Watch: Man whose wife died in Iran strike confronts Vance on "fundamental failures"

Channel: CBS News

Transcript

Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)

[0:00] Vice President Advance, gas prices are

[0:01] one cost of this war. They're also human

[0:03] costs as well. And with us in the

[0:05] audience tonight is Joey Amore, whose

[0:07] wife, a US soldier, Master Sergeant

[0:10] Nicole Amore, was killed in March in an

[0:12] Iranian air strike. Uh Joey,

[0:15] >> the floor is yours. God bless you, Joey,

[0:17] and thank you for your service.

[0:18] >> Thank you, sir.

[0:18] >> And her.

[0:20] >> Mr. Vice President, my wife, Master

[0:22] Sergeant Nico, gave her life on March

[0:23] 1st, 2026.

[0:26] I am damn proud of my wife, as you

[0:29] should be. and the five soldiers that

[0:30] stood next to her had died along with

[0:32] alongside with her. Um,

[0:38] excuse me.

[0:39] >> Take your time, man. Take your time.

[0:41] >> They raised their right hand and they

[0:43] gave an oath. They understood what they

[0:45] were doing. They understood the

[0:47] sacrifice that they were potentially

[0:48] giving.

[0:50] You understand that oath?

[0:53] I understand that oath.

[0:55] There are now six families living in

[0:57] nightmare.

[0:59] That is

[1:02] it is it is a hard price to pay

[1:08] though the Iranian drone was the weapon

[1:10] that killed my wife. There were a lot of

[1:13] mistakes and a lot of fundamental

[1:15] failures that led up to that. Um I

[1:18] believe CBS has reported on that. My

[1:21] wife has told me things before she

[1:23] passed. There are other soldiers that

[1:25] know things that are being quiet about

[1:28] certain aspects of this.

[1:31] There's a failure in the leadership and

[1:33] I want to know how this administration

[1:36] is going to start holding those leaders

[1:39] accountable for the actions and the

[1:41] deaths of the soldiers that we that we

[1:44] honor and that we love.

[1:47] So Joey, first of all, look,

[1:51] I owe and the whole country owes your

[1:54] family a debt of gratitude that is quite

[1:56] literally impossible to repay. I won't

[1:58] pretend that anything that I say is

[2:00] going to make it better or easier, but I

[2:03] hope it helps a little bit to know that

[2:06] your wife was a precious human being who

[2:09] served her country honorably, and I'm

[2:11] never going to forget about her. And I'm

[2:12] never going to forget this conversation

[2:14] and I want to continue this conversation

[2:16] offline because that raises the second

[2:18] point when you talk about failures that

[2:22] were that we were implicated. The

[2:24] administration, the Department of War,

[2:26] whoever you want to say was implicated

[2:28] in, I want to know about that stuff

[2:30] because if there were failures and I

[2:32] don't doubt there were, I just this

[2:34] literally the first time I've heard of

[2:35] this is this conversation and I want to

[2:38] fix that stuff. I do not want this stuff

[2:40] to happen. I I will say, Joey, we have

[2:43] tried to learn because warfare has

[2:45] changed. Drones are cheap. They're very

[2:48] deadly. They're easy to to to to

[2:50] manufacture. And we have changed a lot

[2:53] of our tactics to try to suppress that

[2:55] drone fire, to try to protect our

[2:57] troops, to make it so that more people

[2:59] don't have to pay the ultimate

[3:00] sacrifice. But I I I want to understand

[3:04] what we can do better and what those

[3:06] soldiers are seeing because the part of

[3:08] the problem with this job, this job is

[3:09] an amazing honor, but you live in a bit

[3:10] of a bubble and sometimes information

[3:12] doesn't filter filter up to me. This is

[3:15] an opportunity for it to filter right

[3:16] directly to me. And I promise you, I

[3:19] will take every single failure extremely

[3:21] seriously and we'll work on it. And I

[3:24] promise you that one of the ways that

[3:26] I'm going to show gratitude to your wife

[3:28] is by taking this seriously and trying

[3:30] to figure out what exactly happened and

[3:31] what exactly we can do better. Now, it

[3:34] may be that some of the things that

[3:35] you're talking about are things where

[3:37] our tactics have already improved. I

[3:39] know that there's some issues with, for

[3:40] example, just to get into the

[3:41] nitty-gritty a little bit, there were

[3:43] issues with how where troops were

[3:46] located that we realized was a huge

[3:48] mistake and that we could do better on

[3:50] and we have changed that. Now, I'm not

[3:52] not going to get get into the details

[3:53] because God forbid I don't want the

[3:54] Iranians to learn something else where

[3:56] they're going to use to target somebody

[3:57] else's wife or somebody else's mother,

[3:59] but man, I I promise you this is not

[4:02] something I'm going to forget. And I

[4:05] want to talk to those soldiers and I

[4:06] want to and I want to talk to you to

[4:07] better understand what we can do.

[4:09] >> It sounds like he's resolved to look

[4:12] into this for you. Does his answer

[4:14] satisfy you for the purpose of this

[4:16] conversation? and you'll continue it

[4:17] offline or do you

[4:20] >> and you guys you're going to continue

[4:21] talking?

[4:22] >> I promise you I'll work on it.

[4:24] >> Okay.