WASHINGTON — As the Iran war stretches into its third week, Democrats say they’re done with all of the classified briefings from top administration officials.
They now want public hearings into whether President Donald Trump plans to put U.S. boots on the ground in Iran, secure nuclear material there and how he plans to end the deadly conflict in the Middle East.
Few Republicans agree such hearings are needed. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., went even further, suggesting that public hearings would compromise the operation in Iran.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. who has led unsuccessful efforts to pass war powers resolutions to rein in Trump’s military operations, said that Trump “hasn’t given a rationale that’s convincing for this. … We have now said we’re tired of the classified briefings. We’re tired of hiding this from the public.”
“When you keep something in secret, there’s a reason you keep it in secret because you don’t believe it will stand analysis in the light of day,” he said.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, agreed. “If this administration thinks it can defend this war — I don’t know how it can — then it should send Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio to the Senate next week for a hearing in front of the relevant committees,” Murphy said of Trump’s secretaries of Defense and State.
If Republicans ignore their demands, Murphy and Kaine said, Democrats will force more votes on Trump’s war powers, putting more political pressure on the GOP.
“I think they’ll lose votes in the Senate if they actually have to go in front of the American public and explain why gas prices are so high, explain whether we’re engaged in regime change or whether we’re not, explain how they’re going to get the nuclear weapons and the nuclear material without the ground invasion,” Murphy said. “I don’t think they have answers for any of that.”
There’s confusion on and off Capitol Hill about Trump’s strategy with Iran. Who exactly will seize Iran’s nuclear materials? Does the president want regime change? And how does he intend to end Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which is causing oil prices to climb?
Just this week, NATO allies and other nations rejected Trump’s pleas to help pressure Iran to end its blockade of the key waterway. The president then wrote: “WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!”
One key Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who had been privately and publicly urging Trump to strike Iran this year, said he believes Republicans should hold public hearings at the “appropriate” time.
“I think we need to. I think we need to showcase what we did and why we did it, but we’re in the middle of doing it,” said Graham, who is running for re-election this year. “But it’s very important for me to tell people back home, Americans over there have to be over there to prevent the Ayatollah from getting a nuclear weapon.”
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., a member of Armed Services, said he has no objection to doing public hearings, “but I still want my classifieds.”
And retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., conceded that hearings will happen “at some point” because “we have to learn from our successes; we have to learn from any mistakes.”
But the top two Republicans in Congress — Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. — both pushed back on Democrats’ call for public hearings.
Thune said top Trump officials have been holding “plenty of news conferences” with reporters and multiple closed-door briefings with lawmakers. Hegseth, Rubio and others have held separate classified briefings with all members of the House and Senate.
On Tuesday, Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, led a classified briefing with a small, bipartisan group of senators.
“I’m not sure what the Democrats’ objective would be in a case like that, other than to try and find some way to embarrass them,” Thune said of hearings. “But honestly, I think the hard questions you’re asking them, we’re obviously asking them in closed sessions.”
Johnson argued that holding public hearings on the war — just weeks after its Feb. 28 start — could harm the U.S. mission there.
“We’re in the midst of a couple-of-weeks-long operation that’s sensitive in its mission and scope, and you cannot go outside of the classified briefing to give to the public the information, because it would adversely affect our mission,” the speaker told reporters Tuesday. “They have well explained this to members of Congress in multiple briefings, both before, during and after the operation commenced.”
After receiving multiple classified briefings, Johnson said he was confident Iran posed an “imminent threat” to the U.S. and that had Trump not acted there would have been “mass casualties of Americans.”
Asked if he plans to hold a public hearing on Iran, Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss. told NBC News: “I don’t have those plans.”
Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said she didn’t think public hearings would be that helpful. Things she heard in the classified briefings she had already seen in the news, Lummis said.
“I have learned more about the war by listening to the news than I’ve learned in classified briefings by the administration,” Lummis said in an interview. “You all know as much as we know, and so there’s no additive advantage to having hearings.”
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