'Those Billions You Paid At The Pump Are Going To Go To Iran': Adam Schiff Shreds Trump's Iran Deal

[00:00:00]Senator from California.

[00:00:02]>> Madam President, three three weeks ago this body voted to have a debate over the President's war in Iran.

[00:00:09]More specifically, whether the United States Congress should exercise its constitutional authority to declare war or to bring this conflict to an end.

[00:00:19]Since that time, the administration has announced that has reached a deal with Iran to reopen the straight with an agreement to reach an agreement later over Iran's nuclear weapons.

[00:00:32]The President has made it clear that should Iran not agree to a deal over its nuclear program within 60 days, he will resume bombing.

[00:00:42]I sincerely hope that this is the beginning of the end of the war and that our service members will soon be coming home. But a still secret agreement that postpones the difficult questions for two more months is little assurance when the President has so often during this conflict promised far more than he has delivered.

[00:01:06]From the beginning, the President assured the country that the war would be short and it would be over very soon.

[00:01:14]Just weeks after the conflict began around 100 days ago, the President said that US forces would be leaving in the near future.

[00:01:24]He said talks were going very well and very very soon the conflict would be over. I think we won, he said.

[00:01:32]That last was on the last day of winter.

[00:01:36]This weekend will mark the first day of summer.

[00:01:39]This entire spring the American public have stepped into the shoes of Charlie Brown constantly being told that the football will not move, that the end is near, only to have peace snatched away time and time again.

[00:01:55]And so in this moment, Congress cannot accept a vague promise of a future end to the war as a substitute for the very definite terms of the War Powers Act.

[00:02:08]The president should come to Congress for our authorization to keep troops deployed to the war zone or bring them home.

[00:02:17]Those are the only two choices the law provides.

[00:02:21]After all, this war began without the administration making the case to Congress or the American people.

[00:02:28]There was no attack on the United States by Iran, nor was there any imminent threat.

[00:02:34]This was a war of choice, and it was chosen by the president.

[00:02:40]In the months since the administration's rationale for the war has shifted many times over time, with the president and his cabinet alternately claiming an imminent threat from Iran's nuclear program, which they also claimed had been obliterated by an attack by the US 9 months earlier, claiming an imminent threat of a missile attack by Iran on our homeland, which the US intelligence community concluded was in fact 9 years away, claiming this was the best opportunity for the Iranian people to rise up against the regime, then saying they would get mowed down if they did, with more vacillating, inconsistent, and implausible justifications for the war given every week.

[00:03:27]And now we have little more than a deal to make a deal.

[00:03:31]Initially, the agreement seeks to rebuild the status quo that this war shattered by reopening the strait.

[00:03:38]But even this preliminary agreement is contested, with the president saying Iran won't charge any tolls, but with Iran saying it may charge fees for the crossing.

[00:03:50]And the future deal on nuclear weapons, although still very much a work in progress, appears little different than the agreement that President Obama negotiated and Trump disavowed.

[00:04:03]Although the present deal seems far better for Iran than that deal since Iran may receive 10 times the billions it did under the Obama JCPOA and also be a party to a 300 billion-dollar reconstruction fund.

[00:04:22]Imagine that.

[00:04:23]You paid $60 billion more for gas during the war and those billions you paid at the pump are going to go to Iran for rebuilding.

[00:04:35]High gas prices are just one of the costs that have been borne by the American people over these 100 days.

[00:04:43]The region has been in chaos along with global shipping.

[00:04:48]As a result, the price of Americans' grocery bills has been much higher, the cost of fertilizer for farmers much higher, the price of energy bills higher to heat our home in winter and to keep it cool in summer. Everything is going up, up, up except the incomes of the American people.

[00:05:08]And most significantly, American service members' lives have been lost.

[00:05:15]That has been the most terrible price of this war.

[00:05:20]Americans wanted a president who would bring down their cost of living, lighten their economic load, deliver a better future for their children, address their rising rents, their inability to afford child care, their difficulty getting a health plan or good education without breaking the bank.

[00:05:40]To address their anxiety when the fridge runs empty or the gas light comes on.

[00:05:47]But this president did the exact opposite.

[00:05:50]And now we are told that Iran, not the US taxpayers who footed the bill for all of this, may be set to receive $24 billion in sanctions relief and another 300 billion in reconstruction, reparations, or investment.

[00:06:08]This war of choice was brought to America by a president who promised no more foreign wars, no more Middle East wars, no more regime change wars.

[00:06:15]Someone who said on election night to the entire world, "I'm not going to start a new war.

[00:06:21]I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars."

[00:06:26]But now says, "I didn't guarantee no war."

[00:06:30]And that he didn't build such a powerful military for nothing.

[00:06:35]So, let's look at the record of this president who promised no more wars and that he would focus on the problems of Americans here at home.

[00:06:43]200 people killed in boat strikes in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea with more strikes every week.

[00:06:51]An attack on Venezuela capturing President Maduro and now leaving in power his corrupt second in command long past the time when that country's constitution demands a new election and the country's rightful president, the winner of Venezuela's last election, is relegated to the sidelines, little more than an afterthought.

[00:07:15]And now the stationing of American military right off of Cuba blockading that country and indicting its leaders.

[00:07:25]The war in Iran is far from over and the president seems to be promising another one when it is.

[00:07:32]Saying with respect to Cuba, he likes to do things one at a time.

[00:07:39]We have in this moment an opportunity to show the president and the country that we are listening to our constituents.

[00:07:47]That we hear their concerns, that we will do our job to make their voices heard, to bring down the cost of living, and address the difficulties they find in just making it go of it.

[00:08:00]We have a responsibility to uphold what our founding fathers gave us, a constitution that provided Congress with the power to make war, not the president.

[00:08:14]We can bring our troops home, and we can return our attention to our difficulties at home, and rein in the president that has now become all too fond of war.

[00:08:27]We have found a majority to carry this motion once before, we can do so again.

[00:08:32]The American people are counting on us to send this resolution to the Oval Office with bipartisan support, and to end this war of choice once and for all.

[00:08:42]Our constituents cannot afford cannot afford to risk another 100 days of war.

[00:08:50]And if we are to be more than a constitutional appendage, neither can we.

[00:08:55]I yield back.