Elizabeth Warren shuts down Meghan McCain's Suleimani ranting on The View

Sen. Elizabeth Warren earned loud cheers from "The View" audience after she explained to co-host Meghan McCain why she had not changed her mind on President Donald Trump's order to assassinate an Iranian government official.

McCain pressed the Democratic presidential candidate to say whether Iranian general Qassim Suleimani was a terrorist, and suggested Warren had offered conflicting statements on the killing.

"You issued a statement calling Suleimani a murderer," McCain said. "Later, you issued a second statement saying he was, quote, an assassination of a senior foreign military official. This is a man who is obviously responsible for hundreds of American troops' deaths, carnage that we can't imagine ... I don't understand the flip-flop. I don't understand why it was so hard to call him a terrorist, and I would just like you to explain the change."

Warren thanked her for the question, and explained that her statements weren't in conflict with one another.

"The question is, what is the response that the president of the United States should make, and what advances the interests of the United States of America?" Warren said. "Think about Saddam Hussein. You want to talk about a bad guy, right? However, going to war in Iraq was not in the interest of the United States. We lost thousands of American lives, it cost us here at home, it has cost us around the world. It has been a part of this cost in the Middle East that has ended up with millions of people who have lost their lives, who have been injured, who have been displaced. The question for the president of the United States is to understand what's going on, have an overall strategy and pick an appropriate response."

McCain seemed disappointed that Warren hadn't designated Suleimani a terrorist.

"Is he a terrorist?" McCain said.

"He's part of a group that has been designated as a terrorist," Warren said.

"So he's not a terrorist?" McCain replied.

"Of course, he is," Warren agreed. "He's part of a group that has been designated a terrorist. The question though, is what's the right response? And the response that Donald Trump has picked is the most incendiary, and has moved us right to the edge of war, and that is not in our long-term interests."