Chris Coons: ‘We Owe It to the People’ To Take up the ISIS AUMF and ‘Vote on It’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT: 

JANSING: "Senator, a question from Eugene Robinson"
ROBINSON: "Senator, why isn’t Congress taking a vote? Why isn’t Congress voting to support, to fund the war? Is it pure politics? Is it disagreement with the policy? Why?"
COONS: "Well, we did take up and pass an AUMF, declaration of war through the foreign relations committee late in the last Congress. It didn’t make to it the floor. Under this current Republican controlled Congress we have not taken it up and debated it. Gene, centrally there’s a disagreement. A group of us, Republicans and Democrats on the foreign relations committee have tried to coble together a bipartisan coalition. There’s legitimate concern by our chairman and ranking member we wouldn’t be able to get a strong bipartisan vote and they worry that would undermine the war effort. I respect that concern, but several members of the committee remember senator kain of Virginia and other think we owe it to the people to take up this issue and vote on it. If we’ll have critics of President Obama’s strategy in Syria and Iraq then we ought to do our job and debate strategy and debate authorization and do the role that the founders imagined for Congress.
ROBINSON: "Realistically, senator, what do you see the chances of that happening especially as we go into this election year and everything becomes more politically froth than it is and if the AUMF can’t come up where do you go legislatively with this with your arguments?"
COONS: "I understand that with the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary just a month or six weeks away, that the argument oh, we can’t do anything serious because we’re in the middle of a presidential election does begin to hold some sway. But we can’t have a country where Congress fails to do its constitutional duty simply because we have an election. That runs against the founders vision that we could both legislate and have campaigns at the same time in a vibrant democracy. I think if we bring this up in committee, enough responsible senators will step up and make kms that we’ll end up with a meaningful authorization. At the very least I think we owe to it those who we have sent into harm’s way, who are currently serving in Iraq and Syria to know that we got their back and that we authorize the actions that they are taking. I am concerned given the trajectory of the presidential examine that we got some candidates, Donald Trump in particular, but others, who are making statements that are just outrageous and that, frankly, are playing right into frame that ISIS wants us to be saying about our conflict with terrorism in the Middle East."
ROBINSON: "It’s an important piece. Thank you for writing."