Marco Rubio

What this is about is the destruction of their Air Force, which has been largely achieved, the destruction of their Navy, which has been largely achieved, the destruction of their factories that they make all these weapons with, which we're well on our way to achieving, and a substantial reduction in the number of missile launchers that they have so that they cannot continue to threaten their neighbors in the future.

All of those objectives are being met ahead, on or ahead of schedule, and should be able to achieve in a matter of weeks.

Well...

Well, I think the first point the president makes is he prefers diplomacy.

As I said, those efforts are nascent.

There is messages being relayed back and forth, some conversations going on, including through intermediaries.

And he always prefers that.

Look, if the Iranian regime had come forward at any point in the past and said, we're going to walk away from our nuclear ambitions, we're going to do nuclear energy the way every other country in the world primarily, almost every other country in the world does it, and that is through a peaceful means in which you bring in the fuel and it's supervised and so forth.

We're going to stop supporting terrorist groups across the region.

Look at this region.

Every single terrorist group in this region has a link to the Iranian regime.

Every single one.

The Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Shia militias that are attacking everyone out of Iraq.

Every single one of these groups and all the destabilization in this region tracks directly back to the Iranian regime.

Those things have to be addressed.

And if Iran had been willing to address those in the past, we wouldn't be having this interview on this topic right now.

Their refusal to do so and their continuing move towards one day acquiring a nuclear capability, these people are lunatics.

They are insane.

They are religious zealots who can never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon because they have an apocalyptic vision of the future.

And all of their neighbors know that, by the way, which is why all of their neighbors have been supportive of the efforts we're conducting.