All HELL BREAKS LOOSE in Middle East as Iran RETALIATES

All HELL BREAKS LOOSE in Middle East as Iran RETALIATES

this is a breaking news alert as all hell continues to break loose in the Middle East Iran is officially retaliating they’ve launched medium-range ballistic missiles at a United States uh air force base in Qatar several US defense officials have confirmed that US forces at the Al Yudid air base in Qatar were attacked earlier with short range and medium-range ballistic missiles fired from Iran no reports so far of any casualties to US service members stationed in Qatar or the Middle East uh Kuwait Iraq um have joined also Bahrain and the UAE and Qatar and now closing their airspace following the Iranian ballistic missile attack against the US air base in Qatar uh the White House is saying that Trump is monitoring the situation uh Iran is calling this operation glad tidings of victory again targeting US forces uh and at this stage um we’re getting footage like this um panic scene in Doha during the Iranian ballistic missile attack earlier against the Aludade air base in Qatar play this footage right here [Music] here we see the sirens sounding earlier in Bahrain as residents were told to take shelter let’s play this clip right here [Music] this is uh footage showing surfaceto-air missiles launched um from the Aludade air base intercepting the Iranian ballistic missiles earlier over Doha Qatar so you can see that play this clip so right now Trump is currently in the situation room us jets are scrambling over Saudi Arabia right now the New York Times is reporting that Iran allegedly coordinated the attacks on the American air base with Qatar and Qatari officials and gave advanced notice that the attacks were coming to minimize casualties according to three Iranian officials familiar with the plans the officials said Iran symbolically needed to strike back at the US but at the same time carry it out in a way that allowed all sides an exit ramp they described it similar to the strategy to 2020 when Iran gave Iraq a heads up before firing ballistic missiles um an American base in Iraq following the assassination of its top general the latest we have is Trump monitoring imminent threats against multiple US bases in the Middle East now uh potential Iranian retaliation uh against other uh bases as well uh we will keep you posted there as we learn um more i had the opportunity to interview uh Democratic leader Hakee Jeff and also the uh Democratic ranking member of the House Intelligence uh Committee Democratic Congress member um the two top Democrats uh in this area um I interviewed them right before uh the retaliatory strikes um I want to play for you uh Democratic leader Jeff uh who talks about how Donald Trump’s declaration of war powers is unconstitutional um a violation of the Constitution uh Democratic leader Jeff didn’t mince words when I interviewed him and then Democratic U ranking member of the intelligence committee and the news was breaking as I was interviewing him let me bring you both of these interviews together now let’s play them i’m joined by Democratic leader Hakee Jeff leader Jeff I want to get your reaction to the strikes by the United States of Iran the fallout the fact that Trump did not seek congressional authorization and didn’t seem to even give uh any notification to at least Democrats so what’s your response to everything that just happened constitution is very clear on this issue that only Congress has the power to declare war and to authorize the type of offensive uh military action that Donald Trump deployed in striking Iran now Donald Trump is going to have to demonstrate to the American people and to us in Congress that there was an imminent threat that justified his actions it’s hard to imagine that he has the ability to actually prove that because we’ve seen no evidence uh to justify this type of offensive strike and the problem with it uh is that there doesn’t also seem to be a plan uh for how to avoid the type of escalation that could result in America being dragged into another potentially disastrous Middle Eastern war which the overwhelming majority of the American people want no part of at this moment it seemed that less than 90 days ago Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabber testified under oath that there was not an imminent threat of Iran getting a nuclear weapon then all of a sudden it seemed like in the past two weeks behind the scenes I mean we would get drips of things happening you know things started escalating very very quickly and then all of a sudden these strikes happened there there wasn’t even any communication at all with the American people of of what was happening i mean we get Trump’s social media posts online including this morning that looks like the rantings and ravings of of a lunatic with exclamation points we’ll we’ll talk about the one from this morning but it’s unclear what the hell is even happening i think that’s what Americans what the hell is happening is is is a common thing I’m hearing from our audience the reason that the Constitution in the wisdom of the framers gives Congress exclusively the power to declare war and authorize military force is so that there can actually be an informed debate in public uh that allows the American people through their elected representatives in the House and in the Senate to make a decision about what is right for the country what’s in our best interest what’s in our national security uh interest and so the failure to have that happen there’s a high bar that Donald Trump needs to cross uh in order to demonstrate uh that aggressive diplomacy which I’ve called for uh wasn’t the right way to go and what was strange about it all is that on Friday he indicated that we’re going to allow for two weeks to take place uh so that we can see if we can arrive at an agreement related to stopping Iran from becoming nuclear capable which is a goal that we all share iran is a sworn enemy of the United States of America we cannot allow them to become a nuclear power the question of course is what is the best way to do that and the moment seemed to call for aggressive diplomacy not a strike that was not authorized by the United States Congress then a week before Trump said that there was supposed to be I think the sixth round of discussions with Iran on the prior Sunday and then Israel struck I think two or three days before there was supposed to be the sixth round and then the Trump regime was basically saying “Oh that was all part of our decoy we said we were doing a sixth round of discussion but tricked you.” And we did this because we Nothing’s making sense have you been briefed have Democrats been briefed do do is Congress been briefed is there going to be a briefing what What’s going on so we’ll have an all member briefing uh that takes place for the House of Representatives tomorrow i spoke to the White House on Saturday and I asked them for a leadership briefing which has yet to be forthcoming and if you have evidence uh that justifies a strike because of an alleged imminent threat of Iran becoming nuclear capable all of a sudden present that evidence and in the absence of doing that you’re hiding from congressional leadership on the Democratic side and you’re hiding by extension from the American people so tomorrow at that all member classified briefing uh I expect that on the Democratic side at least and perhaps a handful of Republicans are going to highly scrutinize the Trump administration both as it relates to the justification for this strike without following the constitutional process and the boastful claims that Donald Trump has made that the Iranian nuclear program has been completely and totally y obliterated we’ve also seen no evidence to suggest that that in fact was the case notwithstanding the bravery of you know the men and women in the armed services who carried out the strike and we continue to pray for them and for their safety uh but this is about the Trump administration and the constitutional process that’s in place the law that is required in order to authorize uh military force that they have not adhered to as far as we can tell at this moment and questioning the aftermath uh of the strike in terms of was it even successful and what’s their plan to avoid entering into another potentially disastrous Middle Eastern war how unusual it is it there would not be a gang of eight brief or a leadership brief at this stage and that it’s the very first time that you or you know other leaders of the House Intelligence Committee are going to find out anything about what happened would be a few days after the strike took how how unusual is that it’s highly unusual that there wasn’t a briefing in advance of any potential military action being contemplated by the Trump administration then he strikes Iran without congressional authorization and then days have gone by without even a gang of eight briefing which of course represents the top four legislative leaders in the Congress and the top four leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committee i mean this is extraordinary and I explicitly asked on Saturday at the highest levels of the White House for a gang of eight briefing and they have failed to produce it what are they trying to hide from the American people by hiding from the legislative leaders in the House and in the Senate well this is going on too you have the disastrous budget bill working its way now through the Senate they’re making it this was even possible worse than what it looked like in the House more cuts to Medicaid more issues that are going to cause uh massive uh amounts of of money being trillions added to to the debt what do you want the American people to know about that because you know it’s seems like kind of whack-a-ole here but we have to focus on on on all of this that’s going down yeah the one big ugly bill this GOP tax scam represents the largest cut to Medicaid in American history children and families and people with disabilities and seniors and everyday Americans are going to be hurt hospitals will close nursing homes will shut down people are not going to be able to get the care that they need in community after community all across the country including in rural America and as a result of that people will die at the same time the Republicans in this one big ugly bill are trying to enact the largest cut to nutritional assistance in American history they are literally ripping food out of the mouths of children veterans seniors small business owners and others in order uh to provide their billionaire donors with massive tax breaks and they want to stick all of us with the bill uh by exploding the debt by more than $3 trillion this GOP tax scam hurts everyday Americans in order to reward billionaires that’s why we’re doing everything we can to stop it stop it in the Senate it limped out of the House uh by barely a vote it may come back to the House of Representatives and we’re going to do everything that we can to shut it down when it comes back to us if it even makes it out of the United States Senate finally I think you’ve seen the energy on the ground with those no Kings protests millions of Americans peacefully protesting across the country red states blue states purple states big cities small cities towns of all sizes what Americans see as an authoritarian regime that is constantly violating the law and we see an example of it here just going to war without providing any information without seeking authorization um so what what what we say it’s unconstitutional when we say that he’s violating the law over and over again you know what what what else can be done i mean I think you see people taken to the streets peacefully but but what else can be done to stop this unconstitutional encroachment frankly what many people and I believe is actually dictatorship here in the United States as we see our brothers and sisters being disappeared by ICE agents you know or people who are being deputized as ICE agents terrorizing our streets what do we do well the peaceful protests that have taken place millions and millions of people uh coming out to the streets peacefully demonstrating pushing back uh against the tyrannical government that they’re seeing this flood of extremism that has been unleashed on the American people is incredibly important you know it’s an all hands on deck moment in terms of aggressively pushing back in the Congress which we’ll continue to do aggressively pushing back in the courts which we’ll continue to do but perhaps most importantly aggressively pushing back in community after community after community all throughout the country to win the hearts and minds of the American people as is being done you know we’re about to celebrate our 250th birthday next year and when this democracy thing got started uh it was once said that that if the people fear the government there is tyranny but when the government fears the people there is liberty and if we want to get back to a place where there’s liberty and justice for all in the United States of America it’s going to be important for us to continue to peacefully show up stand up speak up for what is right make sure we do what is necessary of course to win elections all across the country including perhaps most importantly taking back control of the House of Representatives so we can cut Donald Trump’s presidency in half legislatively and together I’m confident that if we continue to do the things that have been done and we are in a more is more environment so we have to continue to do more all of us uh that we will one day soon in this national nightmare and get our great country back on track Democratic leader Jeff thanks for joining us thank you man that was the interview with Democratic leader Jeff now let me play you the interview of Democratic ranking member of the intelligence committee Congress member let’s play it i’m joined by Democratic Congress member Jim Hemes ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee congress member I just got to you know show you what Donald Trump posted just moments ago and get your reaction to it as the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee here’s what he’s posting i think he coined the term panickin he said “Don’t be a panickin.” But he seems to be a panickin right now everyone keep oil prices down i’m watching exclamation point you’re playing right into the hands of the enemy don’t do it all in caps and then he posts to the Department of Energy drill baby drill and some of those words are in caps and I mean now I mean does he actually think that they do the the drilling at the Department of Energy and then he says this message to Russia’s former president Medvidev did I hear that former President Medvidev from Russia casually throwing around the n-word nuclear and saying that he and other countries would supply nuclear warheads to Iran did he really say that or is it just a figment in my imagination if he did say that if if he did confirm let me know immediately the n-word should not be treated so casually i guess that’s why Putin’s the boss by the way if anyone thinks our hardware was great over the weekend far and away the strongest and best equipped we have 20 years advanced over the pack is our nuclear submarines they are the most powerful and lethal weapons ever built and they just launched the 30 tomahawks congress member you know as who who was it that once said “Walk softly and carry a big stick.” And I think that policy was probably the right What in the world is this yeah yeah look I think this is his advisors telling him well you know uh oil prices could go up if the uh you know Iranians decide to shut the straits of Hormuz which is where 20% of global oil comes through uh you know I think that’s probably what’s going on and by the way I can confirm for him not that I not that he listens to me but I can confirm for him that Medbedv put up some sort of social media post so I can at least make get that done for him today medvidev did in fact say that he may you know Russia may provide nukes but you know I I I I don’t believe that that’s going to happen i don’t believe that individually we’ve got the ability to keep oil prices down and I also don’t believe that the Department of Energy has anything to do with oil drilling now that said what’s really going on here of course is uh you know maybe the man’s a little nervous because he’s uh he’s he’s gotten himself and us into a massive massive gamble that involves gasoline prices and nuclear weapons and all sorts of serious things um but you know look it’s the classic Trump thing right it’s the game of chicken or I think this goes back to the Nixon administration you know what if you’re the craziest guy in the room if you’re the craziest guy in the room and you’ve got nuclear weapons and don’t really understand what’s going on which is certainly all of those posts suggest to be true people are likely to give you a wide birth and a big margin so I I think that’s what’s going on well I think that worked with Kim Jong-un we see how powerful they are in North Kore i’m being sarcastic i mean the thing of what Treasury Secretary Scott Besson in Donald Trump’s trade policies referred to it as the crazy Ivan theory he you know he goes “He’s crazy we just that’s that’s the the unifying principle right now in American foreign policy and trade policy is that we’re the craziest and you don’t know what we’re going to do you going to wake up is he going to start posting nword nuclear bomb crazy guy or is he going to go golfing what’s going to happen but we’re the United States of America damn it don’t we go through deliberative process and Congress is supposed to be the ones who authorize war and they talk about these things so we know we have good intelligence u we don’t have a director of national intelligence show up 90 days ago and say nope no we don’t see a major threat right there anytime soon and then have the president go yeah don’t believe her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about that kind of I don’t like crazy congressman yeah fair enough fair enough um uh you know I’m quite sure the Canadian people would be very happy to receive you into the warm embrace of their citizenship if you’re not going to make it this next three years are crazy um but uh yeah look I I um you know I I also think I’ve been thinking a lot about this you know uh I think that there is not likely to be a lot of really good news here what do I mean by that what I mean by that is that you know we don’t even know if the uranium was in Fordo or Natans or Esvahan you know it’s quite possible since this was an advertised raid that the Iranians loaded that stuff up into a truck or a bunch of trucks I should say and moved it now maybe we’ll figure that out but I I think there’s one thing that would be a good and and visible outcome here and that’s what the president was contradicting all of his people on yesterday which is regime change look if the Iranian people finally find a way to get rid of these evil sobs under whom they have you know labored so brutally for decades now that would be a very visible sign of success but you know I I really worry about this because you know what appears to be a sign of success which is that the regime doesn’t attack milit our military around the world but what if the uranium is is in a warehouse somewhere right now and the Iranians are working like crazy North Korea style to actually create a weapon we we might not know about that so I think it’s dawning on the president that he had successful military raids in the sense that we shook a lot of facilities broke a lot of stuff and got our pilots and and naval uh assets out of the way quickly but I I I don’t see that they’re short of regime change going to be obvious good news coming out of this um and I think I think that’s beginning to dawn on the president and when they talk about you know regime change you know I have to imagine though I mean number one regime change also can mean civil war can mean boots on the ground can can mean a a broader regional conflict and I I may be naive here but I don’t think that the Iranian people are going to warmly welcome a Benjamin Netanyahu proxy leading Iran or a Donald Trump pick you know and I wonder I worry that it’s pushes them in another direction than where they were heading when you saw protests on the street in Tyrron that they were clamping down on if you enga if you know if if regime changes coming from Netanyahu and Trump but but what are your thoughts yeah yeah look I mean you know all we have is history to go on and we engineered three regime changes in the region uh over the course of the last 20 years right mohammad Gaddafi in Libya uh we had a lot to do with that the uh we destroyed the Taliban in uh in Afghanistan in 2001 and of course Iraq right now Libya Afghanistan and Iraq did any of those go our way no they did not regime change in Iraq led to a brutal war that killed 4,400 Americans uh it empowered Iran libya is a hellscape right now chaotic and Afghanistan is right back under the direction and lead of the uh of the Taliban now there are differences to be fair here right you know uh Iran is a nation of 90 million people note that Senator Cruz um that is actually you know commercially it’s not Afghanistan you’ve got educated people you know these people can’t stand their own regime so I’m not going to say that it’s impossible i’m just going to say that the historical record is not a happy one you know and as long as we’re on the topic um you know we haven’t talked about it yet but this is precisely the kind of action that Congress should have been consulted on uh there’s not a lot of um ambiguity in the War Powers Act the War Powers Act says the president can go to war if there is an imminent an immediate attack on the United States or if there’s been a declaration of war of congressional approval now there’s a lot of whataboutists out there right now saying “Oh well Biden did it and Bill Clinton sent you know tomahawks into Somalia and stuff.” And yes yes presidents have consistently abregated congressional power but here’s the difference right when President Clinton sent a bunch of missiles into Somalia or when uh uh Joe Biden put troops on the ground in Syria uh we weren’t playing with we weren’t playing a nuclear game the way we’re playing right now we didn’t have 40,000 troops that were very much under the guns of the people that we were going after and so the constitution would say you always do this and I get it presidents haven’t always done it but you sure as hell do it when the stakes are as high as they are uh in this uh Israeli and subsequent US strike on Iran and you know that that was the intention of the founding the founders in the uh constitution and we got to not forget that if there’s 40,000 people at risk the people who represent those 40,000 people and their families get to have a conversation about whether this is a good idea breaking news uh we’re learning from Axios and other reporting that it does appear Iran is now launching missiles at United States assets in the Middle East axios is reporting right now that Israel detected the launch of at least six ballistic missiles by Iran against Qatar explosions are currently being heard over Doha in Qatar there’s also now reports of missile launches now against United States bases in Iraq as we’ve been recording this now I’m obviously just getting this information i need to go and further verify it but some credible sources are reporting it i’ll start with the caveat of if that is true what’s your reaction well um it’s a that’s a very it’s it’s not surprising um but it’s pretty scary right and it’s pretty scary in the sense that uh we can defend those bases and I’m thinking of the naval base at Bahrain i’m thinking of the air base that we have in Qatar and obviously other other uh deployed troops around the region um the Iranians have the ability to do a lot of harm uh we’re pretty good at defending those bases and those assets but they could you know I pray God this doesn’t happen but if if the reports are correct you know we may close out the day today with uh with with American casualties which again I’m not sure anybody uh would have uh supported or at least should have been taken into account by congressional debate and congressional approval of this strike um and and and look it’s it’s fairly obvious to say that if there are American casualties there will be a response to that and now we are in a war you know I mean you you saw the president the president was doing everything he could to say this is a this is a one-off we’re just going to destroy a whole bunch of your stuff but that’s it that’s it don’t worry about it that’s not the way the world works right the Iranian regime has their own politics and you know they’re already looking humiliated and weak and if they do nothing if they do nothing I suspect they fear for their own survival so anyway um if if those reports are true let’s just uh you know pray that that Americans there uh stay are stay safe i think it was uh General Mattis who said you know the other side in a war also gets a vote and that’s one of the problems in in war um want to get just your final thoughts about you know everything right now i mean your message to the American people i mean you’re the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee for everyone what that means is you’re the you’re the top guy the top person on the intelligence committee that’s usually supposed to be consulted on things like this you’re supposed to be intimately involved in this process you have a wealth of experience to come to bear to be helpful usually to be working with the director of national intelligence and people like Hegsth and others and in normal in normal times collaboratively that didn’t happen here what’s your overall message yeah look my overall message is um uh we shouldn’t be in this place we should not have taken an act of this consequence without uh somebody other than the guy in the Oval Office deliberating there’s way too much at stake There’s 40,000 troops there’s the survival of uh allied regimes like uh like Jordan right you know I keep pointing out that the king of Jordan sits in a very precarious throne right because the Jordanian street is not one bit happy uh that the Israelis and the Americans are attacking Iran uh there are military assets there again if the straits of Hormuz close um you know stand by for a major spike in the price of gasoline and it and it’s fascinating from a political standpoint if I may just take this detour for one second you know here’s a president who won elections saying you’re paying too much for stuff and I think these you know whatever we are here 120 140 days are all about stuff that is going to make uh Americans uh prices higher including gasoline by the way if this thing goes south as it appears to be doing um and uh so look what can we do right now we can just hope that sanity prevails the uh email the true socials and tweets that you posted don’t give me a lot of confidence that sanity is going to prevail but the stakes are way too high right now we have to go back to the one thing the one thing the one thing that has actually proven effective at stopping the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon and that is a negotiated solution the JCPOA which was controversial was the one thing that caused the Iranians to ship their uranium out of the country and to stop their progress now the prime minister of Israel and the president of the United States decided they would try something else but you know if if if this starts getting as ugly as it could get we better get back to that diplomacy which is the one thing that has been shown to actually uh slow the role of the Iranians in their in their development of a nuclear program congress member Jim Heims thanks for joining us thanks a lot take care those were those two interviews um we’ll keep you posted with more but we here at the Midas Touch Network are going to be interviewing all the kind of top Democratic leaders top officials in this area we’ll keep you posted hit subscribe let’s get to 6 million subscribers the truth is more

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the latest breaking news of Iran retaliating in Qatar against American interests and Meiselas interviews Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and Democratic Congressman Himes who is the Ranking Member on the Intelligence Committee.

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