{"id":3078,"date":"2020-01-08T23:58:30","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T23:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/finance\/2020\/01\/08\/republican-senator-calls-white-houses-iran-briefing-insulting-and-demeaning\/"},"modified":"2020-01-08T23:58:30","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T23:58:30","slug":"republican-senator-calls-white-houses-iran-briefing-insulting-and-demeaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/2020\/01\/08\/republican-senator-calls-white-houses-iran-briefing-insulting-and-demeaning\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican senator calls White House\u2019s Iran briefing \u2018insulting and demeaning\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-body\" itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p>The Trump administration briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Wednesday on the justifications for launching an airstrike that killed one of Iran\u2019s top generals, Qassem Soleimani, last week. But many legislators came away unsatisfied.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"shareable\" data-share-hover=\"true\" data-share-modprefix=\"mw_pullquote_\" data-share-text=\"Republican senator calls White House\u2019s Iran briefing \u2018insulting and demeaning\u2019\"><p>&#13;<br \/>\n                  \u201cProbably the worst briefing I\u2019ve seen, at least on a military issue, in the nine years I\u2019ve served in the United States Senate.\u201d&#13;<\/p>\n<footer>&#13;<br \/>\n                          <cite>&#13;<br \/>\n                              Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah&#13;<br \/>\n                          <\/cite>&#13;<br \/>\n                &#13;<br \/>\n                  <\/footer>\n<p>&#13;\n              <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican , told reporters Wednesday that the classified briefing was \u201cinsulting and demeaning,\u201d so bad in fact, that he would now vote for a Democratic plan to limit President Donald Trump\u2019s war powers against Iran. \u201cThat briefing changed my mind,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/pelosi-says-house-will-vote-thursday-on-limiting-trumps-war-powers-against-iran-2020-01-08\" class=\"icon none\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the House will vote Thursday on a measure <\/a>to rein in Trump\u2019s ability to launch military attacks against Iran. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is introducing a similar measure in the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>Trump administration officials apparently warned lawmakers against debating Trump\u2019s war powers, and said that doing so would embolden Iran.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is not acceptable for officials within the executive branch of government &#8230; to come in and tell us that we can\u2019t debate and discuss the appropriateness of military intervention against Iran. It\u2019s un-American, it\u2019s unconstitutional, and it\u2019s wrong,\u201d Lee said. \u201cI find that absolutely insane. I think that\u2019s unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"inset external-content-inset \" aria-hidden=\"true\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Full initial remarks from MIKE LEE:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; \u201cUnsatisfied\u201d with &#8220;legal, factual and moral justification for the attack\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; \u201cProbably the worst [military] briefing I\u2019ve seen&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Lee found it \u201cinsulting and demeaning\u201d that briefers told Senate not to debate more action against Iran <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/scNqZTtPZR\">pic.twitter.com\/scNqZTtPZR<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RiegerReport\/status\/1215027584167268352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">January 8, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n<p>Fellow Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky agreed, dismissing the Trump administration\u2019s attempt to use the 2002 war authorization against Iraq to justify the airstrike, which raised fears of a new war in the Middle East. Paul called that argument \u201cabsurd.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet\u2019s have the debate, and let\u2019s have some senators stand up,\u201d Paul said. \u201cWe are not abdicating our duty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They were joined by skeptical Democratic lawmakers.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., called the White House\u2019s argument \u201cprofoundly unconvincing\u201d and said no case was made that Soleimani presented an imminent threat to the U.S. \u201cI leave this (briefing) more troubled than I went into it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrust us. That\u2019s really what it all boils down to,\u201d said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. \u201cBut I\u2019m not sure that \u2018trust me\u2019 is a satisfactory answer for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChrisMurphyCT\/status\/1215023731426430977\" target=\"_new\" class=\"icon \" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tweeted<\/a>: \u201cThe bottom line is this: I did not hear evidence of a specific imminent threat that would allow an attack without congressional authorization. With consequences as serious as these, that is unacceptable. Congress needs to act.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Most Republicans, however, appeared satisfied with the administration\u2019s case.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought the briefing was very helpful,\u201d said Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. \u201cThe fact that he was plotting further attacks to kill Americans made it clear that it was time to take him out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said the briefing provided \u201cthe greatest breadth of information that was not only compelling but certainly exhaustive in terms of the number of attacks and planned attacks that have been contemplated and why the need for action was necessitated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/>[ad_2]<br \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"jobbi-after-content-jh-placement jobbi-entity-placement\" id=\"jobbi-2455682943\"><div id=\"jobbi-1896652425\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-5862940809620110\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5862940809620110\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"\" \ndata-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins>\n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] The Trump administration briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Wednesday on the justifications for launching an airstrike that killed one of Iran\u2019s top generals, Qassem Soleimani, last week. But many legislators came away unsatisfied. &#13; \u201cProbably the worst briefing I\u2019ve seen, at least on a military issue, in the nine years I\u2019ve served in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":348,"featured_media":3079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/348"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}