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GOP senator says US has not ‘won’ Iran war yet, contradicting Trump

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by Max Rego - 04/12/26 3:10 PM ET

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by Max Rego - 04/12/26 3:10 PM ET

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Republican Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.) said Sunday that the U.S. has not “won” the war with Iran yet, despite President Trump saying otherwise on Saturday.

“We will not have won until we have completely defanged the Iranian regime. … To me, finishing the job is to make sure that Iran can never produce a nuclear weapon, they can no longer enrich uranium, that hopefully we can remove that enriched uranium, that they can no longer hold the Strait of Hormuz hostage, that they can no longer brutalize the Iranian people, they can no longer be a sponsor of state terror,” he told host Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week.”

“So, we have to finish the job,” he continued. “Again, there’s multiple ways of potentially doing it. Short term, long term there are multiple avenues we can approach here. But we have not yet finished the job.”

Iranian officials and a U.S. delegation, led by Vice President Vance, failed to come to an agreement to curb Tehran’s nuclear program and end hostilities earlier this weekend. Trump, however, said before talks concluded the outcome “makes no difference” him.

“The reason is because we’ve won,” the president told reporters at the White House. He later said that the U.S. “defeated their navy, we defeated their air force, we defeated their antiaircraft, we defeated their radar,” and he noted that multiple Iranian government and military officials have been killed since the war began on Feb. 28.

Speaking to reporters after talks concluded in Islamabad, Pakistan, Vance said that he did not receive an “affirmative commitment” from Iranian officials that the regime will not seek a nuclear weapon and will not “seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve” that.

“The simple question is, do we see a fundamental commitment of will for the Iranians not to develop a nuclear weapon, not just now, not just two years from now, but for the long term? We haven’t seen that yet. We hope that we will,” the vice president noted.

Trump also told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that the U.S. delegation “got just about every point we needed,” except for limits on Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

A U.S. official told NewsNation’s Kellie Meyer that the administration’s “red lines” for Iran are for the regime to end all uranium enrichment; dismantle all major nuclear enrichment facilities; retrieve highly enriched uranium; accept a broader peace, security and de-escalation framework with regional allies; end its funding of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis; and fully open the Strait of Hormuz without charging tolls for passage.

Johnson also said Sunday that he is “not surprised at all” that negotiations did not yield a peace agreement.

“The ayatollahs, even though they have been so degraded in terms of their capabilities, nobody thought this would be easy,” the Wisconsin Republican added. “They’ve been preparing for this for 47 years.”

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