Secretary of State Marco Rubio was live on Good Morning America to discuss Iran and told viewers, “Imagine if instead of spending billions of dollars supporting terrorists or weapons, Iran had spent that money helping the people of Iran. They would have a much different country.”

SECRETARY RUBIO: Imagine if instead of spending billions of dollars supporting terrorists or weapons, Iran had spent that money helping the people of Iran. They would have a much different country. pic.twitter.com/27WKspQ53h

— Department of State (@StateDept) March 30, 2026

This level of honesty about the tradeoffs between government military spending (and any government spending really) and quality of life was probably not meant to be applied to the $1 trillion—soon to be $1.5 trillion—defense budget of the United States of America.