Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: As the US and Israel continue their attacks on Iran,
Speaker 2: the White House is now trying to sell Congress on
Speaker 2: the war it's already started.
Speaker 1: They have let this go on for a handful of
Speaker 1: days now without sort of a clear rationale of what
Speaker 1: has happened, how long this will go.
Speaker 2: On Bloomberg National Political correspondent Nancy Cook.
Speaker 1: And now they're trying to play catch up, both with
Speaker 1: lawmakers with their own base. Now they're really on the defensive.
Speaker 2: President Trump made the case today that it was critical
Speaker 2: to hit Iran before it attacked the US or An Ally.
Speaker 3: We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was
Speaker 3: my opinion that they were going to attack first. They
Speaker 3: were going to attack if we didn't do it, they
Speaker 3: were going to attack first. I fell strongly about.
Speaker 2: Members of the administration, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
Speaker 2: are holding an all Congress briefing today. Rubio also brief
Speaker 2: Congression Leader's Monday and has been insistent that the Trump
Speaker 2: administration gave Congress at least some high profile members the
Speaker 2: necessary notice before striking targets in Iran.
Speaker 1: We notified Congress. I mean we notified the Gang of Eight.
Speaker 3: We notified Congressional leadership.
Speaker 1: There's no law that requires us to do that.
Speaker 3: The law says we have to notify them forty eight
Speaker 3: hours after beginning hostilities.
Speaker 2: With Technically, Congress not the president has the power to
Speaker 2: declare war, and members of Congress, mostly Democrats, like Senator
Speaker 2: Mark Warner, have pushed back on the idea that the
Speaker 2: Trump administration followed constitutional procedure.
Speaker 4: System says, before president choosers to go to war, you
Speaker 4: got to get a declaration. You've got to get make
Speaker 4: the case the American people. You've got to ask Congress.
Speaker 4: None of that took place as he chose to start
Speaker 4: this war Friday night.
Speaker 2: But there are also criticisms coming in from Trump's own party.
Speaker 2: In posts on social media, Senator Ran Paul and Congressman
Speaker 2: Thomas Massey, both of Kentucky, said they were opposed to
Speaker 2: this war.
Speaker 1: There has been a real split within the magus. You
Speaker 1: have some that are supporting the president and others who
Speaker 1: say this is not the America first president that we
Speaker 1: signed up for.
Speaker 2: I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the big take from
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News Today on the show, As conflict widens, in
Speaker 2: the Middle East. Tensions are also rising on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 2: What are Trump's plans for what comes next? And what
Speaker 2: power does Congress have to shape the direction of this conflict.
Speaker 2: Four days into the war with Iran, I sat down
Speaker 2: with Bloomberg National political correspondent Nancy Cook and National security
Speaker 2: reporter Jamie Terrabey to discuss the Trump administration's shifting justifications
Speaker 2: for launching joint strikes on Iran with Israel. So, Nancy,
Speaker 2: President Trump has said these attacks may last four to
Speaker 2: five weeks, possibly more. Monday Night on True Social Heat
Speaker 2: even said the US had enough weapons to fight wars forever.
Speaker 2: What do we know about what he's looking to accomplish
Speaker 2: in Iran and how long he's actually willing to let
Speaker 2: this war go on.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that the President has given a lot
Speaker 1: of different statements to a lot of different people. He
Speaker 1: talked to about you know, ten or more journalists over
Speaker 1: the weekend, sort of highlighting what his rationales were and
Speaker 1: what the time frame would be. There have been a
Speaker 1: bunch of shifting explanations for you know, four to five weeks.
Speaker 1: We've also heard it could be much longer, you know.
Speaker 1: Secretary of State Rubio said that we were doing this
Speaker 1: because of Israel. Other people have said, oh, it's because
Speaker 1: of a nuclear weapon. I mean, I think that the
Speaker 1: point is is that there has just been a remarkable
Speaker 1: amount of shifting justifications, both for the time frame and
Speaker 1: also the reason why we're doing this.
Speaker 2: And let's tick through some of these justifications that we've
Speaker 2: heard from the President so far. There's the idea that
Speaker 2: this could spark regime change, permanently disable Iron's nuclear missile capabilities,
Speaker 2: stop its shipments of roadside bombs, ended support for armed
Speaker 2: proxy groups, all of these suggestions by Trump of what
Speaker 2: the reason for this war has been. Why is military
Speaker 2: intervention the strategy? Why not continue negotiations with Iran? For example?
Speaker 1: Well, I think that two things. One, Trump has always
Speaker 1: been very aligned with Israel and has always really followed
Speaker 1: their lead, and this is something that not in Yahoo wants.
Speaker 1: You could argue why he wants to do that for
Speaker 1: his own political survival or for the safety of Israel.
Speaker 1: I'll leave that to others to decide. But Trump has
Speaker 1: always been very aligned with him, and so you know
Speaker 1: they are following Israel's lead on this. Secretary of State
Speaker 1: Marco Rubu basically said that on the Hill just outright yesterday,
Speaker 1: which is something that a lot of political people latched
Speaker 1: onto and were sort of thought that was interesting. But
Speaker 1: then two more broadly, Trump really came back into office
Speaker 1: because people were disillusioned with the state of the economy. However,
Speaker 1: now that he is back in office for his second term,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have to run for re election again, and
Speaker 1: he really wants to go for it in terms of
Speaker 1: establishing his legacy, and to him, that means remaking the
Speaker 1: world order, getting rid of leaders who he sees as
Speaker 1: bad actors. And he has really sort of changed his
Speaker 1: tune on nation building and become much more of a
Speaker 1: foreign policy hawk and a second term than I think
Speaker 1: anyone anticipated. And I think that a lot of the
Speaker 1: MAGA base is pretty surprised because in his second term,
Speaker 1: what we've seen is, you know, he captured and ousted
Speaker 1: Nicholas Maduro of Venezuela in early January. Now we have
Speaker 1: the bombing of Iran, the administration is openly eyeing leadership
Speaker 1: changes in Cuba, and so it's just, you know, Trump
Speaker 1: really wants to remake the world order and he is
Speaker 1: going ahead and doing it, and so it's just a
Speaker 1: really interesting moment, and it's a really interesting moment politically
Speaker 1: in terms of his own base, because not everyone's happy
Speaker 1: with it, and not everyone's going along with it. You know,
Speaker 1: I still think that people may fall in line, but
Speaker 1: right now there's a lot of fracturing in the mega base,
Speaker 1: with former lawmakers like Marjorie Taylor Green and influencers like
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly really calling out the president
Speaker 1: and saying this is not what we signed up for.
Speaker 2: And Jimmy, I want to talk more about how these
Speaker 2: strikes in Iran fit into Trump's broader vision for US
Speaker 2: military strategy around the world. As Nancy mentioned, the strikes
Speaker 2: came just a few weeks after US forces seized Venezuela's president,
Speaker 2: Nicholas Maduro in a surprise raid. Is Venezuela being seen
Speaker 2: as a roadmap for what Trump wants to do in Iran.
Speaker 5: It's really interesting to see the fact that Trump has
Speaker 5: used his executive powers to launch attacks on other countries.
Speaker 5: I mean, last year it wasn't just Venezuela and the
Speaker 5: boat strikes in the Caribbean, it was Yemen, it was
Speaker 5: Iran as well. And these are all moments during the
Speaker 5: year that he did not go to Congress to get
Speaker 5: any kind of authorization. Secretary Rubio did that that. You know,
Speaker 5: there have been multiple, multiple briefings on the Hill. The
Speaker 5: quality and content of those briefings has varied, and this
Speaker 5: will all fall along political lines. We've seen, you know,
Speaker 5: senators who are Democrats who come out saying there's not
Speaker 5: enough to detail. We don't understand this, you know, we
Speaker 5: need more. There's no Senator Mark Warner, who you know
Speaker 5: from Virginia, who's part of the Gang of Aid, and
Speaker 5: the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said that
Speaker 5: as a member of the Gang of Eight, he did
Speaker 5: not see anything that presented an imminent threat to the US,
Speaker 5: and he would have had access to classified information. But
Speaker 5: then you have people like Jim rich who is a
Speaker 5: senior Republican also on the Intelligence Committee, who will tell
Speaker 5: you things like he was convinced before he even walked
Speaker 5: into these briefings, you know. So there are people who
Speaker 5: are determined to support the president no matter what, and
Speaker 5: then there are those who also just question everything he does.
Speaker 5: So everything that kind of comes out of these briefings
Speaker 5: is really challenging to part. But there is one hundred
Speaker 5: percent of frustration, particularly when you see really sort of
Speaker 5: conservative hawks like Senator Roger Wicker, who's the chairman of
Speaker 5: the Senata Armed Services Committee, and a hawk like just
Speaker 5: these are these are the things that he cares about,
Speaker 5: not getting enough to detail and not having that requisite,
Speaker 5: you know, communication between the Pentagon and the Hill or
Speaker 5: the White House and the Hill, and sort of really
Speaker 5: having to play catch up all this time.
Speaker 2: And do me I'm curious how much did Congress know
Speaker 2: before the US attacked around I know you say it's
Speaker 2: hard to parse, of course, but what are the facts here?
Speaker 5: What we understand is that the Gang of Eight was briefed,
Speaker 5: senior leadership was briefed. My understanding is, and Rubio said
Speaker 5: this yesterday, that they did give, you know, very sort
Speaker 5: of short notice to the senior leadership in Congress that
Speaker 5: an attack was happening or that something was underway, but
Speaker 5: they didn't want to say too much, obviously because they
Speaker 5: didn't really want anything to get out before it happened.
Speaker 2: And how much does that differ from the kind of
Speaker 2: notification that's supposed to happen in these situations.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, normally there's a lot more attempts to
Speaker 5: get buy in from the Hill. You know, there's a
Speaker 5: lot more outreach, there's a lot more at least also
Speaker 5: preparing the public for something like this, you know, and normally,
Speaker 5: particularly when we look at the Iraq War, George W. Bush,
Speaker 5: you know, went to the Hill, got Congress to approve it.
Speaker 5: It was a vote, and you know, but we've seen
Speaker 5: every president since the war Paris Act came in in
Speaker 5: the seventies just ignore it. You know. Barack Obama did
Speaker 5: it in Libya, Bill Clinton did it in Kosovo, Ronald
Speaker 5: Reagan did it in Grenada, and Trump, Donald Trump did
Speaker 5: it in his first administration. So it's there as a
Speaker 5: check and as we have clearly seen in this first
Speaker 5: year of President Trump's second term, Congress has not been
Speaker 5: that much of a check on his powers and his decisions.
Speaker 2: After the break, what could Congress to limit the Trump
Speaker 2: administration's use of force in Iran? And will they do it?
Speaker 2: The Trump administration made a push for Congressional support for
Speaker 2: the war in Iran on Tuesday. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsath,
Speaker 2: CIA director John Ratcliffe, Joint chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Kine,
Speaker 2: and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were on the Hill
Speaker 2: for a briefing open to all members of Congress. Jamie,
Speaker 2: talk me through what happens during that briefing and what
Speaker 2: you expect to come of it.
Speaker 5: People who want to be convinced will be convinced. People
Speaker 5: who don't want to be convinced will not be convinced.
Speaker 5: And then there's the people in the middle who actually have,
Speaker 5: you know, really sort of studied, concerned questions. And they're
Speaker 5: the ones that you always really want to talk to
Speaker 5: because they're the ones who kind of understand the sort
Speaker 5: of the breadth of what military action is. And there
Speaker 5: are going to be so many people at these briefings,
Speaker 5: if it's the entire both the House and the Senate
Speaker 5: and all of their members, and I think at some
Speaker 5: point it's going to get a little leaky some stuff.
Speaker 5: As we'll chat. We'll be hearing more about this in
Speaker 5: reporting over the next couple of days. Whether people will
Speaker 5: be satisfied, I think will largely depend on who they
Speaker 5: support in this situation.
Speaker 2: Well, I want to ask about another potential pivot point here.
Speaker 2: Both houses of Congress had already scheduled a vote attempting
Speaker 2: to curb Trump's use of military power. The vote actually,
Speaker 2: you know, predated the strike on Iran. Can you tell
Speaker 2: me about that effort and why it started originally?
Speaker 5: I think because of the last year that we've seen
Speaker 5: with all of the military actions that the White House
Speaker 5: has launched unilaterally. It started with Yemen went into Iran,
Speaker 5: and then of course the boat strikes in the Caribbean,
Speaker 5: and then the Nicholas Maduro raid, you know, and then
Speaker 5: the chatter that began to increase, and we saw all
Speaker 5: of the military build up off the coast of Venezuela
Speaker 5: begin to move to the Gulf in preparation now we
Speaker 5: know for these efforts against Iran. So in both houses,
Speaker 5: in both chambers, Democrats and Republicans have sponsored bills to
Speaker 5: go to the floor to provide limits for what President
Speaker 5: Trump can do with the Iran war. Now they're both
Speaker 5: expected to fail, and they're both expected to fail because
Speaker 5: in spite of some Republicans like Grand Paul or Thomas
Speaker 5: Massey who are against this kind of intervention slash foreign action,
Speaker 5: there are Democrats who are very pro Israel who have
Speaker 5: said they will either not vote or vote against it.
Speaker 5: So it's very symbolic at this point, you know, when
Speaker 5: we keep talking about like, you know what the House
Speaker 5: and the Senate canon can't do to check the White
Speaker 5: House and Executive because because there's a majority in both chambers,
Speaker 5: that's really really challenging. And I think that that's going
Speaker 5: to be another thing to watch in November, whether the
Speaker 5: House flips, whether the Senate also flips, and what difference
Speaker 5: that makes to the remaining years of President Trump's term.
Speaker 5: The most important part about all of this, and I
Speaker 5: think that that's something that we're going to see play
Speaker 5: out this week in Congress is the people who voted
Speaker 5: for and people who voted against. And you know, this
Speaker 5: was a thing that sort of like dogged Hillary Clinton
Speaker 5: after the Iraq War became intensely unpopular when she ran
Speaker 5: for president. And so when we see the War Powers
Speaker 5: resolutions hit the floor in both the Senate and the
Speaker 5: House this week, people who don't vote will be seen
Speaker 5: to be given their tacit approval to the war. And
Speaker 5: if this drags on, we've just had more US military casualties.
Speaker 5: Both Hegseeth and President Trump have not said no to
Speaker 5: the possibility of ground troops that we see, you know,
Speaker 5: where Congress can and cannot have an effective role.
Speaker 2: And Nancy in previous conflicts in the region, the US
Speaker 2: has lined up international support as well, in particular from
Speaker 2: European allies. What kind of support or response has Trump
Speaker 2: been getting from Europe this time. What is the EU
Speaker 2: said about their willingness to be drawn into this broader conflict?
Speaker 1: Well, Trump didn't ask any of our typical allies for
Speaker 1: permission on this, I mean, apart from talking about it
Speaker 1: with Israel, but all of the European partners that we
Speaker 1: normally work with, you know, weren't given the heads up.
Speaker 1: But actually I think that that made it easier for them.
Speaker 1: You know, they didn't have to you know, commit to it,
Speaker 1: they didn't have to say they supported it, you know,
Speaker 1: they weren't put in an awkward position. So I think
Speaker 1: from their perspective, it's probably a good thing. You know,
Speaker 1: they didn't have to sort of negotiate with Trump on this.
Speaker 1: But I do think that it just shows the extent
Speaker 1: to which he is willing to go out alone on
Speaker 1: things and how much he is charging ahead without leaning
Speaker 1: on traditional alliances in terms of foreign policy. And this
Speaker 1: is just another instance.
Speaker 2: On the US side. How do you expect these strikes
Speaker 2: and their aftermath to play out in the midterms. We
Speaker 2: might get a hint today as voters head to the
Speaker 2: polls in primaries in North Carolina and Texas.
Speaker 1: How they play out in the midterms depends how long
Speaker 1: the strikes go on and what it really does to
Speaker 1: the economy. So we saw the price of a gallon
Speaker 1: of gasoline jump overnight up to three dollars and eleven
Speaker 1: cents a gallon, and so that is something that I'll
Speaker 1: be watching. If the strikes, you know, go on for
Speaker 1: two months and that ends up hurting the price of
Speaker 1: oil and the price of gasoline, then I think it
Speaker 1: will play into the midterms quite a bit. If the
Speaker 1: strikes are over, you know, in a few weeks, and
Speaker 1: we're not embroiled into a huge regional conflict, then I
Speaker 1: feel like by the time people are thinking about who
Speaker 1: they'll vote for in the midterms, which typically happens in
Speaker 1: the summer and fall, then you know, people will have
Speaker 1: moved on to other things. People are so upset about
Speaker 1: domestic policy issues right now, including the economy, ice is
Speaker 1: handling of the immigration that that's really their focus. And
Speaker 1: Trump voters don't necessarily want this nation building, and if
Speaker 1: that continues to disrupt the domestic agenda. I think Republicans
Speaker 1: will pay a price at the polls in November.
Speaker 2: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
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