Rubio says U.S. is in talks with Iran over nuclear program as senators press for war endgame

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that the U.S. is in talks with Iran and that Tehran has agreed to negotiate parts of its nuclear program it had previously refused to discuss, as lawmakers pressed the Trump administration for a strategy to end the war . "Talks with Iran are not like talks with Switzerland," Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "They require the use of intermediators." Rubio said there is a chance "today," "tomorrow" or "next week" that Iran could engage on nuclear issues that it had refused to discuss "just a month ago, just a year ago." That does not guarantee a deal "acceptable to the Senate or acceptable to the American people," Rubio said, but it would let the U.S. "truly test" how far Iran is willing to go. The comments amounted to a striking shift in tone from the administration's position a day earlier , when Trump told CNBC he did not care if Iran talks were over. Rubio, who also serves as President Donald Trump's national security advisor, appeared before the panel for his first public testimony on the Iran war since U.S. and Israeli strikes began Feb. 28. He defended Trump's decision to launch the war , saying Iran had been trying to build a "conventional shield" of missiles , drones and naval assets around its nuclear program . …