Rubio Says Iran Strikes Were Actually ‘Proactive,’ Muddying Message

He claimed they were addressing an "imminent threat," while citing longer term goals as well.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, about to step into a meeting with members of Congress, contradicted what some of those members had been told over the weekend about President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), one of the “Gang of Eight,” said Sunday he was told there had been no intelligence indicating Iran was just about to strike U.S. assets.

On Monday, Rubio told reporters: “There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked — and we believed they would be attacked — that they would immediately come after us,” he said.

Rubio added that the U.S. was aware Israel was planning to take action against Iran, and officials believed that those strikes would have prompted an Iranian response against U.S. assets.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” he said.