Caroline Levitt confronts Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries regarding alleged lies about the Trump administration's military strike on Iran, asserting they were briefed despite retracted CNN reports. She cites War Powers Resolution precedents used by Presidents Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan, and others to justify Article II authority without prior congressional approval against Iran's nuclear threats. Conversely, Jamie Raskin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemn the action as a constitutional violation warranting impeachment due to absent imminent danger. Ultimately, the segment highlights deepening political fractures where Democrats face polling crises and potential impeachment inquiries over bypassing legislative war powers. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, Qwen/Qwen3-ForcedAligner-0.6B, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Chuck Schumer Excluded From Plan00:04:47
Chuck Schumer's all bent out of shape because apparently he wasn't included.
This was not a very inclusive, inclusive operation.
And so they're all worked up about that.
Although, if you listen to Caroline Levitt, apparently he was included.
He just didn't pick up his darn phone.
You know, sometimes you've got to pick up the phone, Chucky.
Madam President, earlier today we received reports that Iran has targeted U.S. military bases and U.S. service members in the Middle East, putting the lives of thousands of Americans at immediate risk.
I join Americans.
I pray for their safety.
This afternoon, I asked the Trump administration to immediately provide a classified briefing laying out the full threat picture, the intelligence behind Iran's retaliation, and the detailed scope and timeline of any U.S. response.
More importantly, I've demanded they lay out exactly what measures they're taking right now to keep our service members safe.
As I said Saturday night, Congress and the American people are owed answers.
No president should be allowed to unilaterally march this nation into war with erratic threats, no strategy, no explanation.
That's why I have called on Leader Thune to hold a vote immediately to enforce the War Powers Resolution.
The law requires the Trump administration to consult with Congress.
The Constitution demands it.
And the American people, especially the families of those in harm's way, deserve nothing less.
Confronting the Iranian regime's nuclear ambitions and stopping their campaign of terror demands strength, resolve, and strategic clarity.
Yeah, Trump's not so impressed with him, right?
I do believe he said, crying Chuck Schumer, whose career is definitely on thin ice.
He's not wrong about that, by the way.
If you see the New York polls and we've looked at them, guys, wow, I mean, Chuck Schumer is in a lot of trouble, a whole lot of trouble.
Like, trouble like Letitia James is in trouble, too.
I mean, these people are definitely on thin ice politically speaking because they just seem to be on the wrong side of everything.
But what's amazing here, what's amazing here is that apparently they were called.
And so now you're like, wait a second, Chucky, you're lying?
You're lying to us?
Is that the deal?
By the way, just to give you a little bit of sort of.
Background in terms of the constitution and what's allowed, the U.S. constitution does actually grant Congress the power to declare war, but be very careful here because war was not declared.
He made a very specific point of saying this is not war, this was a strategic strike, but this is definitely not war.
Anyway, so they're going, okay, he's declaring war, and so they're going to Article I, Section 8, and that would actually require an act of Congress.
However, However, there's something called the War Powers Resolution in 1973, and that does allow for the president to initiate military action in cases of what's considered, quote, a national emergency created maybe by an attack on the U.S., its territories or positions, or its armed forces.
He may argue in this case this was a national emergency because of the threat that was represented vis a vis a potential nuclear Iran.
And so that's kind of what's going to come up, and they're going to try and trap him in the semantics here.
I'm telling you, he's swinging for the fences, right?
Like, really, really, really swinging for the fences.
And so I don't think he cares.
I think he said, you know, I got a shot to make the world a safer place and I'm going to take it.
And they can sit there and do this all day long.
But if you think about modern history, whether it's Obama in Afghanistan or Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, you can think about whether it's George W. Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq.
You have Bill Clinton making moves in Iraq, Serbia, Sudan, Afghanistan.
You had George H.W. in Iraq, Afghanistan.
You had Reagan in Libya and Granada.
I mean, you can go on and on and on, right?
Throughout modern history, we have seen presidents take these moves.
And the reason they do them so strategically and precisely is because if you actually decide to get an act of Congress going, well, guess what?
Then you alert the enemy.
And so then your whole surprise is gone, right?
You miss your opportunity.
And so it doesn't always work that way in practicality.
But they're going to fight this despite the fact that they've had Democrat presidents make similar moves.
They're going to fight it all day long.
Meanwhile, Chuck Schumer.
Presidents Avoid Alerting The Enemy00:07:55
I'm like, wait a second, are you lying?
You say you weren't consulted?
Nobody told you?
Madam President, earlier today we received reports that Iran has targeted U.S. military bases and U.S. service members in the Middle East, putting the lives of thousands of Americans at immediate risk.
I join Americans.
I pray for their safety.
This afternoon, I asked the Trump administration to immediately provide a classified briefing laying out the full threat picture.
The intelligence behind Iran's retaliation and the details, scope, and timeline of any of the attacks.
So they're saying, you know, we don't know if you had any intelligence suggesting that there was actually a real nuclear threat there.
But as Marco Rubio keeps pointing out, like, why the heck were they, you know, enriching uranium?
Like, let's not be naive.
Meanwhile, Caroline Levitt is suggesting that these guys are all just flat out liars.
Watch this from this morning outside the White House, her speaking on Fox.
We did make bipartisan calls.
Thomas Massey and the Democrats, he should be a Democrat because he's more aligned with them than with the Republican Party.
We're given notice.
The White House made calls to congressional leadership.
They were bipartisan calls.
In fact, Hakeem Drafferies couldn't be reached.
We tried him before the strike and he didn't pick up the phone, but he was briefed after, as well as Chuck Schumer was briefed prior to the strike.
So this notion that CNN ran with that the White House did not give a heads up to Democrats is just completely false.
In fact, both Senator Schumer's office and CNN had to retract that story last night because it was a blatant lie.
And we showed them the timestamps from those phone calls.
But I want to add something to Thomas Massey's false points.
The White House was not obligated.
To call anyone because the president was acting within his legal authority under Article II of the Constitution as commander in chief of the President of the United States.
We gave these calls as a courtesy, and the Democrats are lying about this because they can't talk about the truth of the success of that operation and the success of our United States military and the success of this president and this administration in doing something that past administrations, Democrats too, have only dreamed about.
Right?
I mean, it is winning, winning, winning, winning.
I'm just going to be cautious because I know there's a lot of sensitivity around this.
And I think the most fair way of valuing this right now is to just look at the market, okay?
Just look at the market.
Whenever anybody says, like, oh, how do you think the market interpreted this as a win, okay?
A big freaking win.
I can say freaking.
I'm in live for your die, New Hampshire.
We say that here.
Watch out.
My New England accent may come out pretty soon.
I'll be talking about putting something in the jaw and wearing my paca.
Now and then, it happens.
It happens.
Anyway, I digress because this is unbelievable, all right?
Apparently, they were alerted.
They didn't pick up their phones, whatever.
But the point is, they didn't necessarily need to be alerted because, again, they're going to cite this War Powers Resolution in 1973 and the fact that the president is indeed the commander in chief, Article 2, Section 2, and has the authority to direct military actions.
Okay, so I get it, right?
Like, it's gotten a little murky.
I gave you the big laundry list of all the things Bill Clinton, Iraq, Serbia, Sudan, Afghanistan.
Is he going to Congress for all of those?
No.
Okay.
It's just sort of Obama, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan.
Was he going to Congress for every single one?
No.
So I think you just kind of need to understand that, yes, the world has shifted a little bit.
You're going to try and impeach him over this?
I mean, for goodness sakes, guys, again, he has the power.
Mike Johnson said it well.
Let's listen.
It is ridiculous for anyone to assert that the commander in chief, using his Article II power under the Constitution, should have to consult all the members of Congress or even all the leadership in Congress every time he has to make a decisive, quick action.
I mean, that would not be feasible.
So the idea that they're saying that what he's done is somehow inappropriate or unconstitutional is nonsense.
None of them ever complained when Barack Obama and Joe Biden used the same authority to drop bombs all over the Middle East, all over the world.
You know, it's entirely inconsistent with their previous actions.
And I think we call them on that hypocrisy.
There you go.
Okay.
But they're mad.
They've been excluded.
It's like, you know, the spoiled kids.
They want to be included in everything.
Jamie Raskin siding with AOC, calling for impeachment.
Now, he may not have wanted to go down this path, but watch the MSNBC anchor.
She leads him right there.
Against a runaway president.
Congressman, you had Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez calling the president's decision to bomb Iran without authorization a grave violation of the Constitution, saying it is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.
Just real quickly, do you agree?
I couldn't read the whole thing, but it sounds like I agree with that, that it's an absolute violation of the Constitution.
It's the grounds for impeachment piece that I want you to weigh in on.
It's right there at the end.
Well, without saying what anybody should do in any particular situation, Undoubtedly, a violation of the war powers of Congress, the usurpation of the war powers of Congress, would be an impeachable offense, would be a high crime and misdemeanor.
I mean, you know, Israel said, we've just, in what Israel did on its own, we set them back two or three years.
So that's not an emergency.
Remember, the president can only assert the power to use military in a context in which there's an imminent threat to us.
And that clearly wasn't there.
So we can add this to a very long list.
Of things where the president has violated the spending power.
I mean, the states brought an action because the president unilaterally imposed a spending freeze on laws passed by Congress, signed by the president for a trillion dollars in spending.
They wanted to hold up all of these federal public health programs, housing programs, local policing programs, just out of the blue.
Where does he get the doctrine that he can just do that?
He just pulls it out of a hat.
Well, the court struck it down, and gratefully, The states are there.
But obviously, talk of impeachment today when we're in the minority and we can't even get Republicans to vote with us on a single bill to try to restore sanity is somewhat hypothetical.
But I'm with my friend AOC and saying we've got to keep a very strict catalog of all of the violations of the Constitution that are taking place.
Congressman Jamie Raskin, New Jersey AG Matthew Plackett.
I'm sorry.
Like, you know, you guys are trying to keep that little agenda going.
And what happens to the Supreme Court?
Keeps telling you you're wrong.
Anyway, the White House said, and this is a statement made by President Trump the United States took this necessary and proportionate action consistent with international law, and the U.S. stands ready to take further action as necessary and appropriate to address further threats.
So, look, I think they're sticking to their story here that they have the power.
Again, if you go back to Article 2, Section 2, the president, as commander in chief, does have the authority to direct military actions.
And again, if you look at the historical precedent, Whether it was Obama, George W. Bill Clinton on Iraq, Serbia, Sudan, Afghanistan, whether it was H.W. Bush on Iraq and Panama, Reagan, Libya, and Grenada.
I mean, it happens, okay?
So they're making something out of nothing here because, again, I think the president's right.