Hours after the U.S. military bombed three nuclear facilities in Iran in a surprise attack, President Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, was asked by Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday, “Are you saying there that the United States did not see intelligence that the [Iranian] Supreme Leader had ordered weaponization?”
Rubio replied: “That’s irrelevant…They have everything they need to build a weapon.”
When Brennan responded, “But that is the key point in U.S. intelligence assessment, you know that,” Rubio shook his head and said, “No it’s not.”
Brennan argued, “Yes it was,” and Rubio again refuted the assertion, saying, “No, it’s not. Well, I know that better than you know that. And I know that’s not the case.”
Host: Are you saying the US did not see intelligence that the Supreme Leader had ordered weaponization?
— FactPost (@factpostnews) June 22, 2025
Rubio: That’s irrelevant
Host: No, that’s a key point
Rubio: No it’s not… Forget about intelligence pic.twitter.com/UOvzNceUeb
Rubio continued, discounting the premise of Brennan’s question, saying: “It doesn’t matter if the order was given. They have everything they need to build nuclear weapons.”
Rubio then asked a series of rhetorical questions, recited circumstantial evidence, and said: “Why would you bury things in a mountain, 300 feet under the ground? Why do they have 60 percent enriched uranium? 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.”
When Brennan tried to bring it back to the intelligence assessment, Rubio interrupted and asked, “How do you know what the intelligence assessment says?”
Brennan said she was referring to the public March assessment and that’s why she’s asking Rubio if he knows more beyond that March assessment. Rubio then said, “That’s an inaccurate representation of it. That’s not how intelligence is read. That’s not how intelligence is used.”
Rubio added: “Here’s what the whole world knows, forget about intelligence. What the IAE knows, they are enriching uranium well beyond anything you need for a civil nuclear program…They have everything they need for a nuclear weapon.”
Many X users are responding to Rubio’s dismissal of the intelligence assessment question with comments including “WMD 2.0” and “When Bush did it, they made up fake ‘intelligence’ to go to war. With Trump, they don’t even bother.”
Note: The George W. Bush administration told Congress that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before Congress voted to permit an Iraq invasion in 2003, which later proved to be false information. Trump did not ask Congress to vote on his decision to bomb Iran this weekend, which many members of Congress say is a violation of the Constitution.
I'm grateful our pilots are safely out of Iran – and I thank them for their bravery.
— Adam Schiff (@SenAdamSchiff) June 22, 2025
But in the absence of evidence that Iran was imminently breaking out to build a bomb, and without congressional approval, this operation should have never been ordered.
To have done so is… pic.twitter.com/4X4E4VGLd3
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said on Sunday: “I’m grateful our pilots are safely out of Iran – and I thank them for their bravery. But in the absence of evidence that Iran was imminently breaking out to build a bomb, and without congressional approval, this operation should have never been ordered. To have done so is unconstitutional and moves us closer to another forever war. That must not happen.”
