President Barack Obama says there was no way to secure a nuclear deal with Iran without first inflicting severe sanctions that made life harder for people in Iran.

Obama is defending the nuclear deal to young people in Iran, Israel and the U.S. in an interview with the online news site Mic. It’s part of his ongoing effort to build support for the deal ahead of an effort in Congress to derail it.

Obama tells a 22-year-old woman in Iran that he reached out to Iran’s supreme leader after becoming president to say he was willing to negotiate. He says there was no response but that the U.S. discovered a covert Iranian enrichment facility and had no choice but to enact tougher sanctions to bring Iran to the negotiating table.

(AP)