BREAKING: Trump gets news he FEARED in shock update

BREAKING: Trump gets news he FEARED in shock update

i’m joined now by a member of the House Intelligence Committee Jim Heims thank you so much for taking the time thanks for having me Brian so we have some breaking reporting right now that in fact the the attacks that the US waged against Iran’s nuclear facilities did not obliterate the the centrifuges that they’re largely intact and that the nuclear program might only be set back a few months this is being reported by CNN right now can I have your reaction first and foremost to this breaking news yeah yeah uh the news uh that you’re referring to uh refers to a classified report so I’m going to steer clear of uh of confirming or not confirming the CNN reporting but but but let me tell you this the the Iranian regime is not dumb uh this raid this US attack was broadcast fairly well in the days to come uh you know there are commercial satellite images of trucks pulling up to the entrances at Fordo um you know you can kind of draw your own conclusions and you know I’ll just close by saying that um the administration is using some pretty extravagant language the word that keeps coming up is obliteration if obliteration means that we dropped very big bombs on uh mountains and facilities and caused a lot of smoke and damage that is probably true if obliteration means that we have uh very badly set back Iran’s ability if they chose to do so to build a nuclear weapon let’s just say that I have not seen any evidence to suggest that that is the case and of course these are early days um it will take a long time to know if we ever know by the way uh that uh you know the uranium was was scattered or precisely how many centrifuges were destroyed um and that raises some real questions you know we’re all sort of focused on the possible horror of you know a massive Iranian military attack on our naval base at Bahrain or at the air base at Aluade i frankly am much more worried about uh what happens if the Iranians go dead silent for the next 6 months we don’t hear a peep um and yet they have concluded not irrationally they have concluded that they’ve got to go the North Korean route uh or the Pakistani route and just develop a weapon in secret and seven or eight months from now we learn about what actually happened because there is a nuclear test in Iran that to me right now is both a plausible uh and uh you know sort of extreme downside scenario and so wouldn’t it lend itself to reason that the plan that we had in place with Barack Obama the JCPOA which would actually allow inspectors into the country and we would get some insight into what they’re doing would be a better alternative than than basically pushing Iran toward the North Korea route which is to make them this hermit kingdom where nobody has any insight into what they’re doing they go dark for 6 months and then you know suddenly emerge with with nuclear weapons yeah i mean look it’s not a debatable fact and I understand that the JCPOA the Iran nuclear deal signed under Barack Obama I understand it was controversial of course it would have been great if it had been stronger but it is not debatable that it is one thing in my lifetime the one thing in my lifetime that has actually slowed the Iranian role towards uh a nuclear weapon they shipped all of their not all of their uranium but almost all of their uranium to Russia they stopped their centrifuges and Donald Trump in his first term decided that it wasn’t good enough so he tore up that agreement urged on by the Israeli prime minister and both of those men have now taken a different tack uh starting with the Israeli attacks and of course followed up by the American attacks now by the way to be fair here we’re talking about we’re we’re this is pretty speculative maybe maybe maybe um you know it will transpire that uh um you know that this really meaningfully did set back the Iranian program or even I know the president doesn’t want to sort of go there but even maybe the Iranian people decide that they’ve had enough of this regime so you know a good outcome is still possible but you wouldn’t be looking at the history of the region and our activities there to say “Oh well that’s very probable right?” You know don’t go the way we want them to go in Libya in Iraq in Afghanistan in Syria what do you make of the fact that you know there there are all these reports that for weeks the Iranians knew what was coming and uh the New York Times just did a couple of reports basically saying that Donald Trump’s posts were the biggest obstacle to operational security and that in fact Iran was able to move 880 lb 400 kg of enriched uranium up to 60% out of these facilities before the strikes even hit and so what do you make of the fact that Donald Trump was so incapable of just having a modicum of discretion to the point where he basically tipped his hand to the very country that we would go on to bomb yeah and we had the uh you know I’m going to put off the decision for two weeks and we are all running around saying is this another you know exhibition of taco Trump he chickens out the point is that um you know the Iranians have had many weeks starting with well before the Israeli attacks right i mean we were talking about the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran well before they actually did it so again these may be evil people but they are not stupid people uh and you know the fact that we were sort of wondering whether the attack was going to become on Monday or Tuesday um you know it would I’ll say what I said before uh it would not surprise me one bit if the Iranians managed to preserve enough of the centrifuges the weaponization technology and enough of the 60% uranium that we may end up being very badly surprised down the road if we’re in a situation where these attacks didn’t cause the the obliteration that Trump promises they caused and that in fact it’s true that CNN is reporting that their nuclear program Iran’s nuclear program was only set back a few months then what does it mean moving forward for an Iranian regime that now has every tendency in the world to to be able to to strike back at at at Israel at the United States because of the fact that we’ve taken a hostile and aggressive posture toward them right so I mean you know put yourself in the shoes of the Iranian regime not hard to do right there’s basically two doors you can walk through and this has been true for 30 years you can walk through the diplomacy door and negotiate uh and maybe you get sanctions lifted and your country does a little better because you agree to ship the uranium out of your country or whatever or you go down the route of um of not negotiating and trying to develop a a weapon now that always comes with the risk of a military attack but now the Iranian regime has seen two things diplomacy doesn’t work right you know years of negotiation to get to the JCPOA which I’ll say it again is the one thing that has ever slowed the Iranian role um and Trump tears it up and then in the middle of negotiations the Israelis attack so if you’re an Iranian regime member you say to yourself okay that is not the most you know door to walk through and then you say hey Ukraine give up gave up their weapons uh Russia was one of the signitories to the guarantee of the sovereignty of Ukraine and look what Russia did you know North Korea used to fear a US invasion now they have 60 nukes and they don’t fear a US invasion quite as much anymore you know and so anyway the broader lessons out there uh if you’re a member of the Iranian regime is that you develop a nuke in secret and last night when we heard that there might be a ceasefire you know what perfect you know what a perfect environment for the Iranians to say “Oh yeah absolutely no ceasefire ceasefire nothing else as long as the Israelis don’t break it.” And now they have an uninterrupted quiet period of time in which to do what the North Koreans and the Pakistanis and the Indians did right which was to develop a weapon in secret so again I am I am watching the administration just pop the champagne cork say obliteration and do the high fives thinking to myself you guys may have just set up the worst case scenario what do you make of the fact that we have Republicans now falling over themselves to uh award Donald Trump the Nobel Peace Prize in light in light of everything that we’re finding out right now uh we don’t have enough time to talk about that um you know uh what I will say is two things number one very smart people who study the Middle East say it is often years before you know um the true outcome uh in particular of a military action you will remember and I certainly remember when George W bush landed on an aircraft carrier and devel and declared mission accomplished over Iraq well couple years later his approval ratings are 26% we’ve got 4,400 dead Americans because of uh Iraq and so um you know point one is uh you know let’s let’s wait before the champagne comes off the ice number two you know it’s just so pathetic uh you know I enjoy serving in Congress because uh I am to act as a check and a balance constitutionally speaking on the president and I you know I’ve been willing to do that with Democratic presidents i was one of the first members of the House of Representatives to say that Joe Biden shouldn’t run again um you know that’s my job and to see these guys falling all over themselves not just to do whatever Donald Trump tells them to do the isolationists saying like “Oh well this is great it’s a great military strike.” It’s just it’s just frankly pathetic is what it is what do you make of the fact that that Mike Johnson had come out and when asked about the fact that he that that Trump had you know uh gone forward with this uh strike against Iran without consulting Congress of course it’s Congress’s prerogative be a to be able to declare war that Mech Johnson basically just defended Trump’s ability to do that and said this is all you know contained within his article 2 powers basically foregoing his own role in the legislative branch as a check on the executive branch yeah look am I one bit surprised no mike Johnson is entirely a creature and his speakership relies entirely on the power of Donald Trump and that’s true of almost every single uh Republican member here they are here not to serve as a check or a balance not to legislate they are here to do Donald Trump’s bidding that is uh you know not even a debatable proposition anymore it’s just very sad um in a country that always cared about the division of power between the legislature uh and um you know look this this point about you know it’s it’s a legitimate exercise of his article 2 authority um you know you can read the War Powers Act it’s out there and publicly available and it says that the president can act in an offensive way if Congress has declared war or authorized it or if there’s an immediate attack on the country so again not a debatable point um we can talk about whether the Constitution is set up rightly but the Constitution is set up to vest this kind of decision in the Congress not in the uh not in the Oval Office we’ll leave it there congressman thank you so much for taking the time thanks a lot

INTERVIEW: Brian interviews Rep. Jim Himes about new reported failures of the Iran strike.

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