Meet the Press interviews during 2017: on War & Peace

Paul Ryan: Hold Iran to account for proxy wars & financing terrorism

RYAN: I never supported the deal in the first place. I thought it was a huge mistake. But the multilateral sanctions are done. I think we should expend our effort where it can pay off the most. So I think the key is to rigorously enforce this deal. They're still the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Human rights abuses galore. And so those are where I think we also need to ratchet up sanctions.

Q: Are you concerned that Iran might retaliate, and suddenly we're a part of the proxy war in Yemen?

RYAN: We're appeasing them already. I think they need to know that they're going to be held to account. Look at what they're trying to do to destabilize the region with all their proxies. Look at what they're doing to finance terrorism, testing ballistic missiles. You see they write on the side of their ballistic missiles in Hebrew, Farsi and English, "Death to Israel and death to America." This is not a peaceful nation.