‘No One’s Begging!’ Marco Rubio Brawls With Cory Booker Over Claim Trump Is Desperate for Iran Deal

(Photo Credit: @EricLDaugh on X)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio punched back against Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-NJ) claim that President Donald Trump has resorted to pleading with Iran’s theocratic leaders to cut a peace deal.

Their feisty back-and-forth happened during Rubio’s testimony before Congress about the State Department’s budget on Tuesday.

“This ill-conceived war should have never happened,” Booker said. “You have made our adversary in a stronger negotiating position — we are the strongest nation on the planet earth and we’re in a stalemate with Iran. And now we’re begging to get back into a deal that you all trashed in the first place.”

“There’s no begging… no one’s begging for anything here,” Rubio said. “The Iranians might be begging because they’re losing hundreds of millions of dollars per day.”

That came after Booker ended his allotted time by bashing Trump’s “unjustified war.”

Rubio said he was being way too pessimistic about America’s leverage against Iran.

“Understand, Iran had street protests going on before all of this started. All of those economic factors in Iran are far worse today than they were 6 months ago today when those protests were happening,” he said.

Rubio continued:

They have hyperinflation, their currency is completely devalued, they’re struggling to make payroll for their government workers. Iran is in a very serious situation.

If it was up to the political class there — and I understand everybody there is sort of radical in some way — but if it was up to the people that actually like go to elections and wear the suits and that you see on TV, they would probably make a deal tomorrow.

The issue they’re facing is the supreme leader and the IRGC are a little more immune to those pressures, until they can be convinced otherwise. And I think that’s the direction they’re moving in.

I don’t where you’re getting this perception that Iran is stronger. Iran has no navy less, they’ve lost a substantial percentage of their defense-industrial base, Iran has lost a substantial percentage of their missile launchers, and their economy is far worse — and I mean far worse — than it was 6-9 months ago.

Booker said he wasn’t buying it, and that he was tired of Trump posting about how a peace deal was imminent.

“The war’s over now,” Rubio told him.

“The war is not over,” the liberal lawmaker shot back. “The American people see how we’re losing at the pump and with their costs, and yet this thing still has not been resolved.”

Watch above.

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