2020 Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) said President Trump decision to launch the airstrike that killed Iran’s top military commander, Qassem Soleimani last week is “undermining our national security interest.”
Gabbard added that the killing of Soleimani was an “assassination” because it was an “illegal and an unconstitutional act of war.”
“The Commander-in-Chief needs to make decisions based on what’s the best national security interest of our country,” Gabbard said. “The decision that he made is undermining our national security interest. It was an assassination and this attack was unconstitutional and illegal act of war by this president.”
When ask to elaborate how it was an assassination despite the fact Soleimani was designated a terrorist group by the U.S. in 2007 and the Trump administration justified the killing based on imminent threat, Gabbard mentioned the Iran briefing provided no evidence of such justification.
“There was no evidence presented in the briefing suggesting what the president is saying of attacking our Embassy and no such information, not in a way that sheds any real light on why this administration felt justified to throw our country head long into a war with Iran,” Gabbard replied. “The takeaway of the briefing was a recitation of the many different wrongdoings of Soleimani and his forces of over the many years but very little to no concrete evidence that taking out Soleimani would prevent an immediate targeted attacks, nor would it increase or improve our national security.”
She added, “The point he made that we went and took out a really bad guy, I don’t think anyone is disputing that fact, the problem is that our Commander-in-Chief shouldn’t be making decision like this based on who is is a bad guy or who even may have blood on their hands and those decisions are undermining our country national security interest. The Commander-in-Chief has a responsibility to make these serious decision based on what is in the best interests of our national security and what is in the best interest of the American people and the decision this president made actually undermines our national security by placing our troops and our country at greater risk.”
Gabbard went on to say we are in a “quack-mire war with Iran,” and “tensions are escalating” now based on the president’s decision.
Given the situation we are in today with tensions escalating, we find ourselves in this Quack-mire war with Iran that nobody really knows what they are trying to do,” Gabbard said. “This current existing policy of this administration is essentially holding our troops hostage in Iraq and Syria with the policy that is strengthening ISIS and Al Qaeda as well as strengthening Iran’s threats and capabilities. Iran is now speeding quickly towards developing a nuclear weapons capability. They are no longer complying with Iran Nuclear Deal that Trump pulled out of.”
Trump declared on Tuesday in an address to the nation that he doesn’t want to wage war on Iran.
Gabbard went on to add it is up to Congress to take action now to prevent this administration from further “abusing their constitutional power” with congress making sure they are uphold its constitutional authority.”
“At this point congress needs to continue to focus on restricting the president’s ability to use military action against Iran without congressional approval and continuing to urge leaders in the senate to uphold the constitution,” Gabbard said. “There has been an overreach and abuse of constitutional authorities. It’s action like this that Congress needs to take to make sure they uphold its constitutional authority
“Congress should have acted long ago to prevent this administration from being able to further abuse those constitutional power and taking that responsibility away from congress. I introduce legislation such as “No More Presidential Wars” act to to prohibited this administration from acting against Iran militarily without congressional authorization.”
Last year, Gabbard introduced “No More Presidential Wars” resolution that would have made it an impeachable offense for a President to engage in war without Congressional authorization. The resolution was stripped out of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act before its passage.
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