Rep. Gottheimer on Trump’s War Power Vote: It‘s Important to Crush This Iranian Regime, But the Ambiguous Briefings Are Questionable
RUSH EXCERPT:
GOTTHEIMER: "Well, listen, I that‘s one of the questions that many of us have. And as somebody who believes it‘s critically important that we do everything we can to crush this Iranian regime when their banner under death to America and has has not only killed Americans and our service members and attacked our bases, but has continued to, to want to bring that kind of terror to, to America, not to mention our allies. So understanding that broader objective when I, when we‘re getting these, you know, ambiguous briefings, the joint chiefs yesterday, the chairman said that 80% of air defenses were destroyed, which is obviously sounds like a very positive number. But you got to dig down into that. He said 90% of weapons factories were attacked. That doesn‘t mean I understand what the status is. He talked about 80% of the nuclear industrial base was hit. Does that mean they were weakened or destroyed? You know, what does that exactly mean? And those are the kind of questions that many of us have. Especially when the president or his administration hasn‘t come before the Congress to publicly brief on the progress. And, you know, and even on the intelligence committee, even a lot of briefings we‘ve received, you know, don‘t give us the detail that I think we should be getting from an oversight perspective. So, you know, there‘s a lot of questions. It goes back to the beginning of this conflict when there weren‘t, when the objectives weren‘t clearly laid out. Right. And it‘s tough to meet objectives if you don‘t exactly know what those objectives are. And that‘s been part of the frustration, even for many of us who believe, and I hope all Americans do, that. Iran is our top adversary. They seek to undermine our freedom. They‘ve killed tens of thousands of their own people. And, you know, and they seek to do us harm. So they‘re an enemy of our country and the leading state sponsor of terror. We shouldn‘t we shouldn‘t make light of that. But how we actually execute this matters. And when the straits of hormuz is literally only letting six ships in, normally 140 go through there and charging, and Iran is charging $2 million for each ship that went through in crypto or Chinese currency. You know, you‘ve got a problem when Pakistan is the negotiator and they‘re good friends with, you know, another top adversary, the government of China, that‘s a problem. When the defense minister called for today, called for the Pakistani defense minister called for Jews to, quote, burn in hell. That‘s a problem."
