US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the war between the United States and Iran will "end immediately" after the Nov. 3 US midterm elections.
"I think the war will end immediately after the election because they can't hold out any longer," Trump told reporters ahead of a trip to Dallas, Texas to address the Republican Party's first midterm convention.
Arguing that Tehran is "desperate to try and affect the election," he said Washington is not looking to return to nuclear talks.
"We're not looking for it. Yes, a negotiation could possibly happen, but it's not something we're looking at," he added.
He also said his administration is doing "much more than a nuclear deal."
"There is a lot more than nuclear," he said, adding the US will "have nuclear, that's 99.9, but there is gonna be a lot of other things on the table."
Trump also said that recent US strikes in the Strait of Hormuz had incapacitated nine Iranian tankers.
"You're going to see a lot more. We've taken out about nine of their tankers," he said.
Separately, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejected claims that Iran is receiving outside assistance that is altering the dynamics of the conflict.
"These are anonymous people. They make stuff up all the time ... We don't believe anybody's giving Iran anything that's changing the dynamics or the parameters of what we're seeing," Rubio said during his visit to Ecuador when asked who might be helping Iran and what the US would do about it.
He said Iran would continue to pay a price for attacks on US naval vessels.
"At the end of the day, they continue to fire at our naval ships, and when they fire at our naval ships, they pay a price in tankers. They lose a lot of tankers," he said.
"They lost five more last night. Four were damaged. One was sunk. So they'll continue to pay a price for that," he said.
Rubio also said the US would maintain economic pressure on Tehran.
"In the meantime, we're going to continue to strangle them economically," he said.
