Video

Lindsey Graham was on the receiving end of a smack-down from one of his Senate colleagues on Sunday after going on "Meet the Press" and declaring Donald Trump had every right to launch an unprovoked attack on Iran on Saturday.

During an appearance on MSNBC, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) bluntly claimed the Republican from South Carolina needs a refresher course on the Constitution.

During his Sunday appearance, an upbeat Graham claimed Trump "was within his Article II authority” to begin bombing that cold lead to a war.

He added, "Congress can declare war or cut off funding,” Graham continued. “We can’t be the commander in chief. You can’t have 535 commander-in-chiefs. If you don’t like what the president does, in terms of war, you can cut off the funding. But declaring war is left of the Congress. We’ve declared war five times in the history of America. All of these other military operations were lawful.”

Asked to comment after watching the cli, Merkley suggested, "I'd encourage him to actually read the Constitution."

"Our founders were so concerned about the impact of war that they said, this is not a decision that can be left to a single individual," he lectured. "And that's why the Constitution vests that authority with Congress. The president absolutely failed to follow the Constitution and now we're in war without congressional authorization ––we should debate a war powers resolution."

You can watch below or at the link.

- YouTube youtu.be

Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not take kindly to a suggestion on "Face the Nation" that the Donald Trump administration jumped the gun by bombing reported nuclear facilities in Iran in a surprise attack on Saturday.

Dispatched to explain the administration's rationale for possibly putting the U.S. on the brink of another war in the Middle East, the former Florida senator ended up butting heads with host Margaret Brennan when she pressed him on what intel was used.

"Let me follow up on a phrase you just used, 'weaponization ambitions,'" she prompted her guest. "Are you saying there that the United States did not see intelligence that the Supreme Leader had ordered weaponization?"

"That's irrelevant," Rubio shot back. "I see that question being asked in the media all the -– that's an irrelevant question, they have everything they need to build the weapon--."

After speaking over each other, Brennan pressed, "That is the key point in U.S. intelligence assessments. You know that."

"No it's not," he snapped to which she replied, "Yes it was," before she continued over his protestations, "The political decision had not been made."

'No, no," he protested. "Well, I know that better than you know that, and I know that that's not the case. You're not –– you don't know what you're talking about--."

"But I'm asking you whether the order was given?" Brennan pressed.

"And the people who say that –– it doesn't matter when the order was given," Rubio insisted. "They have everything they need to build nuclear weapons. Why would you bury –– why would you bury things in a mountain, 300 feet under the ground? Why do they have 60 percent enriched uranium? You don't need 60% percent enriched uranium. The only countries in the world that have uranium at 60 percent are countries that have nuclear weapons, because it can quickly make it 90. They have all the elements they have. Why are they –– why do they have a space program? Is Iran going to go to the moon? No, they're trying to build an ICBM so they can one day put a warhead on it."

You can watch below or at the link.

- YouTube youtu.be

CNN conservative Scott Jennings got a reality check on Sunday morning after he outdid himself by praising Donald Trump for putting the U.S. on the precipice of another war in the Middle East.

During the panel segment that concludes CNN's "State of the Union," Jennings was given first shot by fill-in host Kasie Hunt to discuss the surprise attack on Iran that has infuriated Democrats and a handful of Republicans who believe the president overstepped his authority.

According to Jennings, "Why would you be surprised? I mean, Donald Trump has been clear-eyed and full of resolve about the Iranian threat for 20 years. He has always said you can't have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon."

He added, "I would also say that my observations of him over the last few months are that things are running quite smoothly over in the White House."

"We have a commander-in-chief right now who is decisive and who. knows how to operate a government and operate a military operation with absolute precision," he gushed.

Former DOJ official Xochitl Hinojosa was quick to pop his celebratory balloon.

"I think there are a lot of questions here," she remarked to the conservative Jennings. "First of all, why did Trump –– the whole reason why we're in this situation is because he withdrew from the nuclear deal in the first place, and now he's trying to bring Iran back to the table and they wouldn't do that and so he decided to move forward with these strikes."

"But this was his doing in the first place," she lectured. "Obama had a deal, he [Trump] withdrew from it, he withdrew from the deal and now he's trying to get back into it, into something very, very similar."

"The second piece of this is, I think there's two real questions about where are we going next?" she suggested. "Whether or not this is going to lead into a war and whether or not Iran has already indicated that they do plan on retaliating. And Trump has said and threatened that he will then escalate as well."

"I think the third question is a legal part of this, which is whether this was constitutional and whether or not they needed approval from Congress," she pointed out.

You can watch below or at the link.

- YouTube youtu.be

Immediately following a Sunday morning Pentagon press conference regarding the Saturday bombing attack on Iran ordered by Donald Trump, longtime New York Times Pentagon reporter Helene Cooper noted the wording used for one site by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine.

Sitting on a panel on MSNBC's "The Weekend," Cooper was asked for her takeaways from comments made by Caine and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Despite Donald Trump's claim after the attack that, "Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated," Caine seemed to disagree.

Ac Cooper noted, "Some of my independent reporting now –– this is not coming from either Hegseth or Caine obviously –– but it's not, there's some indications now that people are not so sure that this site has been completely destroyed, that it was severely damaged."

She then added, "And Caine did say 'severely damaged,' but he did not use the word 'destroy,' and I think that's quite significant."

You can watch below or at the link

- YouTube youtu.be

Donald Trump's decision to launch an attack on Iran without approval from Congress was hammered by a Democratic senator on MSNBC early Sunday morning as he accused the president of a "double cross" perpetrated on U.S. voters.

Speaking with the hosts of "The Weekend," a fuming Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) harshly criticized the president for exceeding his authority which could put the country on the path to yet another war after making campaign promises to not go down that path.

Asked about a bill he is sponsoring that would deny funding for "any use of military force in or against Iran without specific congressional authorization," Welch replied, "Number one, this was Trump at his most impulsive. Number two, Trump lied to the American people and to his voters promising he would not get us in yet another Middle East war."

"Number three, his own intelligence came to the conclusion that while Iran was enriching uranium, it didn't have the capacity to deliver a weapon," he added. "Number four, [Israeli Prime Minister Bibi] Netanyahu sabotaged the negotiations and Trump willingly acceded to the Netanyahu agenda, which is also about regime change in Iran."

"So this is an astonishing double cross by Donald Trump to his supporters and to his pledge to Americans," he continued. "In my view the last thing we need is a war, another war in the Middle East and I'm one of the many in Congress that are going to be demanding that we vote on this."

You can watch below or at the link.

- YouTube youtu.be