steve: it s such a mess right now. joe biden is not at the white house to go down to the situation room to get briefed. instead he is in wilmington he this afternoon will actually chop tore camp david. brian: think about this. secretary of defense austin is a general. for him to hold on to that job and know what this was going to mean and okay and check off on a strategy that couldn t be more disastrous is shameful. general milley should have resigned. remember general mattis had no problem stepping out secretary of defense when he disagreed with president trump in syria. remember that then president trump says there s the door where is that pride now? you told president biden that this strategy worked, which is shameful and shows a total i object competence or you knew it wouldn t work and kept quiet, which i would argue is even worse. general milley, secretary austin, you know better meanwhile president biden, too much pride acknowledged everything he said was wrong. ainsley: is he g
of course, presidents have been violators on both sides of the aisle. whether it was barack obama in libya or syria, president trump in syria with his attack. there have been violation after violation. the reason your question is a slightly tricky one is that even members of congress like me who are very concerned for congressional prerogatives and what the constitution says will acknowledge that when we have been attacked, the president has the authority to respond and need not, depending on the circumstances, go through the whole legislative process that would result in congressional approval. congressman himes, i appreciate your time. a lot to get to, a lot to watch for. thank you. i want to focus more closely now on all the factors that any president has to weigh at a moment like this as well as the implications and consequences, intended or otherwise, that could follow. joining us right now is cnn military analyst, retired air force colonel cedric leighton. served during the g
because the iranians will reed that as a feckless president who shouts a lot and tweets a lot, but doesn t follow-up his words with actions. so here we are in precisely the place that john bolton wanted us to be in where we re in a box where no matter what we do, there is a high risk of escalation and military conflict. your question was should we respond. i think to fail to respond to an awful iranian regime, to sort of empower them, to send a message we won t respond if we are hit would be the more dangerous of the two options. do you believe the president has the authority to launch an attack specifically something that s proportional, not an all-out war, without getting congressional authorization? that s a really good question. i have for years been saying that we need to reassert congressional constitutional authority for deciding when we go to war. of course, presidents have been violators on both sides of the aisle. whether it was barack obama in libya or syria, president t
syria, possibly in lebanon, all these places where the iranians have their militias. the other thing that the iranians keep talking about a lot is the fact that they ve really advanced their ballistic missile program as well, and that s another thing the iranians say they would use as well. so they re saying, again, they certainly don t want this to escalate is the view from teheran. they don t think president trump wants it to escalate. but they say if it does, it s going to be painful for the u.s. fred in teheran, thank you very much. coming up next, a close look at one of the tankers allegedly targeted by iran as well as a leading member of the house intelligence and what we know on iranian intentions. two military analysts joining us. in the wake of what joe biden said about getting along with segregationist senators, dr. cornell west joins us with his thoughts always worth hearing. we ll be right back.
response, they call it their iron fist, but the interesting thing that you hear from them again and again, anderson, they always say it s going to be in a wide territory. you could expect that to be in places like iraq, possibly in syria, possibly in lebanon, all these places where the iranians have their militias. the other thing that the iranians keep talking about a lot is they ve really advanced their ballistic missile program as well. that s another thing the iranians say they would use as well. sa they re saying, again, they certainly don t want this to escalate, is the view from tehran. they don t think president trump wants it to escalate, but if it does, it s going to be painful for the u.s. all right. fred pleitgen in tehran for the u.s. coming up next, an up close look at one of the tankers allegedly targeted by iran in the run-up to today as well as the leading member of the house intelligence committee on what we know on iranian intentions. two military analysts join u