Tuesday on FNC’s “Hannity,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio continued the Trump administration’s insistence that the United States was nearing the completion of its military operation against Iran.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST OF FNC’S “HANNITY”: At that point in time, it seemed inevitable to me. They were going to — in spite of Midnight Hammer, they were going to cling to that, quote, “inalienable right” as they called it.
Was that the tipping point?
MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, it was one of the tipping points. I mean, part of the tipping point is the fact that Iran’s been doing this for 47 years. We know what this regime is all about.
I always say Iran — let me be clear, I’m not talking about the people of Iran. The people of Iran don’t even like this government or this regime.
This is a regime that is led by radical Shia clerics, by people who believe that it is their calling. I know this sounds fantastical, but it’s absolutely true. This is a regime led by people who believe that it is their calling and their purpose in life to usher in the end of the world. These people want nuclear weapons.
Why do we know that? Because they are assembling all the things you need for nuclear weapons. They’re assembling long-range rockets that can eventually reach the United States, can already range Europe. We saw them demonstrate two of them last week despite denying that they had them.
They enriched uranium to 60 percent. As you pointed out a moment ago, from 60 to 90 percent, which is what you need for a bomb, takes 12 to 14 days. They bragged about still having that.
They demand the right to enrich, which is how you get from 60 to 90 percent. They’re the leading sponsor of terrorism, not in the region, in the world.
They can never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, which is what President Trump made very clear from the very first day of his presidency from — in fact, from the very first day of his candidacy. When he came down that escalator in 2015, he talked about this.
He’s actually been talking about the threat of Iran before he was even a political candidate. And as president, he was not going to allow Iran to pose a threat to Americans now or future generations of Americans. So, we had to act and with very clear purpose.
We are going to destroy their air force. We have largely done that.
We were going to destroy their navy, which we have largely achieved that.
We were going to destroy a significant percentage of their missile launchers. We are well on our way to achieving that.
And we were going to wipe out their defense industrial base, meaning the factories that make the drones and the missiles. We are on our way to doing that.
Those were our four objectives because those were the four things they were going to hide behind to then develop a nuclear weapon and threaten the world if they tried to do anything about it. That was not going to happen under President Trump.
We are well on our way. We are on or ahead of schedule on each of those four objectives. And we can see the finish line. It’s not today. It’s not tomorrow, but it is coming.
We are going to get to the point where our military will have achieved all of its objectives in this mission. And they’re doing so with extraordinary efficiency, something that I think will go down in history as one of the best-run tactical military operations in modern times.
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