(WASHINGTON) — House Majority Leader Steve Scalise did not refute the possibility of American ground troops entering Iran when asked on Sunday, even as many in his party have voiced concerns about such a move.
“There are no boots on the ground today, but we’re having a lot of conversations about what could happen next,” Scalise told ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “But I think most people, most civilized people, recognize a nuclear-armed Iran is not an option that any of us want.”
The war with Iran has now surpassed a month of fighting and some congressional Republicans — including Scalise’s Louisiana colleague Sen. John Kennedy — have said President Donald Trump would need to come to Congress to seek authorization for any ground troops in Iran. When asked by Karl if he agreed with that proposition, Scalise did not answer directly, but said that Trump had already done that.
“The president has already come to Congress,” Scalise said. “They’ve let all of the congressional leadership know in advance of the strikes, but they’ve also had briefings on Capitol Hill.”
He added, “I was at one of those classified briefings with Republicans and Democrats, and they took questions from everybody. There were a lot of questions from people on both sides.”
Trump never officially sought congressional authorization before the war with Iran began, but his administration alerted a select group of top lawmakers, known as the “Gang of Eight,” before the initial strikes. And while the president continues to call the operation a “war,” he has also said that he cannot call it a war because he did not seek authorization from Congress.
Scalise said that he would not answer whether there would be widespread support from Republicans for ground troops in Iran because it has not yet happened.
“We’re not at that point yet. Obviously you’re seeing troop movement and we’ve got a number of bases in that region, too, that have been there for a long time,” Scalise said. “So until that day comes, I’m not going to speculate, and you’re not going to see the president go negotiate this in public.”
In a separate interview on “This Week,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said Congress should not allocate any more money “for an illegal war of choice.”
“[This is] a war that is now making us less, not more safe and has already cost American lives, is costing billions of dollars every day, oil and gas prices are going up,” Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said. “So the president who said he was going to focus on bringing down prices and ending foreign wars has started foreign wars along with Prime Minister Netanyahu and prices are going through the roof. So no, we should not keep funding an illegal war of choice that’s making us less safe.”
Unlike Scalise, Van Hollen does not believe the administration’s briefings have been substantive enough.
“I have been to these briefings,” Van Hollen said. “What you learned in these briefings is exactly what you’re hearing outside the briefings, which is they don’t have any particular objective. It’s a constantly changing objective. And there’s no endgame whatsoever.”
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