Ted Cruz, a Republican senator, in an interview with NBC News, emphasizing that the United States does not have a duty to decide who should be in power in Iran, said: “But our duty is to say that the Iranian government should not be an extremist religious government that hates the United States and seeks to kill Americans.”

Cruz also, in a portion of the interview, urged Trump personally and the U.S. government to arm Iranian and Kurdish protesters and allow “Iran’s protesters,” not American soldiers, to topple the Iranian government.