Sen. Bob Corker on whether Sen. Ted Cruz's marathon speech could harm GOP: "It depends on the outcome"

Updated at 11:50 a.m. ET

(CBS News) The Senate willlikely vote Wednesday afternoon on a short-term government funding resolution after Sen. Ted Cruz concludes his marathon speech - but not quite a filibuster - on the Senate floor that entered its 22nd hour Wednesday morning.

Fellow Republican Sen. Bob Corker wouldn't comment Wednesday on speculation that Cruz embarked on the speech to serve his possible presidential ambitions, and Corker said "it depends on the outcome" whether what some are calling a stunt could hurt the Republican Party's hopes to take back the Senate in 2014.

Corker - who participated in a regrouping session late Tuesday to focus GOP efforts on attacking Obamacare and not one another - stopped short of "trying to ascertain" what Cruz's "individual motivation" behind the speech may be.

He added, "All of us are unified in hoping that Obamacare will be delayed, defunded, that we can do something relative to the individual mandate [and] to the medical device tax."

"I think there are a number of things that we might accomplish over this next week," Corker said.

Turning to foreign relations, Corker addressed rumors of diplomatic progress with Iran and a potential meeting between President Obama and Iranian president Hassan Rouhani. Despite rumors indicating they could meet face to face, the two leaders did not meet formally or otherwise on Tuesday.

Corker, a ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said U.S. sanctions against Iran have a "productive impact" on diplomacy and that he is hopeful "we can build off the gains that have been created through those sanctions, which we now know have affected the country in a big way."

We "always have to hope that diplomacy is going to work," Corker said on "CBS This Morning." "At the same time, what you don't do is turn off the sanctions that we have in place. You leave the pressure there."

Corker added that while Rouhani's fledgling administration has certainly struck a new tone than in the past, "his actions have been very similar ... a continued building toward them having nuclear armament."

"So ... the sanctions are our best asset to hopefully continue down this path ... to diplomacy."

"There's no question," Corker insisted, "there wouldn't be an opportunity to even discuss diplomacy had we not enacted in a bipartisan way the sanctions we have on Iran."

Watch the full interview with Sen. Bob Corker in the player above