Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday defended President Donald Trump’s decision to take military action against Iran, just days after Vice President JD Vance singled out the war as the main reason for the GOP’s losses in the midterm elections. 

Speaking alongside Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., at the close of the Conservative Political Action Conference’s retreat, Rubio framed the war as part of the president’s commitment to the American people.

“In my jobs as both national security advisor to the president and also secretary of state, I see firsthand every single day that this is a man who wakes up every morning with one thing as a priority: you — our country and its future,” Rubio said. “The most important thing a president can do for a country is keep it safe, and there are people around the world that want to destroy you.”

“He was elected to do the hard things. It would have been very easy to do what multiple presidents before him have done, which is just ignore the Iran thing, leave it for the next guy,” Rubio said. “But this president didn’t do that. He confronted it because what Iran wants to do is not just destroy our country — it’s destroy our way of life and threaten our children.”

“We, our children and children not yet born owe him a deep sense of gratitude,” he continued.

Rubio’s comments follow Vance’s lengthy post on X the day after the election in which he said that “the real reason we lost” the midterm elections “is obvious to almost everyone … The reason we lost is the war.” 

Trump has since acknowledged Vance’s comments but maintained that he does not regret going to war with Iran.