an attack pompeo referred to as an act of war. the president, though, doesn t sound quite sold on the idea of taking a shot at iran, but he said he s prepared to do, quote, dastardly things. in california, joined by his new national security adviser, robert o brien, president trump wand warned the u.s. could take military action against iran in retaliation for what the u.s. sees as a clear strike by tehran on an oil field in saudi arabia. we ll see, we re in a very powerful position. right now we re in a very, very powerful position. i would say the ultimate option would mean go in, war. mike pompeo sounded an ominous tone as he arrived in the kingdom, zrdescribing the attack as an act of war. blessed that there were no americans killed in this attack, but anytime you have an act of war of this nature, there s always risk that that could
ongoing between the house intelligence committee chairman, adam schiff, and his staff, and the director of national intelligence s office about a potential appearance thursday by joe maguire, tacting director to appear. his office has already balked and said he would not appear behind closed doors for testimony about this whistle-blower complaint. but i just asked adam schiff directly whether he would subpoena maguire. schiff declined to comment, saying he would issue a statement later tonight. i also asked schiff, what about the president was directly involved in preventing this complaint from being turned over to congress. he also would not comment about that. said he had planned to discuss more about this later. now, wolf, this complaint was deemed by the intelligence community s inspector general to be credible and urgent. but the department the director of national intelligence s office did not view it the same way, saying it did not meet the legal standard of an urgent concern,
saying them, depending on the situation, the optics, you know, the finger to the wind, he takes them as one-off situations. doesn t have a clear ideology. ambassador bolton wanted to be more belligerent with iran and north korea. president trump has sort of a bromance with kim jong-un and he s got a completely muddled iran policy. bolton had to have been you covered the white house when bolton didn t say anything positive about the president at this event in new york. how do you think the president is going to respond to all of this? well, i wouldn t be surprised if he responds in kind. as we know, he fights fire with interesting. but it is interesting that he did announce the new national security adviser today, robert o brien. someone who doesn t have a lot of national security experience or foreign policy experience. but he is someone that the president really likes and sources say that he was looking for someone who could collaborate with others, get along with others, not
happen. reporter: but in signs he may stop short of military action, the president announced the administration will impose new sanctions on iran. and he took a swipe at gop senator, lindsey graham, who s pressing mr. trump to get tough. ask lindsay. ask him, how did going into the middle east, how did that work out? and how did going into iraq work out? so we have a disagreement on that, and you know, there s plenty of time to do some dastardly things. reporter: unlike his combative predecessor, john bolton, o brien was much more measured when asked what advice he ll give the president. any advice i give the president will be something i give him confidentially, but we re monitoring that situation closely. reporter: o brien appears to have won his new job in part by heaping praise on president trump. the president has had unparalleled success in bringing americans home without concessions. reporter: but in the past, o brien had been a trump critic, writing in 2015 that p
of all of the information and ascertain with specificity exactly how the attack took place, writ took place from, who generated it. and number three, if the president is now deciding to act on behalf of saudi arabia, an act of war may have taken place against the sovereign state of saudi arabia, but it didn t take place against the united states. if we are now going to be saudi arabia s military, well, then, the president has to come to congress, inform us of all of the intelligence, what happened. he has to make the case as to why it s in our interests and national security to ultimately have a military action and he has to get the approval of congress. otherwise, we are in the midst of acting on behalf of saudi arabia instead of being able to act with the authority of congress. what s your understanding, senator, of iran s involvement in this attack? well, i mean, there are a series of reports that suggest