Catholic fury towards Vice President JD Vance reached a new peak on 7 April 2026 after he warned that the United States has 'tools in our toolkit that we so far haven't decided to use' against Iran, a statement that triggered immediate speculation about nuclear weapons and renewed public demands for the Vatican to expel him from the Church.
Vance made the remarks at a joint press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Budapest, hours after President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that 'a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again,' a threat framed around Trump's 12-hour deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face strikes on power plants and bridges.
