Republicans lawmakers continued to dismiss this week the idea that a nuclear deal with Iran is achievable, despite comments by President Donald Trump over the weekend. 

Trump said that the talks with Iran, held in Oman last Friday, had been “very good,” that Tehran “wants to make a deal very badly” and that he is in “no rush” to move ahead. He also said that the Iranian demand that the talks be only focused on nuclear weapons “would be acceptable” — an apparent softening of the U.S. position that any potential agreement should also address Iran’s ballistic missile stockpiles and its support for regional terror proxies. The talks did not appear to touch on the Islamic Republic’s recent violent crackdown on nationwide protests.

Asked about Trump’s comments about a nuclear-only deal, Republicans largely dismissed the idea that any deal would actually be forthcoming.

“Iran’s not going to make a deal with us. They’re going to stall and re-stall to buy time, but they’re not going to make a deal,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Jewish Insider. “The ayatollah is [as] crazy as a bed bug. And he’s never going to give up any hope that he has of nuclear weapons. He’s never going to stop killing his people and drinking their blood out of a boot, and he’s never going to stop funding Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Kennedy predicted that military action is both necessary and forthcoming.

“You’re going to have to give them a curbstomping, but you don’t want to start a regional war doing it,” Kennedy continued. “My guess is that’s what the president is talking to [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio and the military guys with a bunch of their flags in their office [about] right now.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) agreed that the Iranian regime is not genuinely interested in making an agreement with the United States. 

“There won’t be a deal,” Scott told JI. “They’re not going to do a deal.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said he hadn’t seen Trump’s comments but he does not “trust the word of the regime, at all.”

“They have not proven trustworthy with their word in the past, and so you have to have a way to be able to verify everything,” Lankford continued.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), meanwhile, told JI on Monday that he would delay a vote on a war powers resolution he introduced with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) blocking military action against Iran pending the ongoing talks with the regime. 

The resolution would theoretically be eligible for votes by the full Senate later this week, should Kaine and Paul wish to call it up.

The Virginia senator told JI that he and Paul are in discussions about timing for votes, and that he hasn’t yet made a decision on when to call the bill up.

“We have to check each day to see where [the talks] are. I don’t think calling it up in the middle of discussions that have some chance to it — that’s not the right time — but we’ll just see where we are,” Kaine said.