The Trump administration is facing heightened scrutiny from the media. But they aren’t taking any guff.
Now Marco Rubio shut down a reporter’s ridiculous question with two simple words.
Rubio Defends Strike: “They Have Everything They Need”
On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed concerns about whether the U.S. had concrete intelligence that Iran was actively developing a nuclear weapon before launching strikes, calling the question “irrelevant.”
Rubio argued that Iran’s existing capabilities alone justified President Trump’s military response to the regime.
“That’s irrelevant,” Rubio said on CBS’s Face the Nation when asked directly about Iran’s nuclear intentions. “They have everything they need to build a weapon.”
Conflicting Assessments Inside the Intelligence Community
Earlier this year, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified that “the IC [intelligence community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”
President Trump, however, has openly disagreed with that assessment. Gabbard later clarified that her remarks were taken out of context, pointing to other parts of her testimony that warned about Iran’s growing stockpile of enriched uranium.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who has already launched preemptive strikes on Iranian targets — stood by the actions, claiming he had “absolutely clear” intelligence that Iran was “working [on] a secret plan to weaponize the uranium.”
Echoes of Iraq, Concerns Over Enrichment
The debate over intelligence credibility has reignited memories of past failures, including the faulty claims of weapons of mass destruction that preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Israel’s military action came just days before a new round of nuclear negotiations was scheduled to begin with Tehran.
Rubio further pushed the case by pointing to Iran’s deeply buried enrichment facility. “They have everything they need to build nuclear weapons. Why would you bury things in a mountain 300 feet under the ground,” he said, referencing the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant.
“You don’t need 60 percent enriched uranium. The only countries in the world that have uranium at 60 percent are countries that have nuclear weapons,” Rubio added.
While weapons-grade uranium is typically enriched to 90%, experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) note that once a country reaches 60%, the leap to 90% is significantly easier than the path to 60% itself.
