CSPAN’s Washington Journal dives into U.S.-Iran tensions, with Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) defending targeted strikes while warning against escalation, contrasting caller Dan’s skepticism over past wars and Rashad’s plea for bipartisan unity. Wall Street Journal’s Laura Seligman details a rapid-fire campaign—20+ Iranian vessels destroyed, 2,000+ targets hit—spreading to NATO airspace and Azerbaijan, with six U.S. deaths in Kuwait and F-15 losses, while Iran mines the Strait of Hormuz, risking global oil chaos; Trump’s ship escort plans loom as stockpiles deplete amid Pentagon assurances. The episode exposes how precision strikes clash with civilian fallout, revealing a conflict spiraling beyond borders. [Automatically generated summary]
I do think that, you know, you do diplomacy first, but they have reacted better when you show them strength, when you show them that there are consequences.
And I am glad that this operation is underway.
I do want it to be successful, and then I want it to end.
I don't want it to become something else.
And I think it was the right call.
And I do agree that elected officials should break these things down based on the facts and then say what they believe is true, having talked mostly with their constituents, the people they represent, because we represent a certain group of folks, and those come first.
And I think we would all do better if we had more and more people who really work the issue as opposed to working the politics.
All right.
We've got to leave it there.
Congressman Landsman of Ohio, a Democrat, member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Thank you so much for coming this morning.
Thanks for having me.
All right.
And we're back.
This is Open Forum.
So we just spoke to Congressman Greg Landsman, a Democrat, about Iran.
I want to let you know that we did also have Republican Don Bacon book to talk about the same subject, but he had to cancel due to unforeseen circumstances, and we will get him rescheduled soon.
This is open forum where we can talk about anything.
I'll take a few of your calls before we bring in a Zoom guest, Dan from Maine, an Independent.
Your line is open.
Good morning, Dan.
Hi.
Good morning.
How are you?
Good.
How are you?
Getting along a little crazy here.
It's an intellectual discussion of the subject of war, whether or not we should do this or that, is really totally oxymoronic.
I mean, it's below our human dignity to be discussing the best things or the right things or the wrong things, whatever, having to do with war.
War is insanity.
War is killing.
That's what war is killing.
Let's go kill some more Persians, okay?
Well, who are they?
I don't know.
or something like that.
I don't know what religion there are, but it's absolutely insane that we can have.
There is no such thing as an intellectual discussion with regards to the merits of war.
Just look at the U.S. record for the last 20 years and how many wars did we win in Afghanistan?
How many wars did we win in Iraq?
How many wars did we, who even knew that we were destroying Syria in the process?
And the whole Middle East is boiling like a cauldron of boiling water.
And we sit around whether or not we should hit this target or that target.
And we'll be absolutely accurate on our targets because we're really smart about what we're doing.
But oops, we killed 150 little girls.
Oh, God.
Oh, well, you know, that's the fog of war.
All right.
That was Dan from Maine.
Rashad from Virginia, Republican.
You are next.
Good morning, Rashad.
Yes, how are you doing?
Can you hear me okay?
I sure can.
Hi.
Oh, yeah.
Thank you very much for taking my call, and I appreciate C-SPAN.
I wanted to comment on what the Republican person said before when you had your last caller on.
I have voted for Trump the first time, but after I realized his leadership is not what any sane person would want, I decided to vote against him.
I never thought I'd see a day where I'd be voting for Democrats, but I wanted to say basically to all Republicans, Democrats are not our enemies.
They want the same thing we want.
We want a strong nation.
We need to work together and not be divided by our leader.
This is not the way.
There used to be a day when strength, according to the call before, used to be attributed with toughness, the ability to take a criticism.
We don't have that as far as our president is concerned.
Democrats, all Republicans aren't your enemy.
I voted for Abigail Spanberger because I felt she can do the job.
Quite frankly, I'd rather have Liz Cheney as a presidential candidate, but that's just not the way it was.
So, and considering the war, the topic of the day.
Rashad, I'm going to have to cut you off because we are turning now to our next guest, Laura Seligman, a Wall Street Journal National Security Reporter.
Laura, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
Thanks so much for having me.
All right, we'll be talking about Iran and Israel and the U.S. Your latest story on Iran is about the U.S. sinking a Iranian ship in the Indian Ocean.
Can you describe to us what happened and what your reporting found?
Yes, of course.
So there was an American submarine that was hunting the Iranian ship in the Indian Ocean in international waters, and they used a single torpedo to blow a hole in the side of the ship.
And this was a major loss for the Iranians.
It was a ship named after General Qasem Soleimani, who the U.S. killed years ago in an airstrike.
And that was one of their most moderate ships.
So that's a major loss for the Iranians.
But it's not the only loss, as the CENTCOM commander and Secretary Hagsteth have spoke about in recent days.
The Iranians have lost more than 20 ships during the recent airstrikes.
And that significantly impedes their ability to mine the Strait of Hormuz, for example, which has been a major concern for years.
The other targets that the Americans and the Israelis are destroying right now is focused on Iran's ballistic missiles, short-range and long-range, medium ballistic missiles.
They're going after launchers and warehouses.
They're also going after headquarters and facilities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
They are also going after Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon.
And the U.S. and Israel have struck over 2,000 targets in Iran thus far.
And we're only a few days in.
And I think we have quite a few more weeks to go of these operations.
Right.
And the administration has said that they are close to basically gaining operational control of the airspace there.
We know that, of course, as you said, they've been focused on some of these warships.
To what degree, though, Laura, do you believe that this conflict is crossing geographical boundaries?
For instance, NATO air defenses said that they shot down an Iranian missile that was on its way toward South Turkey.
Yes, that's true.
That did occur.
And also, just in the last 24 hours, Iran sent missiles and drones potentially to Azerbaijan's airspace as well.
So I do think that this conflict is expanding geographically, and there's certainly concern from our allies in the region that they could be collateral damage.
But I think that's something that's to be expected when you have a conflict of the scope.
I mean, this is the largest buildup of air power, the largest air operation that the U.S. military has done since the 2003 invasion of Iran, or sorry, excuse me, of Iraq.
And I think that that is something to be expected.
I think the Trump administration has tried to say that they're trying to contain this conflict to Iran, to the Middle East, but we've already seen the consequences, including the breaching Turkish airspace, as you talked about.
We've also seen the U.S. military has had several losses.
There were six American soldiers that were killed when an Iranian drone struck a commercial port in Kuwait the other day.
Several more grievously wounded.
They also lost three F-15 fighter jets in Kuwait that were shot down by friendly forces.
According to our reporting, it was a Kuwaiti F-18 fighter jet that shot down these jets.
So it's certainly not without risks.
And as the conflict continues to expand, we're likely going to see more casualties.
And you mentioned the Strait of Hormuz earlier, but I wonder what importance do you believe it plays going forward?
Obviously, they've been sinking some of these ships so that the Iranian cannot block it, I mean, Iran cannot block it.
But I wonder, just focus on that.
Where do you believe it stands and the importance of it going forward?
Well, obviously, the Strait of Hormuz is a very critical waterway.
Much of the world's oil and gas supplies goes through that choke point.
And so Iran really does hold key leverage in that point.
And any type of ship, vessel, boat can drop a mine in the Strait of Hormuz.
So until the U.S. and Israel destroy all of Iran's vessels that can drop mines, then there is still a threat in the Strait of Hormuz.
And Iran has also threatened to fire on any commercial ships that try to go through.
Now, the U.S., Donald Trump has said that he's considering allowing U.S. naval warships to escort commercial ships that are going through the strait, but we're not quite at that point yet.
Of course, the other issue is that if Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz, that's also their own lifeline.
A lot of their oil and gas goes through the strait as well to reach the rest of the world.
So I don't think we're quite there yet.
And I think that once the U.S. and Israel, as they have been, manages to eliminate Iran's naval forces, then I think that will be much less of a concern for us.
Laura, you reported yesterday that General Kane said that the U.S. had fired more than 500 ballistic missiles and over 2,000 drones over the course of the last five, six days that this has been happening.
Is there a concern about the stockpile, about which weapons we still have and whether or not they are getting low or perhaps too low to fulfill this mission that the president says could last four to five weeks?
Sure, that's always something that's of concern to the Pentagon.
The Secretary Hegseth and General Kane said that we could sustain this pace of offensive operations for indefinitely, I believe is what they said.
It's probably not quite accurate, but certainly we do have a very large stockpile of offensive weapons, missiles that are shot from fighter jets.