Iran Retaliates Against U.S. as Top Dems Respond
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This is a breaking news alert as all hell continues to break loose in the Middle East. Iran is officially retaliating. They've launched medium-range ballistic missiles at a United States base.

Air Force Base in Qatar. Several U.S. defense officials have confirmed that U.S. forces at the Al-Yudid Air Base in Qatar were attacked earlier with short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles fired from Iran. No reports so far of any casualties to U.S. service members stationed in Qatar or the Middle East. Kuwait,

Iraq have joined also Bahrain and the UAE and Qatar in now closing their airspace following the Iranian ballistic missile attack against the U.S. airbase in Qatar. The White House is saying that Trump is monitoring the situation. Iran is calling this Operation Glad Tidings of Victory, again targeting U.S. forces.

And at this stage, we're getting footage like this panic scene in Doha during the Iranian ballistic missile attack earlier against the Al Udeid air base in Qatar. You can play this footage right here. Here we see the sirens sounding earlier in Bahrain as residents were told to take shelter. Let's play this clip right here.

This is footage showing surface-to-air missiles launched from the Al Udeid airbase intercepting the Iranian ballistic missiles earlier over Doha, Qatar. So you can see that. Play this clip. All right, let's go.

So right now, Trump is currently in the Situation Room. U.S. jets are scrambling over Saudi Arabia right now. The New York Times is reporting that Iran allegedly coordinated the attacks on the American airbase with Qatar and Qatari officials and gave advance notice that the attacks were coming to minimize casualties, according to three Iranian officials familiar with the plans.

The official said Iran symbolically needed to strike back at the U.S., but at the same time carry it out in a way that allowed all sides an exit ramp. They described it similar to the strategy to 2020 when Iran gave Iraq a heads up before firing ballistic missiles at an American base in Iraq following the assassination of its top general. The latest we have is Trump monitoring imminent threats against multiple U.S. bases in the Middle East now.

potential Iranian retaliation against other bases as well. We will keep you posted there as we learn more. I had the opportunity to interview Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and also the Democratic ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Democratic Congressmember Himes.

Um, the two top Democrats, uh, in this area, um, I interviewed them right before, uh, the retaliatory strikes. Um, I want to play for you, uh, democratic leader Jeffries, uh, who talks about how Donald Trump's declaration of war powers is unconstitutional. Um,

A violation of the Constitution. Democratic leader Jeffries didn't mince words when I interviewed him. And then Democratic ranking member Himes of the Intelligence Committee. And the news was breaking as I was interviewing him. Let me bring you both of these interviews together now. Let's play them. I'm joined by Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. Leader Jeffries, I want to get your reaction to the strikes by the United States.

of Iran, the fallout, the fact that Trump did not seek congressional authorization and didn't seem to even give any notification to at least Democrats. So what's your response to everything that just happened?

Constitution is very clear on this issue that only Congress has the power to declare war and to authorize the type of offensive military action that Donald Trump deployed in striking Iran. Now, Donald Trump is going to have to demonstrate to the American people and to us in Congress that there was an imminent situation.

threat that justified his actions. It's hard to imagine that he has the ability to actually prove that because we've seen no evidence.

to justify this type of offensive strike. And the problem with it is that there doesn't also seem to be a plan for how to avoid the type of escalation that could result in America being dragged into another potentially disastrous Middle Eastern war, which the overwhelming majority of the American people want no part of at this moment.

It seemed that less than 90 days ago, Donald Trump's director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified under oath that there was not an imminent threat of Iran getting a nuclear weapon. Then all of a sudden, it seemed like in the past two weeks, bah!

behind the scenes, I mean, we would get drips of things happening. You know, things started escalating very, very quickly. And then all of a sudden these strikes happened. There wasn't even any communication at all with the American people of what was happening. I mean, we get Trump's social media posts online, including this morning that looks like the rantings and ravings of a lunatic with exclamation points. We'll talk about the one from this morning. But I

It's unclear what the hell is even happening. I think that's what American, what the hell is happening is a common thing I'm hearing from our audience. The reason that the Constitution and the wisdom of the framers gives evidence

Congress exclusively the power to declare war and authorize military force is so that there can actually be an informed debate in public that allows the American people through their elected representatives in the House and in the Senate to make a decision about what is right for the country, what's in our best interest, what's in our national security interest. And so

The failure to have that happen is a high bar that Donald Trump needs to cross in order to demonstrate that aggressive diplomacy, which I've called for, wasn't the right way to go. And what was strange about it all is that on Friday, he indicated that we're going to allow for two weeks to take place so that we can see if we can arrive tomorrow.

at an agreement related to stopping Iran from becoming nuclear capable, which is a goal that we all share. Iran is a sworn enemy of the United States of America. We cannot allow them to become a nuclear power. The question, of course, is what is the best way to do that? And the moment seemed to call for aggressive diplomacy, not a strike that was not authorized by the United States Congress.

Then a week before Trump said that, there was supposed to be, I think, the sixth round of discussions with Iran on the prior Sunday. And then Israel struck, I think, two or three days before there was supposed to be the sixth round. And then the Trump regime was basically saying, oh, that was all part of our decoy. We said we were doing a sixth round of discussion, but tricked you. And we did this because nothing's making sense. Have you been briefed?

Have Democrats been briefed? Is Congress been briefed? Is there going to be a briefing? What's going on? So we'll have an all member briefing that takes place for the House of Representatives tomorrow. I spoke to the White House on Saturday and I asked them for a leadership briefing, which has yet to be forthcoming. And if you have evidence that justifies a strike because of an alleged imminent threat,

of Iran becoming nuclear capable all of a sudden present that evidence. And in the absence of doing that, you're hiding from congressional leadership on the Democratic side and you're hiding by extension from the American people. So tomorrow at that all member classified briefing, I expect that on the Democratic side at least and perhaps a handful of Republicans

are going to highly scrutinize the Trump administration, both as it relates to the justification for this strike without following the constitutional process and the boastful claims that Donald Trump has made that the Iranian nuclear program has been completely and totally obliterated. We've also seen no evidence to suggest that that in fact was the case.

notwithstanding the bravery of the men and women in the armed services who carried out the strike. And we continue to pray for them and for their safety. But this is about the Trump administration and the constitutional process that's in place, the law that is required in order to authorize military action.

that they have not adhered to as far as we can tell at this moment and questioning the aftermath of the strike in terms of was it even successful and what's their plan to avoid entering into another potentially disastrous Middle Eastern war. How unusual is it that there would not be a gang of eight brief or a leadership brief

At this stage and that it's the very first time that you or, you know, other leaders of the House Intelligence Committee are going to find out anything about what happened would be a few days after the strike. How unusual is that? It's highly unusual that there wasn't a briefing in advance.

of any potential military action being contemplated by the Trump administration. Then he strikes Iran without congressional authorization. And then days have gone by without even a gang of eight briefing, which of course represents the top four legislative leaders in the Congress and the top four leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committee. I mean, this is extraordinary. And I explicitly asked on Saturday,

At the highest levels of the White House for a gang of eight briefing and they have failed to produce it. What are they trying to hide from the American people by hiding from the legislative leaders in the House and in the Senate? While this is going on, too, you have the disastrous budget bill working its way now through the Senate. They're making it. This was even possible worse.

than what it looked like in the House, more cuts to Medicaid, more issues that are gonna cause massive amounts of money, trillions added to the debt. What do you want the American people to know about that? Because it seems like kind of whack-a-mole here, but we have to focus on all of this that's going down. - Yeah, the one big ugly bill, this GOP tax scam, represents the largest cut to Medicaid in American history.

children and families and people with disabilities and seniors

And everyday Americans are going to be hurt. Hospitals will close. Nursing homes will shut down. People are not going to be able to get the care that they need in community after community all across the country, including in rural America. And as a result of that, people will die. At the same time, the Republicans in this one big ugly bill are trying to enact the largest cut

to nutritional assistance in American history. They are literally ripping food out of the mouths of children, veterans, seniors, small business owners, and others in order to provide their billionaire donors with massive tax breaks. And they want to stick all of us with the bill

by exploding the debt by more than $3 trillion. This GOP tax scam hurts everyday Americans in order to reward billionaires. That's why we're doing everything we can to stop it, stop it in the Senate. It limped out of the House by barely a vote. It may come back to the House of Representatives, and we're going to do everything that we can to shut it down when it comes back to us, if it even makes it out of the United States Senate.

Finally, I think you've seen the energy on the ground with those no kings protests, millions of Americans peacefully protesting across the country, red states, blue states, purple states, big cities, small cities, towns of all sizes. What Americans see as an authoritarian regime that is constantly violating the law. And we see an example of it here, just going to war without providing any information, without seeking authorization.

So when we say it's unconstitutional, when we say that he's violating the law over and over again, what else can be done? I mean, I think you see people taking to the streets peacefully, but what else can be done to stop this unconstitutional encroachment? Frankly, what many people and I believe is actually a dictatorship here in the United States

As we see our brothers and sisters being disappeared by ICE agents, you know, or people who are being deputized as ICE agents terrorizing our streets. What do we do?

Well, the peaceful protests that have taken place, millions and millions of people coming out to the streets, peacefully demonstrating, pushing back against the tyrannical government that they're seeing this flood of extremism that has been unleashed on the American people is incredibly important. You know, it's an all hands on deck situation.

in terms of aggressively pushing back in the Congress, which we'll continue to do, aggressively pushing back in the courts, which we'll continue to do, but perhaps most importantly, aggressively pushing back in community after community after community all throughout the country to win the hearts and minds of the American people as is being done. You know, we're about to celebrate our 250th birthday next year.

And when this democracy thing got started, it was once said that if the people fear the government, there is tyranny. But when the government fears the people, there is liberty. And if we want to get back to a place where there's liberty and justice for all,

In the United States of America, it's going to be important for us to continue to peacefully show up, stand up, speak up for what is right. Make sure we do what is necessary, of course, to win elections all across the country, including perhaps most importantly, taking back control of the House of Representatives so we can cut Donald Trump's presidency in half legislatively.

And together, I'm confident that if we continue to do the things that have been done and we are in a more is more environment. So we have to continue to do more. All of us that we will one day soon in this national nightmare and get our great country back on track. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you, man.

show you what Donald Trump posted just moments ago and get your reaction to it as the ranking member of the House of Diligence Committee. Here's what he's posting. I think he coined the term panicking. He said, don't be a panicking, but he seems to be a panicking right now. Everyone keep oil prices down.

I'm watching, exclamation point. You're playing right into the hands of the enemy. Don't do it, all in caps. And then he posts, to the Department of Energy, drill, baby, drill. And some of those words are in caps. And I mean now. I mean, does he actually think that they...

do the drilling at the Department of Energy. And then he says this message to Russia's former President Medvedev. Did I hear that former President Medvedev from Russia casually throwing around the N-word nuclear and saying that he and other countries would supply nuclear warheads to Iran? Did he really say that? Or is it just a figment of my imagination? If he did say that,

If he did, confirm. Let me know immediately. The N-word should not be treated so casually. I guess that's why Putin's the boss. By the way, if anyone thinks our hardware was great over the weekend, far and away the strongest and best equipped we have, 20 years advanced over the pack is our nuclear submarines. They are the most powerful and lethal weapons ever built, and they just launched the 30 Tomahawks. Congressmember Himes, you know, as...

Who is it that once said, walk softly and carry a big stick? And I think that policy was probably the right way. What in the world is this? Yeah, yeah. Look, I think this is his advisors telling him, well, you know, oil prices could go up if the, you know, Iranians decide to

Got the Straits of Hormuz, which is where 20 percent of global oil comes through. You know, I think that's probably what's going on. And by the way, I can confirm for him, not that I not that he listens to me, but I can confirm for him that Medvedev put up some sort of social media post so I can at least confirm.

may get that done for him today. Medvedev did in fact say that he may, you know, Russia may provide nukes. But, you know, I don't believe that that's going to happen. I don't believe that individually we've got the ability to keep oil prices down. And I also don't believe that the Department of Energy has anything to do with oil drilling. Now, that said, what's really going on here, of course, is –

You know, maybe the man's a little nervous because he's gotten himself and us into a massive, massive gamble that involves gasoline prices and nuclear weapons and all sorts of serious things. But, you know, look, it's the classic Trump thing, right? It's the game of chicken. Or I think this goes back to the Nixon administration. You know, what if you're the craziest guy in the room? If you're the craziest guy in the room and you've got nuclear weapons and don't really understand what's going on, which is certainly all of those posts,

suggests to be true, people are likely to give you a wide berth and a big margin. So I think that's what's going on. Well, I think that worked with Kim Jong-un. We see how powerful they are in North Korea. I'm being sarcastic. I mean, the thing with Treasury Secretary Scott Besson and Donald Trump's trade policies refer to it as the crazy Ivan theory. He goes, he's crazy.

We just that's that's the unifying principle right now in American foreign policy and trade policy is that we're the craziest and you don't know what we're going to do. You're going to wake up. Is he going to start posting N-word nuclear bomb? Crazy guy. Or is he going to go golfing? What's going to happen? But we're the United States of America. Damn it. Don't we go through deliberative process? And Congress is supposed to be the ones who authorize war. And they talk about it.

These things. So we know we have good intelligence. We don't have a director of national intelligence show up 90 days ago and say, nope, no, we don't see a major threat right there anytime soon. And then have the president go, yeah, don't believe her. She doesn't know what she's talking about. That kind of I don't like crazy congressman.

Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. You know, I'm quite sure the Canadian people would be very happy to receive you into the warm embrace of their citizenship if you're not going to make it this next three years of crazy. But yeah, look, I, you know, I also think I've been thinking a lot about this, you know,

I think that there is not likely to be a lot of really good news here. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is that, you know, we don't even know if the uranium was in Fordo or Natanz or Esfahan. You know, it's quite possible since this was an advertised raid that the Iranians loaded that stuff up into a truck or a bunch of trucks, I should say, and moved it. Now,

Maybe we'll figure that out. But I think there's one thing that would be a good and visible outcome here. And that's what the president was contradicting all of his people on yesterday, which is regime change. Look, if the Iranian people finally find a way to get rid of these evil SOBs under whom they have labored so brutally.

for decades now, that would be a very visible sign of success. But, you know, I really worry about this because you know what appears to be a sign of success, which is that the regime doesn't attack our military around the world. But what if the uranium is in a warehouse somewhere right now and the Iranians are working like crazy North Korea style to actually create a weapon? We might not know about that. So I think it's dawning on the president

That he had successful military raids in the sense that we shook a lot of facilities, broke a lot of stuff and got our pilots and naval assets out of the way quickly. But I don't see that they're short of regime change going to be obvious good news coming out of this. And I think I think that's beginning to dawn on the president.

And when they talk about, you know, regime change, you know, I have to imagine, though, I mean, number one, regime change.

Also can mean civil war, can mean boots on the ground, can mean a broader regional conflict. And I may be naive here, but I don't think that the Iranian people are going to warmly welcome a Benjamin Netanyahu proxy leading Iran or a Donald Trump pick. And I worry that it pushes them in another direction,

than where they were heading when you saw protests on the street in Tehran that they were clamping down on if regime change is coming from Netanyahu and Trump. But what are your thoughts? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Look, I mean, you know, all we have is history to go on and we engineered three regime changes in the region, uh, over the course of the last 20 years, right? Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Uh, we had a lot to do with that. The, uh, we destroyed the Taliban and, uh, in Afghanistan in 2001. And of course Iraq right now, Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq. Did any of those go our way? No, they did not. Regime change in Iraq led to a brutal war that killed 4,400 Americans, uh,

it empowered Iran. Libya is a hellscape right now, chaotic. And Afghanistan is right back under the direction and lead of the Taliban. Now, there are differences to be fair here, right? Iran is a nation of 90 million people, note that Senator Cruz, that is actually commercially, it's not Afghanistan. You've got educated people. These people can't stand their own regime. So I'm not

going to say that it's impossible. I'm just going to say that the historical record is not a happy one. You know, and as long as we're on the topic, you know, we haven't talked about it yet, but this is precisely the kind of action that Congress should have been consulted on.

there's not a lot of ambiguity in the War Powers Act. The War Powers Act says the president can go to war if there is an imminent and immediate attack on the United States or if there's been a declaration of war or congressional approval. Now, there's a lot of whataboutists out there right now saying, oh, well, Biden did it and Bill Clinton sent Tomahawks into Somalia and stuff. And yes, yes, presidents have consistently abrogated congressional power. But here's the difference, right? When President Clinton sent a bunch of missiles into Somalia,

or when Joe Biden put troops on the ground in Syria, we weren't playing with, we weren't playing a nuclear game the way we're playing right now. We didn't have 40,000 troops that were very much under the guns of the people that we were going after. And so the constitution would say, you always do this. And I get it, presidents haven't always done it, but you sure as hell do it when the stakes are as high as they are

in this Israeli and subsequent US strike on Iran. And that was the intention of the founders in the constitution. And we gotta not forget that if there's 40,000 people at risk, the people who represent those 40,000 people and their families get to have a conversation about whether this is a good idea.

Breaking news. We're learning from Axios and other reporting that it does appear Iran is now launching missiles at United States assets in the Middle East. Axios is reporting right now that Israel detected the launch of at least six ballistic missiles by Iran against Qatar. Explosions are currently being heard over Doha.

in Qatar. There's also now reports of missile launches now against United States bases in Iraq as we've been recording this. Now, I'm obviously just getting this information. I need to go and further verify it, but some credible sources are reporting it. I'll start with the caveat of if that is true, what's your reaction? Well, I

It's a that's a very it's not surprising, but it's pretty scary. Right. And it's pretty scary in the sense that we can defend those bases. And I'm thinking of the naval base at Bahrain. I'm thinking of the air base that we have in Qatar and obviously other other deployed troops around the region.

the Iranians have the ability to do a lot of harm. We're pretty good at defending those bases and those assets, but they could, you know, I pray God this doesn't happen, but if the reports are correct, you know, we may close out the day today with American casualties, which again, I'm not sure anybody would have supported or at least should have been taken into account by congressional debate and congressional approval of this strike.

And look, it's it's fairly obvious to say that if there are American casualties, there will be a response to that. And now we are in a war. I mean, you saw the president. The president was doing everything he could to say this is this is a one off. We're just going to destroy a whole bunch of your stuff. But that's it. That's it. Don't worry about it. That's not the way the world works. Right. The.

Iranian regime has their own politics and they're already looking humiliated and weak. And if they do nothing, they do nothing. I suspect they fear for their own survival. So anyway, if those reports are true, let's just pray that Americans there stay safe.

I think it was General Mattis who said, you know, the other side in a war also gets a vote. And that's one of the problems in war. I want to get just your final thoughts about, you know, everything right now. I mean, your message to the American people. I mean, you're the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee for everyone. What that means is you're the top guy, the top

person on the Intelligence Committee that's usually supposed to be consulted on things like this. You're supposed to be intimately involved in this process. You have a wealth of experience to come to bear, to be helpful, usually to be working with the Director of National Intelligence and people like Hegseth and others in normal times collaboratively. That didn't happen here. What's your overall message? Yeah, look, my overall message is I

We shouldn't be in this place. We should not have taken an act of this consequence without somebody other than the guy in the Oval Office deliberating. There's way too much at stake. There's 40,000 troops. There's the survival of allied regimes like Jordan, right? You know, I keep pointing out that the King of Jordan sits in a very precarious throne, right? Because the Jordanian street is not one bit happy that the Israelis and the Americans are attacking Iran.

There are military assets there. Again, if the Straits of Hormuz close, you know, stand by for a major spike in the price of gasoline. And it's fascinating from a political standpoint, if I may just take this detour for one second. You know, here's a president who won elections saying you're paying too much for stuff. And I think these, you know, whatever we are here, 120, 140 days are all about stuff that is going to make Americans happy.

Price is higher, including gasoline, by the way, if this thing goes south as it appears to be doing. And so look, what can we do right now? We can just hope that sanity prevails. The truth socials and tweets that you posted don't give me a lot of confidence that sanity is going to prevail, but the stakes are way too high right now. We have to go back.

to the one thing, the one thing, the one thing that has actually proven effective at stopping the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon, and that is a negotiated solution. The JCPOA, which was controversial, was the one thing that caused the Iranians to ship their uranium out of the country and to stop their progress. Now, the prime minister of Israel and the president of the United States decided they would try something else.

But, you know, if if if this starts getting as ugly as it could get, we better get back to that diplomacy, which is the one thing that has been shown to actually slow the role of the Iranians in their in their development of a nuclear program. Congress member Jim Himes, thanks for joining us.

Thanks a lot. Take care. Those were those two interviews. We'll keep you posted with more, but we here at the Midas Touch Network are going to be interviewing all the kind of top democratic leaders, top officials in this area. We'll keep you posted. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers. The truth is more important than ever. Check out our new Truth Over Lies collection at store.midastouch.com. All 100% USA union made.

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