I'm working on a million other stories right now, but I had to stop and bring you this because any time I can showcase Secretary of State Marco Rubio making George Stephanopoulos look like a buffoon, I will. It's must-see TV.
Rubio appeared on Good Morning America on Monday morning to talk Iran, and while he didn't necessarily say anything new, before he could say much at all, Stephanopoulos was peppering him with ridiculous questions and repeating the MSM narrative that there are no defined objectives for Operation Epic Fury.
To be completely honest, professionally, I am more focused on Cuba, Venezuela, and the rest of the Western Hemisphere —Iran exists there in my periphery, and I've barely covered it — and yet, I can recite the objectives word for word at this point. Rubio keeps saying them, and most of the media keeps acting selectively deaf.
After carrying on about oil for a while and Rubio responding with reality and laying out the objectives of the conflict, George switched gears to something Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday.
"As you’re speaking, though, the President is expanding the objectives," he said. "Just a couple minutes ago, he put out a post on Truth Social saying that we’re in discussions now with a new and more reasonable regime in Iran, but he also added that if those discussions don’t yield fruit, the United States will blow up and completely obliterate all of their electric-generating plants, all their oil wells, and Kharg Island, and possibly all desalinization plants, which we have purposely not yet touched – is what he said. That’s a great expansion of the objectives."
First, I'd argue that those aren't new objectives; they're threats. This is what the president does. I always joke that when Trump says something outrageous, look to Rubio to explain what he really means in polite company. Trump has a specific style of speaking — some of it's optics to make a deal, some of it's just his personality — and surely, after a decade plus of covering the man, George knows better. But no. He must pretend otherwise on his unwatchable TV shows.
Here's how Rubio responded:
Well, I think the first point the President makes is he prefers diplomacy. As I have said, those efforts are nascent. There is messages being relayed back and forth, some conversations going on, including through intermediaries. And he always prefers that.
Look, if the Iranian regime had come forward at any point in the past and said we’re going to walk away from our nuclear ambitions, we’re going to do nuclear energy the way every other country in the world primarily – almost every other country in the world does it, and that is through a peaceful means in which you bring in the fuel and it’s supervised and so forth, and we’re not – we’re going to stop supporting terrorist groups across the region – look at this region. Every single terrorist group in this region has a link to the Iranian regime. Every single one: the Houthis, Hizballah, Hamas, the Shia militias that are attacking everyone out of Iraq.
Every single one of these groups and all the destabilization in this region tracks directly back to the Iranian regime. Those things have to be addressed. And if Iran had been willing to address those in the past, we wouldn’t be having this interview on this topic right now. Their refusal to do so and their continuing move towards one day acquiring a nuclear capability – these people are lunatics. They are insane. They are religious zealots who can never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon because they have an apocalyptic vision of the future. And all of their neighbors know that, by the way, which is why all of their neighbors have been supportive of the efforts we’re conducting.
George responded, "You call them lunatics, but the President just had this post where he says we’re in discussions with a new and more reasonable regime. Let me try to pin you down on that. Who is this new and more reasonable regime? Is the United States in direct contact with them?"
"Well, I’m not going to disclose to you who those people are because it probably would get them in trouble with some other groups of people inside of Iran," Rubio said, as he tried to hold in his laughter. "Look, there’s some fractures going on there internally. And at the end of the day, I think that if there are people in Iran who now, given everything that’s happened, are willing to move in a different direction for their country, that would be great. Imagine an Iran that, instead of spending their wealth, billions of dollars, supporting terrorists or weapons, had spent that money helping the people of Iran. You’d have a much different country."
He continued: "The people who lead them, this clerical regime, that is the problem. And if there are new people now in charge who have a more reasonable vision of the future, that would be good news for us, for them, for the entire world. But we also have to be prepared for the possibility, maybe even the probability, that that is not the case."
That wasn't good enough for George. "Well, but the President said they are. Is that the case or is it not? I’m just trying to get some clarity on that," he asked.
Rubio had to remind him that not everything is made public and for good reason. Apparently, George is sad that he's not allowed in on national security briefings or something. "Well, what I mean is – yeah, so you have people that are saying some of the right things privately. Obviously, they’re not going to put it out in press releases, and what they say to you or put out there for the world doesn’t necessarily reflect what they’re saying in our conversations," Rubio said. "But at the end of the day, we have to see if these people end up being the ones in charge, seeing if they’re the ones that have the power to deliver. We’re going to test it."
Then came the best part. George implied that if these talks failed, the war would expand.
"This operation is about very specific objectives," Rubio replied. "The President laid them out on the first night of the operation. I’ll repeat them to you now because I hear a lot of talk about we don’t know what the clear objectives are. Here they are."
But before he laid them out, he said to George, "You should write them down." It was so beautifully condescending. And then Rubio laid out the objectives... yet again:
Number one, the destruction of their air force. Number two, the destruction of their navy. Number three, the severe diminishing of their missile launching capability. And number four, the destruction of their factories so they can’t make more missiles and more drones to threaten us in the future.
All of this so that they can never hide behind it to acquire a nuclear weapon. That was our objective from the beginning; that remains our objective now. We are on pace and in fact ahead of schedule on some of those things, and we are going to achieve those things in a number of weeks, not in a number of months.
After that, George cut the segment. Whether he actually ran out of time or knew he'd been owned is to be determined.
Here's a video of the "you should write them down" moment.
🚨 JUST IN: Sec. Marco Rubio just DESTROYED Fake News George Stephanopoulos and the liberals who keep whining "we don't have clear objectives!"
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 30, 2026
"Here, you should WRITE THEM DOWN!"
"I'll repeat them to you now because I hear a lot of talk about we don't know what the clear… pic.twitter.com/XX0C01IAsj
Here's the entire interview:
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