The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump Says U.S. Was 'Cocked And Loaded' Before He Called Off Strike On Iran

Episode Date: June 21, 2019

President Trump confirmed that he approved a strike on Iran on Thursday after it shot down a U.S. drone but called off the operation after the initial moves were underway. This episode: Congressional reporter Kelsey Snell, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, and Congressional correspondent Susan Davis. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Katie calling from my first grade classroom at Janie Elementary School in Washington, D.C. We are celebrating our last day of first grade. This podcast was recorded at... It's 1120 a.m. on Friday, June 21st. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, and we will be on summer break. Okay, here's the show! Happy summer, everybody's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress.

I'm Susan Davis. I also cover Congress. And I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. This morning, a lot of people woke up to the news that President Trump had called off an airstrike on Iran. Ayesha, what do we know about what happened there? So basically what we know that there were some reports and then President Trump tweeted it out basically that he had decided to launch airstrikes against Iran and that they were

ready to go. But he asked what would be this basically the civilian casualties for Iran. And he was told it would be 150 people would die if these strikes went through. And so 10 minutes before the strike, according to Trump, he stopped it. I do think it's worth noting sort of tonally how different the president sounded in his explanation of why he chose to do this. And in it, he cites that he made the calculation, and he alone makes this calculation as the commander in chief, that he was told 150 people would likely die in the strikes. And he determined that that cost of human life was not fair retaliation for what had prompted the military airstrikes was Iran had shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone. It was unarmed. It was a surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz.

And that was what had prompted the military action and that it wasn't worth it. And it was striking to me because it was just a very empathetic president. This is, you know, Trump's a strong man. He's a tough guy. He's the one that bullies you to the table. He takes on his enemies. He's a name caller. You know, he's all these things. And in his tweets, it wasn't as much the tough, strong Trump as the human empath decide to bomb Syria. And he bombed Syria, and this was well documented at the time, because what prompted him to finally make the call was he was shown videos of children being gassed. And he said publicly that that to him had crossed a moral line and that prompted the bombing. And when it comes to this question of humanity and morality and war, Trump seems at his most conflicted. Well, and I think that as far as the language toward Iran, President Trump has been kind of

all over the place. And just in the past few weeks, he'll threaten them, say there'll be no more Iran. Yesterday, after the drone was shot down, he said they had made a very big mistake. But then just a few hours later yesterday, he said that maybe it wasn't intentional. I find it hard to believe it was intentional, if you want to know the truth. I think that it could have been somebody who was loose and stupid that did it. We'll be able to report back and you'll understand exactly what happened. But it was a very foolish move. That I can tell you. And he seemed to be kind of de-escalating a bit, saying that he doesn't see why they would actually do that on purpose, that maybe somebody just kind of got out of line and did this, and that maybe it was an accident. And then there are times,

just in the past few weeks weeks where President Trump has said, oh, Iran is very smart and they want to come to the table. They want to make a deal and I want to help them and I don't want regime change. He kind of toggles between I'm very tough and I'm going to kind of lay down the law on people. And then also this idea of I don't seem to really want to go to war because he came to president as someone who was campaigned on the idea that we're going to get out of the Middle East. Absolutely.

We're not going to be spending money over there. We're not going to have these endless wars. And so he seems very kind of reticent to follow through with what would could really escalate into a very massive conflict. Well, this is already an escalation of sorts, right? Because this started when President Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. But we talk a little bit about the different things we're hearing from him. But what do we know about what his ultimate goal is with Iran? So when President Trump talks, he talks about we cannot allow Iran to get nuclear weapons.

But there's also kind of like this like 12 point plan that I think came out of the State Department of all these things that Iran needs to do that goes beyond that, that kind of focuses on like they need to stop, you know, being engaging and kind of being a bad actor in the region. And so there is a question of how far this administration really wants to go and what their what their criteria is for Iran. Is it just no nuclear weapons or do you want them to kind of stop all what the U.S. would consider malign activity. And this was the issue with the Iran nuclear deal, where arguably Iran was complying with that deal. But the administration just didn't think the nuclear deal went far enough to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and also to stop them from engaging in behavior like supporting terrorism. And so this is kind of the larger issue that it's a question of what exactly the administration hopes to accomplish. Well, when you say the administration, the people who are surrounding the president have changed a little bit, right, since he first pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. I mean, Sue, what do we know about the people who are talking to the president about this? We hear all the time that he's hearing from a lot of people.

Well, his most close advisors right now on this are the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, who's one of his top advisors. John Bolton is known for being someone who supports a much more interventionist foreign policy and always has. The thing that is complicated about this right now is that it is also an administration that has a federal government that has a lot of vacancies in it. And one of those most important question marks right now is there is no confirmed defense secretary. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan announced he was leaving this week under sort of personal conflicts that forced him out of the job. The secretary of the Army, Mark Esper, is now the acting secretary of defense. That's one of those jobs that really seems to take on a new level of importance when you're starting to talk about bombing the Middle East. Presumably that person

would be in the room while they're making decisions, right? And probably the top advisor to the president on what his decision should be here. Not to say that Mark Esper isn't qualified, but it isn't through the process of having a Senate confirmed, vetted, and usually someone who goes through that process to articulate what their strategies of military interaction would be around the world. There's no confirmed U.N. ambassador right now who is also an important voice in reaching out to the global community when the U.S. decides to make these kinds of decisions. You know, there's plenty of vacancies in a lot of the sort of operations of the federal government, which is what I think makes people on Capitol Hill, people in the global community, a little nervous about where President Trump intends to take this

strategy. He's confronting the same problem that every president of our lifetimes has dealt with, which is a hostile Iran with no clear pathway to peace with them. And dropping bombs on Iran is not something that I think anybody paying attention to this is ready or willing to do eagerly because there is no long-term strategy here yet, right? And if it exists, the public doesn't know it, Congress doesn't know it, and our allies don't know it. Speaking of long-term strategies and congressional confirmations, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about what exactly Congress is doing in this situation, what their role is here. When you're paying for college on your own, there's a lot to balance. To help you get through

it all, NPR's Life Kit talked to the real experts, students. Finding a side hustle that works for you and works for your schedule is hugely beneficial. Find LifeKit's new guide on how to pay for college in Apple Podcasts or at npr.org slash LifeKit. And we're back. Now the president almost pulled the trigger but decided against it. But is there really anything Congress is doing to oversee all of that when it comes to these actions, Sue? No. So here's the tricky thing about all of this. And, you know, we've probably talked about this in past podcasts, and we've certainly talked about it when presidents have done military airstrikes before, is that the past three presidents have largely operated all military intervention since 9-11 on the same authorization for use of military force that was passed in the

days after 9-11. And you will hear people refer to that as the AUMF. And you will hear that shorthand all over Congress right now. And so that AUMF provided the legal and military justification. And it was written so broadly that the president's lawyers, all president's lawyers since, have seen that as pretty much giving the president the latitude he needs to make virtually any military decisions. Because they're talking about terrorism, to be clear. The AUMF after 9-11 was about global terrorism, and that has been interpreted in a lot of different ways. And it essentially said, and I'm paraphrasing, but it essentially gave the president the authority

to seek out terrorists or anyone who aids and abets them anywhere they may be, any country, any operation. It was not defined to a country or even a group. It was just written to say the president can do what he needs to do to keep us safe from terrorism. Now, legally, I think, and we do know that members of the Trump administration have been up on Capitol Hill recently, again, making the case that they see the 2001 AUMF as their legal justification if they needed to take military action on Iran. Now, I would say broadly, even beyond the AUMF, it is pretty well accepted that any president can make limited military airstrikes if he sees the need, that you don't need congressional approval for every single military action.

This is about going to war. Yes. If you are going to declare the actual declaration of war against a country or a group that you would need Congress approval. The president doesn't need that if he just wants to drop some retaliatory missiles or bombs on people. President Trump did so against Syria and already in his first term in president, Congress didn't say he needed to come to them for approval. Sustained military action, putting troops on the ground, any kind of long term military campaign. Congress likes to say they want the president to come and ask for their approval. But Congress has also been really feckless on this regard. And the times that they have been, you know, at any point they could take up a new AMF, they could rescind the old one time and time again. And this applies to both parties. There is a real reluctance on Capitol Hill to restrain the commander in chief to take responsibility for any military decisions and politically own the consequences of it. So they've largely been happy while they may complain about it and they may use it to criticize Trump and the Republicans use it to criticize Obama. They don't really want to take the responsibility. President Trump will say that he doesn't want to go to war. But isn't there also kind of that question of like when you talk about sustained military action, isn't there always that question of so when does it become a war? And what when do you go from limited to we're actually at war? Isn't that always a question? Sure. And think about it in real terms. Let's say Trump said, OK, Congress,

take up a debate about military action in Iran. You define what it is. Do you think Capitol Hill wants to have that debate right now? Right. They can't agree it's Friday, let alone have to take on the responsibility of owning U.S. military action in Iran. So I think you hear a lot of complaining, but very little action towards actually reclaiming the congressional role in being more assertive in making these military decisions. And this is even more difficult than, say, you know, deciding that they want more control over spending. They're talking about having control over people's lives and sending human beings into conflict zones. And, you know, Ayesha, on that, do we know if the president wants Congress's input on that or does he want to continue down this path of being the decider, the one who alone can fix this? Well, he did. He did talk to members of Congress yesterday about, you know, what was going on with Iran. We don't know if he talked about the strikes or anything. This was

before all of that. But so he did kind of include them. I think when you look at this administration, what you have seen over and over again is that very much a willingness to do what the president wants, kind of regardless of Congress or not letting Congress stop them. We've seen this with the wall and the emergency declaration and issues like that. So I'm not sure, especially with Democrats in control of the House, that you're going to see a lot of push for Congress to kind of define what Trump can do as commander in chief. So this has been a kind of jarring morning, I think, for a lot of people. And Ayesha, I'm wondering if you can just let us know what we think is going to happen next. Do we know what the president's planning? At this point, just based off what the president said in his

tweets, it looks like at this moment, we don't know exactly, and the White House isn't necessarily commenting, that right now, it doesn't seem like a strike is on the table, because it wouldn't be proportionate or proportional to what happened with the drone. And right now, I think that you're going to see this administration talking about a lot about they they want Iran to come to the table. That's what Trump has said. And that's what he seemed to be saying a bit like we have time. He's in no rush. He's kind of said that before with other like with North Korea. He often says that I'm in no rush, but, you know, it'd be great for them to come to the table so we can work this out. But until then, we're going to keep these sanctions on. So we're expecting to hear more maybe on sanctions, possibly new sanctions on Iran. And from there,

it seems like we're going to be kind of in this heightened state until somebody gives or there's some type of break in the tension. And I know that we all will be keeping a close eye on this over the weekend. So for now, that is a wrap. And we'll be back as soon as there's political news that you need to know about. Until then, head to npr.org slash politics newsletter to subscribe to a roundup of our best online analysis. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress.

I'm Susan Davis. I also cover Congress. And I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.