Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said Tuesday he believed the Trump administration will stand up to the regime in Iran and praised the new president for his willingness to use terms shunned by his predecessor when describing the threat posed by terrorists.

“Isn’t it wonderful to have a president that can use the words ‘radical Islamic terrorist?’” Rohrabacher said at a Capitol Hill briefing by the Organization of Iranian American Communities. “Isn’t that a wonderful thing? “

“That means we have sent a message to those radical Islamic terrorists that run Iran, that we have their number. We know what they are doing and we are not afraid to stand up to their type of tyranny.”

(In his inaugural address, Trump pledged to “unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth.”)

Rohrabacher and other lawmakers speaking at the briefing – including Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), one of 25 House Democrats who voted against President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran – called for continued sanctions against the Iranian regime.

They also called on the administration to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization.

The lawmakers called Iran the “number one state-sponsor of terror,” citing its ongoing support for the Assad regime in Syria where hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the drawn-out civil war.

Also taking part in the briefing were representatives of the exiled Iranian opposition movement.

Last September, the last group of National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)/People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (MEK) dissidents who had been living in Iraq for decades – in Camp Ashraf in Diyala province, and then from 2012 in Camp Liberty near the Baghdad airport – were relocated to Europe with the help of the United States. Before the relocation, the residents had come under attack on a number of occasions.

Dissidents at Tuesday’s briefing thanked lawmakers for their continued support for a free and democratic Iran.

“We have freed the people of Camp Ashraf,” Rohrabacher said. “Now it’s time for us to free the people of Iran.”