Trump Faces Bipartisan War Powers Rebuke as Iran Conflict Drags On

war in Iran. By a vote of 220 to 204, the House has voted to pass another war powers

“resolution act, essentially saying that Donald Trump's catastrophic war in Iran is not authorized.”

This time, seven Republicans sided with the Democrats in passing this war powers resolution act. I want to read for you the statement that came from the Democrats on the House far in affairs committee in just a moment. I want to remind you, though, that the passage of this war powers resolution act comes at the time where we have been showing you some new reports that demonstrate just how catastrophic this war is, reports from the congressional budget office, reports from

the Pentagon's office of Inspector General, who despite purging the Inspector General in January of 2025, who ended up suing the Trump regime and bringing in a Trump political employee to the role of Inspector General, it was still a pretty scathing report that detailed the military

“bases in the Middle East that were destroyed by Iran, the military equipment that was destroyed”

by Iran, the diplomatic offices in the Middle East that were destroyed by Iran. I'll go over that in a moment and also the Wall Street Journal just did a very scathing report with military officials who leaked this information showing again that the Trump regime expended somewhere in the range of 70 or more interceptors including patriot interceptors and that interceptors after the Trump regime escalated the catastrophic war in the past few weeks against Iran by striking

civilian cargo tankers in the straight of her moves, when Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles at Jordan, the Trump regime expended there, somewhere in the range of 70 or more interceptors, the cost of those interceptors combined could have been around half a billion dollars or more

“in just one day. So let's just go through this piece by piece. Here's the statement from the”

ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congress member Gregory Meeks, along with Congress member Multon. Let me share it with you. This followed the passage of the war power's

resolution, this major revoke of Donald Trump's catastrophic war. Here's what they wrote.

We are nearly 200 days into this illegal and unauthorized war and what do the American people have to show for its soaring gas prices? Rising mortgage rates and inflation pause right there. The 30 year fixed mortgage. You know what it is, right? 7.17% and that's just going to go higher. People can't afford homes here in the United States heck. People can't afford their rent here. Here in the United States. Let me continue to read the statement. Tens of billions of dollars

and taxpayer dollars wasted 19 US service members killed and more than 750 more wounded despite all costs. None of the administration stated objectives with Iran have been achieved. Iran's nuclear and ballistic program remains intact and it continues to demonstrate leverage over the strait of Hormuz, which was open before Trump started this war. I would only add to that as well. You have the Houthis who are allied with Iran. They control the Bob El Mundobs straight now

in the Red Sea. They were reports that they were mining that strait earlier yesterday. Regardless, the Houthis control all of Western Yemen right now and thus the Red Sea is in their control. So you have the Red Sea under the control of the Houthis with the Bob El Mundobs straight. You have Iran controlling the strait of Hormuz and thus the Gulf of Oman area,

the Persian Gulf area and that critical strait. And then you have the east-west pipeline in Saudi

Arabia, which has been severely damaged by strikes likely from the Houthis, although the Saudi Arabian government and BS claims it's the Iraqi resistance, the Iraqi resistance who are also allied with Iran. We would love if it was us, but it's the Houthis, the Houthis are saying it's us. MBS doesn't want to show how weak he is in the face of the Houthis, so he's blaming the Iraqi resistance. Regardless, some of the main pumping stations have been destroyed and Saudi Arabia

has now informed European countries. They won't be getting crude deliveries in the coming months. Folks, we have a massive, massive oil shortage right now and the biggest oil crisis in history caused by Donald Trump's catastrophic war in Iran and it's going to get worse. Now, oil experts are

already as some of the new prices will start to post. So I just want everybody to be prepared for that. Let me continue reading this statement. Then I want to go through some of those reports and then I have

“another important aspect of this video I want to share with you. So then the other part of this statement”

says, this is now the third war powers resolution that has passed the house to end this war,

including my own resolution which passed both chambers. The president must end this failed war and appoint real diplomats, not real estate developers to work multilaterally on a diplomatic solution that opens the straight and reduces tensions. The American people have made it clear that they do not support this war and the Constitution does not grant Trump the authority to wage it without the consent of the people and their representatives. So let me just share with you

quickly again the Pentagon Inspector General's report. That's the independent watchdog group and

lots of people said, well, they're not all that independent anymore because the Trump regime

“fired the Inspector General back in January of 2025. That Inspector General sued the Trump”

regime, Trump brought in a political appointee, but even that political appointee who became the Inspector General put this scathing report out which talks about the following. It says that U.S. sent com reported that Iranian strikes damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan during the conflict. In addition, dozens of U.S. aircraft were destroyed or damaged during this war.

Hundreds, okay. And in this report, I believe it's just the tip of the iceberg as they say hundreds. Does that mean 900? Does that mean 500? They don't really detail that. And they really hide the true extent of the costs and this Pentagon Inspector General's report. They say the damage to military equipment is somewhere in the range of $38 billion or so. But that's just some of the aircraft and drones and other equipment. That doesn't include the buildings. It doesn't

include the personnel issues. It doesn't include so much more. So I believe the number is probably

closer to $3 to $500 billion. I think that's the number that will ultimately come out.

With the Trump regime, you always got it multiply somewhere by $10 to $50. Because Trump will

“lowball numbers or increase numbers, depending on how it suits him. Remember, that's what”

his civil case was all about inflating and deflating fraudulently. So they do that again here. But nonetheless, I mean, it still says hundreds of buildings. And then it talks about multiple F-15s, F-35s, A-10s, K-C-135s, the E-3, A-Wak. The E-3, A-Wak was destroyed in Saudi Arabia. That's like a billion dollar plane right there. The H-H helicopters, M-H helicopters, so many M-Q-9, so many M-Q-1, so many diplomatic facilities in Iraq, in Kuwait, in Saudi Arabia, CIA facilities,

US diplomatic facilities in four countries, suffered physical damage from Iranian strikes right there. And look, even Iran's foreign minister, Iraq, she reads it so he goes fiction. Iran is defenseless. Fact, hundreds of U.S. military sites blown to pieces, dozens of aircraft scorched. Source, the Pentagon, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. We'll reveal it all in due course for those who've sold lies about Iran. It won't be pretty. It's why every day I've been showing

you the satellite footage, the NASA firms footage where you can detect the heat to see what's on fire and where the smoke is coming from. You know, I follow with you the strait of Hormuz traffic. We follow together, tanker traffic. Like we're in the weeds, you and I, in this community. And so none of this comes as a surprise, but now the Pentagon has to admit it after the Trump regime pulled what they did with COVID. Like a miracle, it's all going to go away. We're going to

bend the curve. It's gone by Easter. It's gone by summer. I give myself in it. They're doing the same thing, except they're doing it in the context of a catastrophic war. The Wall Street Journal reporting the U.S. is burning through its supply of interceptors to counter Iran's attacks. The U.S. had to expend 70 or more patriots and fads to blunt the recent attack on Jordan.

missiles and we were able to strike down 18 of them and then two of the ballistic missiles went

in a wayward direction and it's like that's not what happened. Iran lobbed far more ballistic

“missiles and drones and y'all used. I think this is an under estimation and this came from military”

sources. I think the numbers closer to 100 or 120 patriots and thads. So we're running solo. The U.S. is out of weapons and this was a request by Democratic Congress member, Brandon Boyle from Pennsylvania, right? He chairs the budget to be the ranking member of the budget committee. He will chair it when Democrats take over the house and so he put in a report to the Congressional budget office. Let me read to you what we learned there. U.S. munitions stockpile

especially problematic if China were to escalate at all. The U.S. used a significant number of

its missile interceptors in defense of Israel in June and throughout operation epic fury, did you hear by the way? The United States is apparently giving billions of dollars worth of

“$5,000 bombs to Israel. This deal was just kind of thing. It was a $3 billion of our taxpayer”

dollars is going to give Israel more weapons of death right now. That's where our money's going to shamefully. The U.S. military has probably used somewhere in the range of one half to two thirds of its missile defense interceptors in its war with Iran, a congressional report found. This is the latest CBO report, nonpartisan, congressional budget office report in response to Democratic Congress member Brendan Boyle asking for it. It could be two thirds of all of our

interceptors are gone on this war with Iran. Iran wasn't even viewed as a regional power before the Trump regime invaded with Netanyahu. Now it's a global power. Iran preserved its ballistic missiles and shot hit drones and other capabilities. It improved actually the quality, not just the

“quantity, but the quality with some of those new cashing missiles that move in the middle of the air,”

some of the castlebreakers, some of those other ballistics that I've been talking about, and all the while you have Hexith doing the following. The Pentagon is asking commanders to nominate troops for Pete Hexith, September 30th, State of the Force address with candidates required to meet fitness, ways to height grooming and uniform standards. So utterly deranged. By the way, this is some photos that we've also were able to see. I showed you these photos. You may recall

months ago. CBS posted them today. I don't know, maybe they're different angles of the E3 and some of the buildings that were destroyed by this catastrophic war in Iran that Iran was able to destroy

with the hundreds of bases and sources told CBS that they're basically sitting ducks and that

there's no defenses on these bases. Iran can strike them at will and you had top military officials saying that to CBS. You know, I'm not a big fan of the direction that CBS has taken. That's an understatement. They've become regime media. But this was a good report that they did at least showing these photos granted. We showed you these photos or similar ones maybe from different angles months ago. But you can see right here that the AWAC that was destroyed. All right, I want to bring

in now Senator Mark Kelly is a former Navy Aviator during the Persian Gulf War. He flew around 39 missions in the Persian Gulf. He knows the region very well. It's an astronaut, serious dude, serious guy. I've interviewed him a lot recently and it's very helpful to get his perspective. I also asked him from the outset what he's seeing when he's been touring a lot of red states and purple states. He's been doing this whole tour of a lot of red states and purple states,

how are the people responding to that? And then you know, I like to speak military tactics with him. And so these are issues I've addressed with him as well. It's a really compelling interview. I hope you find it informative. Bring in my interview with Senator Mark Kelly from earlier in the day. Now I want to bring in Senator Mark Kelly. Senator Kelly great to see. One of the things I've been noticing is you've been going to a lot of red states and you've been getting a warm welcome

there in red states and you know, we hear a lot about things or changing things or looking different in these various red states. But I mean, you've been there. So talk to us where you've been and would love to hear your insights of what you're seeing if you see a change in the air.

Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, South Carolina, you know, some of those, I'd say, in the case, you know,

most of those would be considered red states. People are really struggling. They're really having a hard time. People can't afford their lives. Half of Americans can't afford or haven't a hard time affording food. Many people have lost their health care coverage or snap benefits because of the actions of this administration Donald Trump's big beautiful bill as he calls it was a disaster for much of the country. So I hear that over and over again, regardless of where I go,

red state, blue state, it's the same story. And I got to say, people are fed up with Washington DC

“and I think that's what this election is going to be about. It's not going to be about Trump.”

It's going to be about people and their lives and how this administration has just screwed them over. You know, I think about you and yes, you're a reluctant politician. I mean, you know, but I think about you as the naval aviator. I think about you as the astronaut and the senator. But I think about just kind of a no-nonsense leader, you know, and being a leader, you know, throughout your life. And it seems we're kind of in this moment, even as you point out,

where, you know, you have all these people saying, political messaging, what's it going to be? And I kind of say what you said. So this isn't like a poll. This is like a life experience thing. Not a political messaging thing. Like people are really struggling. It's not like, can we move people to point two points to the right if we say this? It's like people can't afford

“stuff. Like people are afraid. They're not going to make it to the next day. And so I think it actually”

what makes you a unique messenger, given kind of, you know, yes, you're in the Democratic Party. Yes, you, you know, are a senator. But it's kind of a non-political moment, as you say. It's really existential. Ben, let me, let me tell you a quick story. So this woman, last year we helped her adult daughter get her health care coverage back. She got kicked off a Medicaid. I think it was part of it, probably in, in a HHS with Doge, loses her health care coverage. My office, she's sort of

still qualified. We helped her get it back. And then several months ago, I get another text message from her mother. And her mother was like, hey, thank you for helping my daughter. I can't afford to put gas in my car to help her get to her cancer treatments. Because the round trip was a couple hundred miles for her to get her cancer treatments. So talk about a kick kick in the teeth. I mean,

first this administration takes away her adult daughter's health care. She has to fight to get it back

with her help. And now because of Trump's war and Iran, the price of gas alone has been jacked up so high. The mom can't afford to drive the kid anymore. And the kid can't, you know, so she's, she's really struggling. You know, I, I'd say you could probably repeat that story

“throughout the country thousands and thousands of times. Yeah, I think, you know, tens and millions”

of times you go into these red states. And you talk to a rancher, highest bankruptcies that they're experienced in forever. Farmers, you take a look at manufacturing plants, you know, Trump's always talking about, we are building these plants here and building these plants there

and 20 trillion billion dollars. And it's like it's fallen, you know, it, it always, to me, was obviously

a fraud. But it falls extra flat. And it just seems when you see him and bestened in this whole crew, man, I'm just like, yeah, this is some loser. Like, this is just some loser. Like, it's not in Republic. These are losers. These are loser behavior. And it's hurting us. It's hurting people. The suicide rate for farmers is up dramatically. Farmers, I talked to in my state in Arizona. They're in Picasso. Our up 45% I've been told by several of them that they'll

survive this year. They're probably not going to survive next year. And there'll be more farm bankruptcies. Suicide rate is likely to continue to be very high if not go up more. They've been delivered a shit sandwich. I mean, by this administration, I mean, if you're, if you're a farmer or rancher, you know, often some of these, you know, farmers rely on workforce that now is scared to show up for work. So they don't have the labor they need.

They've priced a fertilizer and diesel have skyrocketed because this administration,

goal. And without the need to actually do this, the Iranians weren't any closer to getting a nuclear

weapon this year as they were last year or the year before. You know, did they have uranium that was enriched at a higher level than we would like sure they did. But we were able to inspect it. We had eyes on it. We had visibility. The IEAE was doing its job. This was an unnecessary conflict.

“Who knows what Donald Trump's real reason for doing this is? They know, sometimes I think,”

maybe it was the Epstein files that got too loud for them. Decides to go to war against this country. We have data Americans hundreds. I think 700 more injured. And the munitions that we have

used. And it's because Peatex, and unqualified secretary of defense made a decision, you know,

maximally lethality. We're just going to kill as many people as possible. We're going to bomb and strike as many targets as possible. And they burned through a big portion of our magazine in a lot of different weapons and weapon systems. And now, you know, we find ourselves in a place is pretty challenging. And I'll tell you, Peatex has said this himself. He said it's going to take years in some cases to, you know, rebuild these stockpiles. Well, you look at what took place recently

“in bricks in New Delhi. And far from being economic outcast, Iran seemed to be welcomed into the”

fold as a regional power and a quasi-global player. They had a bigger position there with

Xi and Putin and Prime Minister Modi. Donald Trump, of course, was attacking Modi. And all the other bricks nations, the president of Brazil, all these people who Donald Trump's been out attacking, they had their arm, they did the, they did the Ellen DeGeneres style selfie photo back in the Oscar days with Iran sending a message, not the outcast. We seem to be the ones who are the we outcasted ourselves with this Trump regime. And they're just going to be a global dynamic that's

changing June. Yeah, Ben, I hate to say we, I mean, I, I, I fall into that trap sometimes too. It's Donald Trump has outcasted the United States. He's pushed away our allies and he's

“destroyed these relationships. And I think it's generous to say pushed away. And he's threatened”

to make Canada a country, he's threatened to invade Greenland. He's threatened to leave NATO. This is not normal behavior for an American president. And it's, it's not somebody being innovative or thinking outside of the box. He has been a rolling disaster of a president. And it's making us poorer and less safe. We've got $40 trillion in debt. Our military is asked being asked to extended deployments where we have service members who have now jumped off of the ship because

of the conditions aboard the ship. And a secretary of defense who doesn't want to address it and says no military commanders have everything they need. And a president says these deployments aren't long enough. This is failed leadership. Unlike we have ever seen before in our country's history. Look, you were a naval aviator in Persian Gulf War. You flew 39, mission 37 to 39 missions over there. And so you know this region, you know, very well. You know, you have these two aircraft

carriers right now. And this indefinite blockade. I know Trump doesn't want to call it a war. But that's a war posture, right? Where are saying it? Except for when he calls it a war. And then our step and accept when, you know, it is a war, right? And our sailors and our marines are there every day on a war readiness footing, which, you know, and what SENCOM keeps on posting on that bizarre socialist. What is it going to be like the weirdest social media? I'm thinking, this is the

SENCOM looks like Trump's controlling it. So I deserve it. You know, they're like, we blocked 100 commercial ships. I'm like, of course, you can hear your SENCOM, like 100 commercial ships, like, that's not really the body. Of course, you can do that. Not that hard to do. Not that hard to do. And it's like, and that contains food. And that's commercial. It's also not hard for the Iranians. It's not hard for the Iranians to do it. You know, with their less capable navy,

significantly damaged navy, by the way. It's still not a difficult thing to do to convince these ship, not to transit the straight or smooths. You just threaten them. That's it. And ships aren't going to want to go through there. The insurance company isn't going to want to insure them. The

straight shutdown, Brent crude is up again over $100 a barrel I saw a couple days ago. It's probably

“going to continue to go up diesel in California. I think just hit $9.99 a gallon. And what what is the”

endgame? And you know, this president is failing and failing. And so is the secretary of defense. And they have no idea what to do at this point. Right. And the escalation is predictable and foreseeable. If you keep this blockade, Iran's not just going to take it. I mean, everybody warned. I mean, they have their own access that they have, whether it's the Houthis, the Iraqi resistance, and other groups. And they said, look, if you keep this going, we're going to make sure nobody

gets oil. So what do we see now? The East West pipeline shut off severely damaged. So I said, he's telling Europe that they're not going to get oil coming up in the next few months. We see damages to yet boo in op-cock at Cape, you know, area. And you see the Houthis controlling the Bob Belmond job straight right now. And apparently they're mining that, you know. And so it's like, this is, this was, this was the plan. Like, what do you, who are these idiots doing this?

Like, it's, it's, it's our end of plan. That's it. I mean, the, the plan was Pete Higgs's plan.

“Maximum lethality drop bombs. Don't put safeguards in place. That's how you wind up with a”

bunch of dead Iranian kids. And hit as many targets, set records. I mean, he went to the podium, multiple times. And said, we set a new record. We bombs, whatever, 10,000 targets already in this period

of time. I've never seen anything like this. I would contend that like, if you had a strategic goal,

maybe your target list would have been 250 targets, 500 targets, 16,000 things. I think have been attacked, which is just incredibly wasteful. The investigation that we will one day have is like, who made, who really made these decisions to hit all this stuff? And burn through, I think, I think the estimate today was something like we spent $38 billion. I think I saw that today. I had a lot of meetings. I'm not sure exactly what the number is. I imagine that number is

“probably higher than what was ever reported. Well, yeah. And I think, like, there's the inspector”

general's report where that number comes out of, but remember the old inspector you remember, I'm talking to the senator Kelly, but the old inspector general got fired back in January 2025, and then sued the Trump regime, and then they put it in a political game. So even this inspector general's report, which is the Trump political appointee, this data, which said that it was awful. So the fact that I'm with you when I read it, I'm like, I think you're still underestimating

the damage to bases and other things. To me, it's in the hundreds of billions, but it's still severe and in contrast to the lies that Trump saying, so let's finish with this piece of it, which is a garage of lies. The meaning is that that, you know, the ridiculous behavior, which to me is a weapon of mass destruction against, this is one against we, we the people, when Trump's out there behaving like this, I mean, you could only imagine what who he thinks his best

friends are, Putin and Xi and Kim Jong-un, they're looking at this and saying, this behavior

is more powerful than any weapon conventional or otherwise that we could use because he's

embarrassing the US on the world. He's embarrassing the post-World War II architecture. He's embarrassing the legacy and it's hurting and causing the suffering. So I'll leave you to reflect on that before. Well, I would love to, you know, get the inside scoop on the conversation between Putin and Xi. When they get together, they pop in the champagne bottle, look, look, look, look, look what this guy has done for us. I mean, NATO is a shell of its former self because of this president, Donald Trump

pushing away our allies. We have a lousy relationship with our best ally that we've had, which is Canada. I don't think we've had a stronger ally. This president is threatened to go to war against NATO. I mean, attacking Greenland would be an article five offense worth the rest of NATO countries would have to come to the defense of Denmark. If we were to attack Greenland and Donald Trump, he wasn't saying these things as like a joke, right? He was serious at one point. Now, he is

stop saying this, but he was serious about taking Greenland by force. Hey, this is dangerous stuff. We often laugh about it. We talk about how ridiculous this administration is and the horrible

we don't have serious people running the country, but what is happening to the country is serious.

This is an all-hands-on-deck moment to use a Navy phrase. I was in the Navy for 25 years. I feel like

“this is the moment. That's why I was in 15 different states helping candidates”

trying to win Senate seats in House seats. I just came from an event to night that had 11

military women. Nine of them are just running to win seats currently held by Republicans to

are trying to get re-elected. Yeah, I'll tell you what, it might be women that lead the way here in the House in Democrats taking back the House. We've got a lot of great candidates, but that's why I just had three weeks ago had another granddaughter. I got to spend a little time around the time when she was born. We plan to head for that between now and the election. And for the last several months, I've been racing around the country doing everything I can because this is a moment in history

that everybody's got to do their part. You know, it is a unique moment where people with your unprecedented and unique leadership skills. There's really not a lot out, I mean, I'd say this to you. There's not a lot out there like that. I mean, with all of the places you've

“been and what you've seen and we need to get serious. And I think that is”

less than as we head into these midterms. We have to be serious again. We have to hold people accountable and, you know, and we're not serious. It's not a political Democrat. We're not serious right now. And I won't fall into the trap of saying we Trump is not serious and he's made us, you know, look not serious. So thanks. Yeah, but we, we don't want to be looking back, you know, a year or two from now and saying what more could we have done to try to save this country and save this democracy.

“And I think he put us in a spot where we, you know, we're in a situation where we really need”

to save the Republic here. And it's getting dangerous. And, you know, I feel like we're going to

get through this, but it's going to take a big effort. Senator Kelly, thanks for joining us as always.

Thank you. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Before you go, our book WTF America is available for pre-order now. It's the story of how we got here and how we fight our way back. To pre-order, scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Let's do this.