What Trump Isn’t Telling Americans about the War with Iran

Tonight, in a rare show of unity from any party in Congress, I'm joined by not one, but four Senate Democrats who are now threatening to voice a series of War Powers votes on Iran unless the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Margaret Rubio testify publicly about the war.

Virginia's Tim Kaine, California's Adam Schiff, New Jersey's Cory Booker, and Wisconsin's Tammy Baldwin are all here. And thank you all for being here. Senator Baldwin, just on what you heard from the president today, is it clear to you how much longer

this war could go on for? No, and this president has been anything but clear from the very outset. Weeks before the war started, he said he might intervene militarily to support the protesters in Iran. Thereafter, he talked about their nuclear program. Thereafter, he talked about their nuclear program. Thereafter he talked about their ballistic missile program. Thereafter he talked about regime change. Now he's talking about protecting the Straits of Hormuz. And we keep hearing

reason and shifting rationale. Look, the reason we need hearings is to allow the American public to have a say in this war. This president went to war, a war of choice, we were not under attack, we were not under imminent threat of attack, and the American people through their elected members of Congress have not had a voice in this yet and that's why we're demanding hearings.

Senator Kaine, I mean I think a lot of people who are watching this or hearing what the president said today want to know how long the war is going to go on because they're paying way more in gas and they're seeing you know what this is doing to the markets today. I wonder what you made of the timing of

the president's comments. Well I think none of us know the answer to that and we've been in both open settings and classified hearings and we haven't heard a rationale, we haven't heard a time length, we haven't heard a plan and the question that we're asking is haven't we learned enough from 25 years of war in the Middle East? What, what, why do we need to be there now and in particular what the four of us want is public hearings. The administration has kind of come into this pattern in the last 13 months. Take military action without coming to Congress, not even consulting, much less getting approval.

After the fact, offer classified hearings where we can't share with our own constituents the information about this war. I've got Virginians who were just told today they're going to be deployed with the George H.W. Bush carrier group in the Middle East. The carrier, the Ford, is already over in the Middle East from Virginia. They're asking me questions for how long, what's the end game. I can't answer, even when I know information, because they're only doing this in classified. That's why we want to have the principals, Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State,

come to the relevant committees and put this before the American public.

There's a reason they're afraid to.

Well, and there have been those classified briefings. And Secretary Rubio, who was once Senator Rubio, says, you know, that's more than we ever got when President Biden was in office. How much he's been up there, the questions he's answered behind closed doors. The administration might hear this tonight and say, well, we're doing what is standard procedure.

What would you say to that? I would say we're not in normal times. And most Americans know the math doesn't add up. This is an administration that took a chainsaw cutting people's health care, millions of Americans losing health care, cutting veterans benefits,

seeing their prices going up on everything from energy to the cost increases because of the tariffs. At the same time, going to the most expensive military engagement we have had since the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the biggest disruption of the oil industry we've seen, which is jacking up prices at the pump.

So the math doesn't add up. This is a major military conflict with a major power in the Middle East that American lives are being lost, and the Senate of the United States of America is rolling over and doing nothing. No oversight, no hearings, no checks and balances. Republicans in the Senate are letting this president act unilaterally, which the Constitution

says there's no way a president can indiscriminately pick countries he wants to invade. That power lies with Congress, but Congress has got to use their power. And that's why the four of us, along with Senator Murphy, Senator Duckworth, and others, are saying, enough.

No more business as usual. Our country is in crisis. The costs for average Americans are skyrocketing. And this president wants to spend tens of billions of dollars

in his adventurism overseas without coming to Congress.

So, can you lay this out, what this looks like? I imagine they're not going to come testify publicly. We'll see if they take up on your offer. If they don't, what will you do?

They're gonna have to testify publicly. We know from the classified briefings there was no imminent threat of attack. So if there was no imminent threat to the United States, why are we at war? And they make no mistake in a closed session or an open discussion that we are at war. So why.

What is the case to be made for this. When Americans can't afford their groceries they can't afford their medicine they can't afford the cost of living. And yet we're dropping a billion dollars of bombs it seems every day in Iran. Let them make the case to Congress. Let them make the case the American people. I think they will have to come in and testify, and we want to maximize the pressure to make that happen. We haven't been in a war like this since the beginning of the Afghanistan war and the Iraq war. The president then at least sought authorization from Congress, tried to make the case to the American people. They haven't done this,

and I think they haven't done it because. There they don't want to put themselves at risk. The senators they don't want to go on the record this way, but they ought to have just a fraction

of the courage our service members are displaying. They think this is such a great idea. Let them bring up an authorization. Let them vote on it, but at a minimum, let them testify under oath. The president says we didn't bomb an Iranian girls school.

I'd like to hear the administration figures come and repeat those words under oath.

Do you believe when he says that, given what he said today?

I don't believe him, no. But I think there has to be a sharing of the intelligence with the Congress. I think we should find out exactly what the administration knows. And frankly, we should find out when they knew it. If the president was briefed that this

was an American tomahawk, that tragically, for whatever reason, faulty intelligence or a faulty weapon, if he was briefed in the light of the American people, the American people deserve to know it.

Caitlin, can I tell you something else we can't believe? I can't believe the president today called this an excursion. Imagine you're one of these families and you're watching your kid come home killed or your spouse come home killed. One is a Virginian. And you hear this president today

trying to make light of it, calling it an excursion.

That is so insulting. I hadn't heard that till you just said it in my crawls when I hear that kind of disrespect. You know, Senator, I'm glad

you brought that up because we do have video now of the dignified transfer happening right now. Just a few moments ago for the 7th U. S. Service member who was killed in this war. It is 26 year old Army Sergeant Benjamin Pennington of Glendale, Kentucky. He was assigned to the 1st Space Battalion, the 1st Space Brigade, a unit that is within the Army Space and Missile Defense Command. He died after sustaining injuries in an attack last week in Saudi Arabia.

And this is the dignified transfer that just happened moments ago at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. You can see there at the end of that line, Secretary Hexeth and Vice President Vance are on hand for this dignified transfer as the president is making his way back to Washington now. Obviously, this is an incredibly solemn moment for this family.

To your point, Senator Kaine, as they're bowing their heads before this transfer case where his body has been carried back to the United States

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. You've been watching the dignified transfer for Sergeant Benjamin Pennington, 26-year-old member of the U.S. Armed Forces who was killed in Saudi Arabia. You didn't hear any audio in that, as that was a very solemn moment that happens at Dover Air Force Base when his body is welcomed back in that flag-draped case with his family waiting. And as you saw, the vice president and Secretary Hicks there on the tarmac as that flag-draped case was put inside that van just now.

And Senator Baldwin, you know, there was a family friend of his who talked about how much his family was hurting as a result of this. And I think for everything we talk about, the public testimony, the evidence, all of this is a reminder of why there is

such a strenuous debate when something like this happens, because what you just watched is a very real reminder of the human cost of the decisions

that are made here in Washington. It is a profound reminder of the cost of war, and it can never be allowed to be an illegal, unconstitutional war in a system of constitutional checks and balances. And it is precisely why we are calling

on our Republican colleagues to stand up and be that check and balance, along with all of us, to highlight, through public hearings, what is happening. I want this war to end. I want to prevent other service members from dying.

I want to stop the waste of billions of dollars of taxpayer money. And I think the way we do that is by demanding that these administration officials come to Congress in public, answer questions, because that matters. It engages the American public in this debate,

and that's how it was meant to be by the framers of our Constitution.

Senator Booker.

There are measurable costs of war, and we're seeing that. We've spent literally trillions of dollars now in wars in the Middle East, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria, so much of our nation's treasure.

But what is not calculable is the impact of the loss of life and the American soldiers that have been lost. This is grievous, and we are seeing, unfortunately, not a theater of war that is just in Iran.

It's expanded to over 15 countries, from Cyprus to Turkey. You're seeing missiles now and countries being drawn into this conflict. And even here at home, we're seeing the potential for terrorist attacks rise. This is a sober moment for our nation, in which a president, by himself, unilaterally, has made a decision to bring our country into this conflict, to put American lives at risk,

and indeed, we now have lost some. Congress has a duty. Congress has a job, not just to sort of let this go, but to stand up and allow there to be debates. The most deliberative body in the world should be having deliberations,

should have hearings, there should be transparency to those hearings. And we as a nation should let the voices of the people elected by the nation really do their job and bring out all the truths that are going on through serious questioning of those main actors. And I will tell you this, this war, forget your party in our country, is wildly unpopular at this point.

And we still have a shroud over this war because those people who are responsible have not sat before public hearings, as is our tradition. We have got to make sure that we do our job, and that's why, again, we're going to use

the levers of power that we have as individual senators, and it's now a group of us to not let this be business as usual, to not let Republicans in the Senate simply look another way, or let the president do whatever he wants.

Our body was designed to provide a check on the executive, and it's time that we do it.

The four of you are here. Where is the Democrats' leader in the Senate on this? Where is Chuck Schumer on this effort that you want to undertake tonight?

I think he joins us in wanting to do everything possible to bring this war to a conclusion. And what we just witnessed in that dignified transfer, there's no more powerful testimony of the cost of war than what we just watched. It is not just that the president didn't come to Congress to make the case for this or seek an authorization. It's just that this is a war in search of an aim with tremendous cost for the American people.

One of the soldiers who was killed is a Californian. I want this, what we we just watched to be the last. Diplomatic transfer we see in this war. There's no more powerful reason to put a stop to it than what we just witnessed and. We have so many profound needs here at home. That we are unable to meet.

We spent trillions of dollars on the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war. We're spending billions and billions on this. They're talking about bringing a funding bill to the Congress. I'd rather bring funding bills to provide disaster assistance we still haven't received

after the fires in Los Angeles, or to help our farmers, or to help other parts of the country that are in desperate need. But instead, we are spending billions on a conflict that was a choice of the president,

something he now has the gall to call an excursion. This is no excursion for our service members whose lives are at risk. It's certainly not an excursion for their families back home. So we're going to use every means

we can to hold them accountable. I think when the American people hear from these administration officials, they will see how thin the case for this was. And that, I hope, will hasten the end of the conflict.

Caitlin, just say, what unifies these seven

who have lost their lives?

Two things. They all volunteered to serve this country because of their patriotism. They're from different parts of the country, different years of service, some young, some old. That's the first thing that unifies them.

And the second thing is they have no more future. Their future has been cut off.

And the president calling this an excursion, you can't watch that and feel that that way of

characterizing this is deeply disrespectful. And so we're going to force this into the open and into the sunlight. And we have some real optimism that when this is in the sunlight and people see the absence of the rationale see the absence of the rationale and the absence of the plan, they'll say, this was a horrible mistake and we shouldn't have allowed it to happen and we're gonna do what we can to stop it

and make sure that it's carried out in a dignified

and way in accord with our constitutional traditions. To me, that's why I think it's so important. Weeks ago, it was Venezuela, where the president took us in unilaterally. Now it's Iran. Tomorrow it might be Cuba.

Right.

If we continue to let President Trump think he can unilaterally commit our soldiers, commit billions of dollars to whatever war he picks, without a check from Congress, we have lost our democracy as it was designed.

Senators, thank you for being here tonight. Thanks for joining us on set. And of course, to the sergeant's family, our thoughts and our prayers to everyone who knew him and loved him and may his memory be a our prayers to everyone who knew him and loved him and may his memory be a blessing.