Bernie Sanders reminds CNN host: You can slam Obama, but Bush’s ‘blunder’ created ISIS
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Sunday told CNN host Candy Crowley that it was easy to criticize President Barack Obama’s fight against ISIS in Iraq, but he reminded her that it was President George Bush’s “disastrous blunder” that allowed the extremists group to get a foothold in the first place.
In a interview on CNN’s State of the Union, Sanders agreed that ISIS had to be defeated, but he said that “the people of America are getting sick and tired of the world and region — Saudi Arabia and the other countries — saying, ‘Hey, we don’t have to do anything about it. The American taxpayer, the American soldiers will do all the work for us.'”
“Saudi Arabia is the fourth largest defense spender in the world,” he pointed out. “They have an army which is probably seven times larger than ISIS, they have a major air force. Their country is run by a royal family worth hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Sanders said that if the battle was perceived as the United States vs. ISIS then “we’re going to lose that war.”
“This is a war for the soul of Islam, and the Muslim nations must be deeply involved,” he insisted. “And to the degree the developed countries are involved, it should be the U.K., France, Germany, other countries as well.”
Crowley wondered if the Vermont senator agreed with the president’s handling of the conflict so far: “Is that too far for you or just about right?”
“It is very easy to criticize the president,” Sanders replied. “But this is an enormously complicated issue. We are here today because of the disastrous blunder of the Bush-Cheney era, which got us into this war in Iraq in the first place, which then developed the can of worms that we’re trying to deal with right now.”
“We have been at war for 12 years, we have spent trillions of dollars,” he added. “We have 500,000 men and women who have come home with PTSD and [traumatic brain injuries]. What I do not want, and what I fear very much is the United States getting sucked into a quagmire, and being involved in perpetual warfare year after year after year. That is my fear.”
Watch the video below CNN’s State of the Union, broadcast Oct. 12, 2014.
Bill Barr’s DOJ won’t indict Trump while he’s in office — but 27 Democratic AGs can: Ex-Obama lawyer
Former special counsel Robert Mueller decided he could not indict President Donald Trump while he is in office, but that is not the only mechanism for legal accountability.
Former Obama administration acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal explained to MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell on Thursday how there is another option.
"Last night a former Watergate assistant special prosecutor, Jill Wine-Banks, made a point about indicting a president that had not occurred to me," O'Donnell noted, introducing a clip.
"The evidence of all the elements of the crime has been established and were he not protected by the Office of Legal Counsel -- an opinion by the way that I think is flawed constitutionally and legally -- I think it’s incorrect. It’s time for someone to challenge it or change it. It may take a state prosecutor indicting the president to take it to the Supreme Court for a decision and whether you can cover up your own crime and get away with it," she noted.
President Donald Trump can be indicted right now, a former top Republican prosecutor explained to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Thursday.
The host of "The Last Word" interviewed Bill Weld, the former Republican governor of Massachuttes who is currently challenging the sitting president for the 2020 GOP nomination.
Prior to his career in elected office, Weld was a top federal prosecutor.
In 1981, Weld was nominated by Ronald Reagan to be the United States Attorney for Massachuttes. After receiving positive media coverage for his anti-corruption court victories, in 1986 Reagan promoted Weld to head the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice.
CNN's Don Lemon blasted President Donald Trump for going on Fox News the day after former special counsel Robert Mueller testified to Congress and claiming that the entire investigation amounted to treason.
Trump was interviewed on the conservative network by his friend, Sean Hannity.
"If you will lie about anything, you will lie about everything," Lemon said. "For this president, for this administration, the lying is the feature, it’s not a bug. It’s not a bug, it is the feature. But what he just said to Sean Hannity is absolutely stunning."
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Bill Barr’s DOJ won’t indict Trump while he’s in office — but 27 Democratic AGs can: Ex-Obama lawyer
Bill Barr’s DOJ won’t indict Trump while he’s in office — but 27 Democratic AGs can: Ex-Obama lawyer
Trump can be indicted — right now — regardless of DOJ rule: Trump’s GOP challenger
CNN’s Don Lemon rips Trump for going on Fox News to tell more lies about Mueller
‘Hope Hicks lied to us’: Judiciary Democrat rips Trump aides for continuing the ‘cover-up’ of crimes
