I wanna start with that comment that I just read, that that that comment that the

president made to NBC News saying, that on the heels of hitting Carg Island, he might

do it a few more times just for fun. And I wonder how that resonates with

you as you think about what the endgame is here and what you've learned from the

administration about how they intend to prosecute, this war to its conclusion.

Well, certainly, the the cavalier nonserious way in which president Trump, secretary Hager, and others have

talked about this war. We had secretary Hager talking about no quarter, which is basically a

a military term for for no survivors, kill everybody. I think that attitude has really undermined

our ability to build support and move forward. It's it's far from the largest problem with

this war. I mean, the largest problem is what's the plan? What's the strategy? What are

we trying to accomplish? What's the path to achieving it? And how do we deal with

the costs that are mounting by the day, certainly in terms of deaths, but the economic

impact you referenced globally. What's the path here? I know we want to degrade Iran's capability

militarily, but how much? And then the real goal at the start of this seemed to

be to fundamentally change Iran's calculus and to make them less hostile to us, to Israel,

and to the region. And there seems to be no progress on that aspect of the

plan. So this war is continuing. The cost is incredibly high. The president doesn't seem to

have a plan. Meanwhile, they wanna apparently try to convince America that this is some kind

of fun video game that we're just playing even as people are dying all across the

the the region, and and the global economy is p is is suffering from this. So,

yeah, I wish they were a little more serious in the way they explained such an

incredibly important action that they are taking.

Congressman, I wanna get to what you know about the the mission and the administration's sense

of that mission. We saw the news that the administration plans to send the thirty first

Marine Expeditionary Unit to to the region to add to the number of service personnel who

were there in in The Middle East. Do you have a clear understanding of what those

marines are going to do? And as you watch unfold, what does it tell you about

the direction of this conflict?

Yeah. I have a clear understanding of what the options are. Look. We've been talking about

this for a long time. There is no doubt that Iran is a major problem in

the region, in the world, a threat to us, a threat to Israel. They support a

variety of different violent extremist terrorist groups. How do you deal with that threat? So the

armed services committee for years now has been looking at options. I mean, what what can

you do? What what's militarily on the table? And there's always been two big problems with

the military option. One, the collateral damage. He hit Iran, it spreads, and that certainly happened.

It it spread as far as anyone would have feared. Second problem is, can you really

degrade them militarily to such a degree that it makes that cost worth the effort? And

what we learned is is really not because the Iranian regime is is dug in. They

are very, very solid. They're even as their leaders have been killed, they have a succession

plan. There's 90,000,000 people in Iran. They have a military. They not appear inclined to simply

collapse. So the conclusion was the military option wouldn't accomplish those objectives, would blow up the

region, cause all manner of collateral damage and escalation, and wouldn't ultimately accomplish the objective. Trump

decided to walk into that and to think that, a, we can degrade their military capability

to such a degree that it makes it worth it. But if they can just rebuild

it, I mean, that's the main problem with that. And then second, he seemed to just

sort of cross his fingers and say, well, gosh, if we hit them hard enough, they'll

either collapse or they will simply be broken enough to do what we want. But there

was never a clear path between all of this bombing and all of this destruction and

getting to that change in behavior by Iran. That's the problem, and that's what we're experiencing

right now. And I'd be interested to hear anyone who supports this war tell me what

that path is at this point to fundamentally breaking and changing the regime. I don't see

it.

Do you think that goal is accomplishable without putting boots on the ground? One of experts

we spoke to this week said there are two ways to go about this. You know,

you can do a prolonged bombing campaign, but that doesn't give you as much input and

impetus into what's actually happening on the ground and could take longer, or you can send

in troops, but then again, you could get mired in another forever war.

Yeah. Sorry. Thank you. I didn't directly answer the most important part of that, the previous

question. And so we've done this bombing campaign, and and you wanna try to do it

on the cheap, and that's what a bombing campaign is. Now we've seen even the bombing

campaign spreads, escalates, causes violence across the region. But now you're up against that reality of,

hey. You haven't achieved the objective. What about ground troops? And the problem with ground troops,

is you're gonna need a lot to dislodge this regime. There are talk about, you know,

more tactical efforts, smaller numbers of troops, and this is what the marines could do. One

possibility is you seed seize Karge Island to try to cut off that economic lifeline for

Iran. But could you seize it? Could you hold it? There's considerable questions about that. Maybe

a small group of special forces can help spark a a revolt within Iran. But, again,

there's no clear path to that. But would you

support that? Would you support US troops going in in a limited capacity like that?

Heavens no. No. I'm sorry. I do not. Because I don't think it would be effective,

and I think it, again, would be an escalation. It would cost more lives, and I

don't think you'd be able to dislodge the regime, and that's the problem. And let me

be clear. If I woke up tomorrow and this Iranian regime was gone and we had

an Iran that was working for the Iranian people and stopped all of the terrible stuff

they were doing, I would be very, very happy. But the problem is there's no direct

path to doing that, and the cost of what Donald Trump has done without thinking that

through, without having a plan to actually achieve the objective. So now you can't achieve the

objective, and you've caused an enormous amount of casualties, disruption, and escalation, not just in Iran,

but across the region and across the world. So that's the problem I have with this

approach.

I wanna ask you about the path forward here for lawmakers like yourself who oppose this

military action. So we saw that vote on the war powers resolution fail in both houses,

last week. How do you pick up the pieces from that? What does opposition to this

war look like going forward, both in the house and the senate as you see it?

Yeah. Well, certainly, we need to speak out against it. And for those who are against

the war, give them a voice, give them an argument for why to do it. But

I think from a practical standpoint, my goal is to stop the war because I think

it's bad. It's bad policy. It's escalation. It's incredibly costly. It's it's devastating to our economy.

We've seen gas prices go up, you know, 50¢ to a to a dollar. It's gonna

cause the affordability crisis to only get worse in this country. And I think the most

sensible path to that is try to encourage the Trump administration and the supporters of this

war to, however, implausibly, be able to declare victory and stop. Okay? Try to begin to

rebuild pieces. That, I think, is a plausible argument for the Trump administration. But then you

hear Trump saying, let's bomb them for fun. You hear Haidi Stenovecet saying no quarter. You

hear Trump saying they're willing to negotiate, but I'm not really in the mood. All of

that is deep cause for concern, but the plan is, okay. Declare victory and stop. If

that can stop the war, then I then I'm more than willing to make that argument.

Do you have any kind of read on the condition of the new leader of Iran?

Because, we have this, statement from Iran's foreign minister saying, Musha Bakhmini is, in good health

and fully managing the situation, but we still haven't seen him. What is your perspective, and

and what are you hearing about whether he is, in fact, even a player at this

point?

I have no idea. Nobody knows. Alright? So there is no answer to that question. I

think the thing is, let's not get too excited about what the answer is to that

one way or the other. Even if he is, as as as as some host told

me the other day, he's in a coma and he's missing a limb. How he knows

that? I have no idea. But let's say that the guy is completely incapacitated and he

dies in a week. The statement that was put out was put out if it wasn't

put out by him, it was put out by the Iranian regime. It was put out

by the people who are in charge of Iran. So the belligerence in that statement, the

complete lack of any sort of acquiescence as as Trump had hoped, shows that whether this

guy's alive or not, the people who are running Iran are no closer to having a

reasonable government there than they were at the start of this war. Arguably, they're further away

and even more dug in.

Last question I have is just about money. And before this war began, you had a

Pentagon asking for an extremely large budget, 1 and a half trillion dollars, which I think

will astonish a lot of people. I imagine some of your constituents as well. Is this

administration going to get that from from congress? What's your assessment of the appetite to increase

the defense budget to to that size and scale?

Yeah. That's a 50% increase in the defense budget. And by the way, that doesn't include

the supplemental that they're talking about asking for to help cover the cost of this war,

which is gonna be in the tens of billions of dollars. No. That's not realistic. And

look, you know, we have a $38,000,000,000,000 debt. And it's very frustrating to me that everyone

talks about that. And then, oh my gosh, the Republicans, they came riding in the majority

in congress and president Trump got elected, this was a major issue. And then they voted

for the reconciliation bill to add $4,000,000,000,000 to the debt by massively cutting taxes. You're gonna

massively cut taxes, and then you're start a war and ask for a 50% increase in

the defense budget? I mean, I don't think we need to do that even if we

hadn't cut those taxes. But my god, how do you stand up in front of the

American people and say, we need a 1,500,000,000,000 defense budget. We had to go to this

war and spend these $10,000,000,000, but we're not gonna pay for it. We're we're we're gonna

cut taxes. We're gonna drive the debt to the ceiling. I I you know, I'm as

I'm a little bit speechless in terms of how do you justify that from any sort

of economic standpoint. I wouldn't have cut the taxes, and I wouldn't be going to war

massively increasing the defense budget. But to try to do both is just insane in my

view.