Rubio says he wants ‘one-on-one’ talks with Iran – but some in Congress remain skeptical

Six days after the U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, top White House officials told House lawmakers on Friday that they are now focused on drawing Iran back to negotiations — though members of both parties said their precise strategy to do so was not clear.

Six days after US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, top White House officials told House lawmakers they are now focused on drawing Tehran back to negotiations — though members of both parties said the precise strategy to do so was not clear. “One of the things that was discussed this morning is that we now need Iran to engage with us in direct good-faith talks, negotiations, not through third parties, not through other countries, they need to sit down at the table with us,” Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Friday after an all-member classified briefing. That message on diplomacy was delivered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who told lawmakers that he wanted to meet “one-on-one” with Iranian leadership and not through a “third party,” according to another senior Republican, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas. But the former Foreign Affairs Committee chairman was one of multiple House lawmakers who told CNN he was personally “skeptical” of the plan: “I’m clear eyed about the Ayatollah. I love this ‘give peace a chance’ thing, and let’s try. You have to try the negotiations. So we’ll do it for what, a month? Then they’re gonna go underground.” President Donald Trump’s next steps on diplomacy with Iran, however, were not made clear, multiple lawmakers said. Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said no one from the administration suggested “there were any overtures or discussions happening right now” on the diplomatic front. And Trump himself fueled the uncertainty over his next steps with Iran, telling reporters Friday afternoon that future military strikes were indeed on the table if the US learned that Tehran was again working to enrich uranium. Shortly after, the president also blasted Iran’s leader for failing to thank him for sparing his life, and Trump confirmed he had been considering the “possible removal of sanctions” to help Iran but decided against it after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s recent video message describing a victory over Israel and the US.