Trump often does, to ensure that our troops are able to get paid.
We are confident we've identified the legal pathways in order to do this, but it's really important for the president of the United States, even though Schumer shut down the government, he doesn't want our troops to suffer because of it. Of course, he doesn't want our national security to suffer because of it either.
But wouldn't it be great, Maria, the last point I'll make on this, wouldn't it be great if the Democrats just opened up the government so that we did not have to make these very difficult decisions? You hear a lot of Senate Democrats say, "Well, how can Donald Trump possibly lay off all of these federal workers?" Well, the Democrats have given us a choice between giving low-income women their food benefits and paying our troops, on the one hand, and on the other hand, paying federal bureaucrats.
Well, given that choice, we're gonna choose low-income women. We're gonna choose our troops. That is the choice the Democrats have, have given us. I would really appreciate if they gave us a different choice. The country would be better off for it.
Well, where will the money come from then for the troops? Is it --
Well, some of it --
-- tariff revenue?
-- will come from just tightening the belts. Some of it will come from tightening the belts in other areas. But, Maria, this is exactly right. A lot of this will come from incoming revenues to the Internal Revenue Service, uh, tariff revenue, but also income tax revenue, that is gonna make it possible for us to pay our troops.
And this is another reason why President Trump's decisive action on tariffs is one of the reasons why we have the money in the Treasury to actually be able to pay our troops. So it is, it is one of the critical things that we've done, of course, to reshore America's industrial base to create good jobs in the United States of America.
But the tariffs have also given us a little bit of financial flexibility so that we can keep on as many essential services as possible, including, most importantly, paying the troops.
And, and the president said that he's gonna use this opportunity to cut down government. Can you, uh, uh, uh, assess how significant these job cuts will be?
Well, the longer it goes on, Maria, the more significant they're gonna be. Uh, if you remember, we went nine days before announcing any significant layoffs. Again, the President of the United States wanted to reopen the government. He was trying to work with Democrats in order to make that happen. But the longer this goes on, the deeper the cuts are going to be. And, and Maria, to be clear, some of these cuts are going to be painful.
This is not, uh, a situation that we relish. This is not something that we're looking forward to, but the Democrats have dealt us a pretty difficult set of cards. We're trying to do the best that we can with the shutdown situation that Chuck Schumer has left us.
Le- -- let -- let me witch gears to ask you about China, because the market reacted to, uh, China, uh, tightening the export control of rare earth minerals and then President Trump responded, uh, with a new threat of a much higher tariff of 100%. What is the plan to take on communist China?
Well, I talked to the President about this yesterday and this morning, Maria. Look, we, we, he actually appreciates the friendship that he's developed with Xi. They have a good relationship, but I think all of us were really shocked by this action from the communist Chinese, uh, government. They basically, not just with the United States, but with the entire world threatened to completely cut off trade for critical resources, critical minerals, things that all of us re- -- rely on. And what the United States has is we have a lot of leverage, Maria, and my hope, and I know the president's hope, is that we don't have to use that leverage.
We actually wanna rebuild more of our own industrial base. But we also think that we can have a positive relationship with the People's Republic of China, but not if the Chinese go down this pathway of cutting off the entire world from access to some of the goods that they produce.
Yeah, ha- --
And Maria, this --
Yeah.
-- really highlights why the President, it was so important that he declared a national emergency and implemented these tariffs in the first place. The fact that the People's Republic of China, the fact that they have so much control over critical supply in the United States of America, that is the definition of a national emergency.
The president has taken very decisive action to correct that problem over the last eight months. But unless we have access to this tariff authority, it's gonna be very hard to negotiate with China. And it's gonna be very hard for us to reshore some of these critical supplies and goods that we absolutely need for our own economy.
Yeah. And I'm asking myself, why are we in this position? Why are we so reliant on China for all of these things? Why haven't past presidents considered increasing the supply chains in America the way President Trump has done? And you know, you do have economic leverage. You've got lots of Chinese companies traded on US exchanges right now.
Many of those are tied to the Chinese military. Would you support yanking those companies off of our US exchanges? America's exchanges are the deepest, most liquid capital markets in the world.
So Maria, the President is open to everything and he is gonna pursue, obviously, America's interest decisively. But, but you asked the critical question at the beginning, why have we gotten in this position to begin with? And the answer is because a generation of bipartisan leadership allowed the critical things that we need to get offshore.
These rare earth minerals, the magnets. Our computer chips were actually invented, silicon chips were invented in the United States of America. Now, Taiwan, just off the coast of China, makes nearly 100% of the computer chips in the world economy. We were put in this position by failed leadership. It is a national emergency and the President is doing everything that he can to get us out of this mess.
It's not gonna happen in eight months. It's gonna happen in some cases through negotiation and some cases through bringing some of this critical supply back to the United States of America. But the President is committing to protecting America's economic livelihoods, but also making us more self-sufficient.
And we've gotta do both of those things at the same time. I'll be honest with you, Maria, it's gonna be a delicate dance and a lot of it is gonna depend on how the Chinese respond.
Mm-hmm.
If they respond in a highly aggressive manner, I guarantee you the President of the United States has far more cards than the, than the People's Republic of China. If however, they're willing to be reasonable, then Donald Trump is always to be -- Is always willing to be a reasonable negotiator. We're gonna find out a lot in the weeks to come about whether China wants to start a trade war with us or whether they actually want to be reasonable.
I hope they choose the path of reason. The President of the United States is gonna defend America regardless.
All right, Mr. Vice President, thanks very much for taking all of that on. We appreciate it. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Maria. Take care.
Vice President, JD Vance, thank you.