war. they have been told that they have sabotaged these tankers, and nothing has come of it. last night when we were just inches away, according to the president, from a strike here, he pulled back. i think they re feeling pretty confident here and have been touting the shooting down of this drone as a major victory and as a warning to the u.s. they say this is a clear message that iran is a tough place. this isn t syria, this isn t iraq. there are going to be very serious wide-ranging ramifications if you attack this country. and they re actually feeling very confident, despite all of this pressure that s being piled on them. so i think most of the president s tactics so far to get iran back to the negotiating table or to instigate something else here have so far back fired. when the top iranian leadership is probably sitting around the table talking to each other,
relations committee meetings today, armed services committee meetings tomorrow, i m on both, the threshold question is getting all the intel to make sure that chemical weapons were used, in fact, by the syrian government. but it seems very clear to me based on what i ve seen that was the case. once that case has been made, this isn t iraq, are there weapons of mass destruction. no, they have they have and they ve used them and used them against civilians you re supporting the president s efforts, right? i think we have to take steps to show that the use of chemical weapons against civilians has a consequence. did the president make the right decision to go to congress with this? he absolutely did. i gave a speech in july on the 40th anniversary of the passage of the war powers resolution of 1973, a floor speech in the senate and talked about the sloppiness we ve allowed ourselves to get into where presidents overreach and do things without congressional approval and congress
afterwar afterwards, gives pause, take ten days, get congress behind. that s common sense. a lot of people want to get at you. story of my life. i want to remind everyone what the debate was like during the iraq war. particularly as we got to the surge because what donny just said is precisely what republicans including president bush said about u.s. credibility being on the line in iraq. here you re it taking a stand against chemical weapons. you know, makes a lot of sense to a lot of people. but ultimately, what i think jeffrey and others are arguing is, we need to try to use u.s. leverage to engineer a political outcome in syria. i think that s what people think is a fool s errand in this country a lot of people, perhaps the majority of people at this point. i think jeffrey s argument and other people are saying you can do this in a way that doesn t require boots on the ground, more political, send more
raising, have we proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, is is, in fact, a slam dunk it was assad who used the chemical weapons? well, you know, we ve all learned the lessons of iraq. that said, you know, the french have a new chemical weapons report out much more detailed as our and ours is nearly incontrovertible. one important point to remember here unlike the bush administration which seemed to really, really want to go to war in iraq, and mustered evidence to mike that case, you re dealing with an administration or a president specifically, who really, really doesn t want to go to war in syria and yet, all of the evidence they re marshalling seems to suggest that this did happen. so there is some added credibility when you have john kerry, you know, the famous vietnam protester, not exactly the most hawkish guy in the world, making this arden case. that said, if you re in
others, switch your votes. these are the type of votes that always pass. as you know, better than anybody. 218-215 or 216. but what is now as richard pointed out, though, that s a very narrow victory and it could indicate the president having to come back again and we also don t know, they ve always passed. but we re dealing with a very different congress from the one you were in, joe. yeah. and that could make a big difference and what you just heard from mike about ted cruz and rand paul, and we heard about marco rubio, they re all running for president. right. and when you have a vote like this that can get you in trouble with your base, think hillary rodham clinton and the vote on iraq, it really throws another wrench into it. do i think in the end the president will get this? yes. but i think there s all kinds of dynamics from here to there.