Republican and Democratic senators made a stark contrast to Donald Trump’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facility, after delaying a backward outdoor intelligence briefing that the White House had earlier postponed leak allegations.
Thursday’s meeting with senior national security officials came after the White House withdrew a briefing scheduled for Tuesday, sparking complaints from Democrats that Trump is promoting Congress for it. Military Operations The president has not authorized it with Congress.
“Senators should have full transparency and the government has a legal obligation to accurately inform Congress about what is going on,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said after the initial delay.
Even when briefing the senators, Trump reignited the bank with a truth-clarifying social position, accusing Democrats A draft Pentagon report leaked that showed that the strike last weekend abandoned Iran’s nuclear program only a few months ago, contradicting the president’s insistence on being “phased out”.
“The Democrats are the ones who leak information on the perfect flight to Iran’s nuclear location. They should be sued!” He wrote.
Partisan divisions exhibited after the briefing, in the absence of National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, who had previously told Congress about Iran No nuclear weapons were built last week until her tune changed last week after Trump said she was “wrong”.
Instead, the briefing was led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense John Ratcliffe Pete Hegseththey publicly attacked journalists’ reports on the strike at a Pentagon press conference.
With intelligence agencies apparently open about the effectiveness of the strike, Thursday’s briefings had little solution to the conflict on Capitol Hill explanation.
Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Senator and Trump ally, said “elimination” is a “good word” describing the impact of the strike.
“They blew up these places in a big league way. They put them back for years, not months,” he said. “No one worked on these three sites very quickly. Their operational capabilities were erased.”
But he warned that Iran might try to reconstitute them, adding: “Did we erase their desire to have nuclear weapons? As long as they desire one person, as long as they want to kill all the Jews, you still have a problem. I don’t want Americans to think that’s over.”
But Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said Trump claimed the plan was eliminated and questioned why Gabbard did not attend the briefing, which “misleads the public.”
Schumer responded to his skepticism, saying the briefing had “not enough answers” to Trump’s claims.
“It’s obvious that there is no coherent strategy, no final game, no plan, no specific[s]there are no detailed plans for how Iran can obtain nuclear weapons. ” He added that Congress needs to uphold its authority by implementing the War Powers Act.
Gabbard and Ratcliffe scrambled to support Trump on Wednesday, Gabbard Posted on x: “New intelligence confirms what POTUS said many times: Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed.”
House Intelligence Committee Ranking Democrat Jim Himes refuted the devastating claim that it is meaningless. “The only important question is whether the Iranian regime has the necessary conditions to build a bomb, if so,” he revealed.
The devastating reaction also exaggerated Republican senators in partisan anti-interventionist factions (such as Rand Paul), who rejected claims of absolute presidential power in war.
“I think the spokesperson needs to review the constitution,” Paul said. “And I think there is a lot of evidence that our founding fathers do not want the president to fight unilaterally.”
The Senate is expected to vote this week on a resolution that requires Congress to approve military operations against Iran, although the measure seems unlikely to pass given Republican control over the room.
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The White House also admitted Thursday that it restricted intelligence sharing after assessing the information leaked from the draft.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the government wants to ensure that “confidential intelligence is not ultimately in irresponsible hands.” Levitt later said that the United States assessed “no signs” of enriched uranium moving from Iran’s nuclear sites before the strike.
Trump formally notified Congressional strike in a brief message two days before the bombing, saying the lawsuit “promotes crucial U.S. national interest and promotes collective self-defense for our ally Israel through the elimination of Iran’s nuclear program.”
The government said it was “a diplomatic road with Iran” through exchanges with Iranian officials through special envoy Steve Witkoff.
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