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00:00I want to start with that comment that I just read, that comment that the president made to NBC News,
00:04saying that on the heels of hitting Cargill Island, he might do it a few more times just for fun.
00:09And I wonder how that resonates with you as you think about what the endgame is here
00:14and what you've learned from the administration about how they intend to prosecute this war to its conclusion.
00:19Well, certainly the cavalier, non-serious way in which President Trump, Secretary Hegseth and others have talked about this war.
00:26We had Secretary Hegseth talking about no quarter, which is basically a military term for no survivors, kill everybody.
00:33I think that attitude has really undermined our ability to build support and move forward.
00:39It's far from the largest problem with this war.
00:41I mean, the largest problem is what's the plan?
00:43What's the strategy?
00:44What are we trying to accomplish?
00:46What's the path to achieving it?
00:48And how do we deal with the costs that are mounting by the day, certainly in terms of deaths,
00:53but the economic impact you referenced globally, what's the path here?
00:58I know we want to degrade Iran's capability militarily, but how much?
01:02And then the real goal at the start of this seemed to be to fundamentally change Iran's calculus,
01:08to make them less hostile to us, to Israel, and to the region.
01:12And there seems to be no progress on that aspect of the plan.
01:16So this war is continuing.
01:18The cost is incredibly high.
01:20The president doesn't seem to have a plan.
01:22Meanwhile, they want to apparently try to convince America that this is some kind of fun video game that we're
01:28just playing,
01:29even as people are dying all across the region, and the global economy is suffering from this.
01:37So, yeah, I wish they were a little more serious in the way they explained such an incredibly important action
01:44that they are taking.
01:45Congressman, I want to get to what you know about the mission and the administration's sense of that mission.
01:49And we saw the news that the administration plans to send the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit to the region
01:55to add to the number of service personnel who are there in the Middle East.
01:58Do you have a clear understanding of what those Marines are going to do?
02:02And as you watch that unfold, what does it tell you about the direction of this conflict?
02:06Yeah, I have a clear understanding of what the options are.
02:08Look, we've been talking about this for a long time.
02:10There is no doubt that Iran is a major problem in the region, in the world, a threat to us,
02:15a threat to Israel.
02:16They support a variety of different violent extremist terrorist groups.
02:20How do you deal with that threat?
02:22So the Armed Services Committee for years now has been looking at options.
02:25I mean, what can you do?
02:26What's militarily on the table?
02:29And there's always been two big problems with the military option.
02:32One, the collateral damage.
02:34You hit Iran, it spreads.
02:35And that's certainly happened.
02:36It's spread as far as anyone would have feared.
02:39Second problem is, can you really degrade them militarily to such a degree that it makes that cost worth the
02:47effort?
02:48And what we learned is really not, because the Iranian regime is dug in.
02:53They are very, very solid.
02:55Even as their leaders have been killed, they have a succession plan.
02:59There's 90 million people in Iran.
03:01They have a military.
03:02They do not appear inclined to simply collapse.
03:04So the conclusion was the military option wouldn't accomplish those objectives, would blow up the region, cause all manner of
03:12collateral damage and escalation, and wouldn't ultimately accomplish the objective.
03:18Trump decided to walk into that and to think that, A, we can degrade their military capability to such a
03:25degree that it makes it worth it.
03:26But if they can just rebuild it, I mean, that's the main problem with that.
03:30And then second, he seemed to just sort of cross his fingers and say, well, gosh, if we hit them
03:35hard enough, they'll either collapse or they will simply be broken enough to do what we want.
03:41But there was never a clear path between all of this bombing and all of this destruction and getting to
03:48that change in behavior by Iran.
03:50That's the problem, and that's what we're experiencing right now.
03:53And I'd be interested to hear anyone who supports this war tell me what that path is at this point
03:59to fundamentally breaking and changing the regime.
04:01I don't see it.
04:02Do you think that goal is accomplishable without putting boots on the ground?
04:07One of the experts we spoke to this week said there are two ways to go about this.
04:11You know, you can do a plurum-long bombing campaign, but that doesn't give you as much input and impetus
04:16into what's actually happening on the ground and could take longer.
04:19Or you can send in troops, but then again, you could get mired in another forever war.
04:23Yeah, sorry, thank you.
04:24I didn't directly answer the most important part of that previous question.
04:27And so we've done this bombing campaign, and you want to try to do it on the cheap, and that's
04:32what a bombing campaign is.
04:33Now, we've seen even the bombing campaign spreads, escalates, causes violence across the region.
04:39But now you're up against that reality of, okay, you haven't achieved the objective.
04:43What about ground troops?
04:45And the problem with ground troops, again, is you're going to need a lot to dislodge this regime.
04:51There are talk about, you know, more tactical efforts, smaller numbers of troops, and this is what the Marines could
04:56do.
04:56One possibility is you seize Karj Island to try to cut off that economic lifeline for Iran.
05:04But could you seize it?
05:05Could you hold it?
05:06There's considerable questions about that.
05:08Maybe a small group of special forces can help spark a revolt within Iran.
05:13But again, there's no clear path to that.
05:15But would you support that?
05:16Would you support U.S. troops going in in a limited capacity like that?
05:20Heavens no.
05:21No, sorry, I do not.
05:22Because I don't think it would be effective, and I think it, again, would be an escalation.
05:25It would cost more lives, and I don't think you'd be able to dislodge the regime.
05:28And that's the problem.
05:29And let me be clear.
05:31If I woke up tomorrow and this Iranian regime was gone and we had an Iran that was working for
05:36the Iranian people and stopped all the terrible stuff they were doing, I would be very, very happy.
05:40But the problem is there's no direct path to doing that, and the cost of what Donald Trump has done
05:46without thinking that through, without having a plan to actually achieve the objective.
05:51So now you can achieve the objective, and you've caused an enormous amount of casualties, disruption, and escalation, not just
06:00in Iran, but across the region and across the world.
06:04So that's the problem I have with this approach.
06:07I want to ask you about the path forward here for lawmakers like yourself who oppose this military action.
06:11So we saw that vote on the War Powers Resolution fail in both houses last week.
06:16How do you pick up the pieces from that?
06:18What does opposition to this war look like going forward, both in the House and the Senate as you see
06:22it?
06:23Yeah, well, certainly we need to speak out against it.
06:25And for those who are against the war, give them a voice, give them an argument for why to do
06:29it.
06:29But I think from a practical standpoint, my goal is to stop the war, because I think it's bad.
06:33It's bad policy.
06:34It's escalation.
06:35It's incredibly costly.
06:37It's devastating to our economy.
06:39We've seen gas prices go up 50 cents to a dollar.
06:42It's going to cause the affordability crisis to only get worse in this country.
06:46And I think the most sensible path to that is try to encourage the Trump administration and the supporters of
06:52this war to, however implausibly, be able to declare victory and stop.
06:57OK, try to begin to rebuild pieces.
07:00That, I think, is a plausible argument for the Trump administration.
07:03And then you hear Trump saying, let's bomb them for fun.
07:07You hear Hegseth saying no quarter.
07:08You hear Trump saying they're willing to negotiate, but I'm not really in the mood.
07:12All of that is deep cause for concern.
07:15But the plan is, OK, declare victory and stop.
07:19If that can stop the war, then I'm more than willing to make that argument.
07:23Do you have any kind of read on the condition of the new leader of Iran?
07:28Because we have this statement from Iran's foreign minister saying Mujahideen is in good health and fully managing the situation,
07:38but we still haven't seen him.
07:40What is your perspective and what are you hearing about whether he is, in fact, even a player at this
07:44point?
07:45I have no idea.
07:47Nobody knows.
07:48All right.
07:48So there is no answer to that question.
07:50I think the thing is, let's not get too excited about what the answer is to that one way or
07:55the other, even if he is, as some host told me the other day, he's in a coma and he's
07:59missing a limb.
08:00How he knows that, I have no idea.
08:02But let's say that the guy is completely incapacitated and he dies in a week.
08:05The statement that was put out was put out, if it wasn't put out by him, it was put out
08:10by the Iranian regime.
08:12It was put out by the people who are in charge of Iran.
08:15So the belligerence in that statement, the complete lack of any sort of acquiescence, as Trump had hoped, shows that
08:22whether this guy is alive or not, the people who are running Iran are no closer to having a reasonable
08:28government there than they were at the start of this war.
08:31Arguably, they're further away and even more dug in.
08:34Last question I have is just about money.
08:36And before this war began, you had a Pentagon asking for an extremely large budget, $1.5 trillion, which I
08:44think will astonish a lot of people, I imagine some of your constituents as well.
08:48Is this administration going to get that from Congress?
08:50What's your assessment of the appetite to increase the defense budget to that size and scale?
08:56Yeah, that's a 50% increase in the defense budget.
08:59And by the way, that doesn't include the supplemental that they're talking about asking for to help cover the cost
09:05of this war, which is going to be in the tens of billions of dollars.
09:08No, that's not realistic.
09:10And look, you know, we have a $38 trillion debt.
09:13And it's very frustrating to me that everyone talks about that.
09:16And then, oh my gosh, the Republicans, when they came writing in the majority in Congress and President Trump got
09:21elected, this was a major issue.
09:23And then they voted for the reconciliation bill to add $4 trillion to the debt by massively cutting taxes.
09:29You're going to massively cut taxes, and then you're going to start a war and ask for a 50%
09:33increase in the defense budget?
09:35I mean, I don't think we need to do that, even if we hadn't cut those taxes.
09:40But my God, how do you stand up in front of the American people and say, we need a $1
09:44.5 trillion defense budget?
09:46We had to go to this war and spend these $10 billion, but we're not going to pay for it.
09:51We're going to cut taxes.
09:52We're going to drive the debt through the ceiling.
09:53I mean, you know, I'm a little bit speechless in terms of how do you justify that from any sort
10:00of economic standpoint?
10:01I wouldn't have cut the taxes, and I wouldn't be going to war and massively increasing the defense budget.
10:07But to try to do both is just insane in my view.
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