Pushed to the wall on Iran, Marco Rubio revealed, during some hearings with sparks, what the US will NOT accept, plus a detail about Mojtaba Khamenei

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump's negotiating team had not offered Iran a lifting of sanctions in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and insisted that any lifting of sanctions was conditional on Tehran giving up its nuclear program, reports Reuters.

“At this point, all that has been discussed with them (the Iranians, no) is that … any lifting of sanctions is conditional, which means that it has to be in exchange for the reason those sanctions were put in place in the first place, which is their nuclear program,” Rubio said in a US Senate hearing, the first of two in which lawmakers have questioned him in depth about the conflict with Tehran.

Testifying before Congress publicly for the first time since the start of the Middle East war, Rubio argued that there would be an easing of sanctions against Iran only if Tehran agreed to give up its nuclear activities.

“Iran has been placed under sanctions because it has highly enriched uranium. Iran is sanctioned because of its nuclear activities. If it agrees to give up those things, then there will be an easing of sanctions associated with its commitment and compliance with those agreements,” the US secretary of state said.

Rubio testified before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday morning (US time) in the first of four hearings this week on the Trump administration's request to cut the foreign affairs budget by 30 percent to $36 billion, while planning a 50 percent increase in military spending to $1.5 trillion.

Later in the day, he attended a hearing of the House Budget Committee and is scheduled to take part in two more hearings on Wednesday, amid concerns among his fellow Republicans about war with Iran.

Rubio, who also serves as Trump's national security adviser, served as a Florida senator until January 2025, and lawmakers said they hoped their former colleague would present a strategy to end the conflict with Iran, which began with the launch of joint US-Israeli strikes on February 28.

At one point, Rubio declared, “The war is over,” during a heated exchange with Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, who disagreed with the US foreign minister's assertion.

Senator: “My constituents are asking for economic help at home, not a regime change in Tehran”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, slammed Rubio for providing too little information about the Trump administration's plans.

“When I talk to my constituents, they are asking for economic help at home, not regime change in Havana, Caracas or Tehran,” she said.

“Instead, you sent Congress a war powers notification saying we are not in active hostilities with Iran while the US was carrying out attacks against Iran and Iran was bombing US embassies and bases in the Middle East. That was not consultation, that was an attempt to avoid being accountable to this committee and this Congress on this war.”

During both hearings, Rubio defended Trump's Venezuela policy. A US commando ousted Venezuela's authoritarian president Nicolas Maduro in January, but left much of his administration intact and former vice president Delcy Rodriguez as head of government.

Rubio said during the hearing in the House of Representatives that Venezuela does not yet meet the necessary conditions to hold free and fair elections.

Americans have expressed frustration with the rising cost of living, and Trump's fellow Republicans hope he will be able to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and lower US gas prices ahead of November's midterm elections, which will decide whether the GOP retains its fragile majority in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Trump also has to contend with hard-liners in his party who oppose any concessions to Tehran.

Will there be an agreement to end the war?

Trump insists that the war will be proved to be justified if it prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Trump also insists gas prices will fall and has claimed for weeks that he will soon reach a good deal to end the conflict.

Iran wants an interim deal with the lifting of sanctions that would give it access to billions of dollars in oil revenue, but Washington has continued to impose sanctions on some of Iran's top power actors while negotiations have taken place.

Rubio did not say when such an agreement might be reached. He said Iran intended to build up its conventional weapons capabilities as a “shield” for its nuclear program. “What they tried to do was build a conventional shield and hide behind that shield,” he said, explaining why Trump felt it was imperative to go to war.

The US secretary of state also said there were “indications” that Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who became Iran's supreme leader after his father was killed on the first day of the war, was “increasingly involved at some level” in the negotiations.

However, Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen in public since he was injured in the attack that killed his father.

US lawmakers, including some of Trump's fellow Republicans, have increasingly questioned the motivation for the war as the conflict with Iran enters its fourth month.

In May, the US Senate voted to advance a war powers resolution that would end the conflict with Iran unless Trump gets congressional authorization. A few days later, House leaders abruptly postponed a vote on a similar resolution when it seemed likely that it would pass.