US Secretary of State Defends Trump's Decision on Iran War

HOMESTEAD AIR RESERVE BASE: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that President Donald Trump even if it was not "necessarily popular" to safeguard the world from the country's nuclear ambitions. He would not comment directly about the Republican wipeout in Tuesday's elections, which . The unpopularity of the Iran war and its impact on gasoline prices and other parts of the economy helped Democrats seize control of Congress. Asked about Vice President JD Vance's social media post last week that largely blamed the war for the Republican losses, Rubio told reporters that Trump "identified a very real threat" in Iran and worked to stop the Islamic Republic from pursuing a nuclear weapon. "He addressed it even though oftentimes the right thing to do for the country — confronting difficult challenges for the security of our country — doing it isn't necessarily popular, but necessary," Rubio said in Florida before heading to a Group of 7 foreign ministers meeting in Paris. America's top diplomat offered a robust defense of the more than eight-month-old war even as voters blamed Trump's policies for the hit to their pocketbooks, including higher energy prices that stemmed from disruptions to shipments in the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway where one-fifth of the world's oil transited before the war.