Trump Faces Bipartisan War Powers Rebuke as Iran Conflict Drags On

0:00Ben Meiselas:The House of Representatives has voted to rebuke Donald Trump in his catastrophic and unlawful 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 Foreign 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.

0:50Ben Meiselas: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 appointee 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 THAAD interceptors after the Trump regime escalated the catastrophic war in the past few weeks against Iran by striking civilian cargo tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.

1:57Ben Meiselas: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 Moulton. Let me share it with you. This followed the passage of the War Powers Resolution, this major rebuke of Donald Trump's catastrophic war. Here's what they wrote.

2:40Ben Meiselas:We are nearly 200 days into this illegal and unauthorized war. And what do the American people have to show for it? 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 in the United States. Let me continue to read the statement. Tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer dollars wasted, 19 U.S. service members killed, and more than 750 more wounded. Despite all costs, none of the administration's stated objectives with Iran have been achieved.

3:22Ben Meiselas:Iran's nuclear and ballistic program remains intact, and it continues to demonstrate leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, which was opened 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 Bab al-Mandab Strait now in the Red Sea. There 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 Bab al-Mandab Strait. You have Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz and thus the Gulf of Oman area, the Persian Gulf area, and that critical strait.

4:10Ben Meiselas: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, MBS, claims it's the Iraqi resistance. The Iraqi resistance who are also allied with Iran said, 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.

4:47Ben Meiselas: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 saying that in the next 24 to 48 hours, we're about to see a massive spike, even beyond what we've seen 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 the 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.

5:33Ben Meiselas: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.

6:16Ben Meiselas: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 USN.com reported that Iranian strikes damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan during the conflict. In addition, dozens of US aircraft were destroyed or damaged during this war. Hundreds. Okay. And in this report, I believe it's just the tip of the iceberg because they say hundreds.

7:04Ben Meiselas:Does that mean 900? Does that mean 500? They don't really detail that. And they really hide the true extent of the costs in 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 $300 to$500 billion. I think that's the number that will ultimately come out. With the Trump regime, you always got to multiply somewhere by 10 to 50 because Trump will lowball numbers or increase numbers depending on how it suits him.

7:53Ben Meiselas: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, KC-135s, the E-3 AWAC. The E-3 AWAC was destroyed in Saudi Arabia. That's like a billion dollar plane right there. The AH helicopters, MH helicopters, so many MQ-9s, so many MQ-1s, So many diplomatic facilities in Iraq, in Kuwait, in Saudi Arabia, CIA facilities, U.S. diplomatic facilities in four countries suffered physical damage from Iranian strikes right there.

8:36Ben Meiselas:And look, even Iran's foreign minister, Aragchi, he 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. I follow with you the Strait of Hormuz traffic, We follow together, tanker traffic.

9:25Ben Meiselas: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 THADs to blunt the recent attack on Jordan.

10:02Ben Meiselas:Remember what the Jordanian government said, right? They said there was only 20 Iranian ballistic 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 underestimation. And this came from military sources. I think the number is closer to 100 or 120 patriots and THADs. So we're running solo. The US is out of weapons. And this was a request by Democratic Congress member, Brandon Boyle from Pennsylvania, right?

10:44Ben Meiselas:He chairs the budget, he's 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 Varian. Did you hear, by the way. The United States is apparently giving billions of dollars worth of 5 ,000 pound bombs to Israel. This deal was just cut. I think it was a$3 billion of our taxpayer dollars is going to give Israel more weapons of death right now.

11:28Ben Meiselas:That's where our money's going to, shamefully. The US 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 Shahid drones and other capabilities.

12:15Ben Meiselas:It improved, actually, the quality, not just the quantity, but the quality with some of those new Qashem missiles that move in the middle of the air, some of the Castle Breakers, some of those other ballistics that I've been talking about. And all the while you have Hegseth doing the following. The Pentagon is asking commanders to nominate troops for Pete Hegseth's September 30th state of the force address with candidates required to meet fitness, waist 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.

12:59Ben Meiselas: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. And 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, um, months ago, but you can see right here that the AWAC that was destroyed.

13:47Ben Meiselas:All right. I want to bring in now Senator Mark Kelly. He's a former Navy aviator during the Persian Gulf war. He flew around 39 missions in the Persian Gulf. He knows the region very well. He'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 But 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.

14:28Ben Meiselas: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 you 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 are changing things are looking different in these various uh red states but i mean you've that you've been there so talk to us where you've been and we'd love to hear your insights of what you're seeing if you see a change in the air?

15:06Yeah, you know, I've been the past, you know, several months, places like North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, 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 having a hard time affording food. Many people have lost their healthcare 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.

15:51So 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, D.C. 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, you know, 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.

16:35And 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. I said, this isn't like a, 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 2.2 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's actually what makes you a unique messenger given kind of, you know, yes, you're in the democratic party.

17:07Yes, you, you know, are a Senator, but, but it's kind of a non-political moment. As you said, 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 of Medicaid. I think it was part of probably in HHS with Doge, loses her health care coverage. My office, she 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 but 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.

17:56So talk about a kick in the teeth. I mean, first, this administration takes away her adult daughter's healthcare. She has to fight to get it back with our help. And now because of Trump's war in Iran, the price of gasoline has been jacked up so high, The mom can't afford to drive the kid anymore and the kid can't. So she's she is really struggling. You know, I'd say you could probably repeat that story throughout the country thousands and thousands of times. Yeah, I think, you know, tens of millions of times you go into these red states and you talk to a rancher. Highest bankruptcies that they're experienced in forever.

18:37Farmers, 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 gazillion dollars. And it's like it's fallen. You know, it always to me was obviously a fraud, but it falls extra flat. And it just seems when you see him and Besant and this whole crew, man, I'm just like, this is some loser. Like, this is just some loser. Like, it's not a 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, their input costs are up 45 percent.

19:21I've been told by several of them that they'll survive this year. They're probably not going to survive next year. And there will 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 a farmer or rancher, you know, often some of these, you know, farmers rely on a workforce that now is scared to show up for work. so they don't have the labor they need. The price of fertilizer and diesel have skyrocketed because this administration, specifically this president, the people around him decided to go to war without a strategic goal and without the need to actually do this.

20:14The 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? You know, sometimes I think maybe it was the Epstein files that got too loud for him, decides to go to war against this country. We have dead Americans, hundreds, I think 700 more injured and the munitions that we have used.

20:59And it's because Pete Hegseth, an unqualified secretary of defense, made a decision, you know, maximal 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 weapons systems. And now, you know, we find ourselves in a place that's pretty challenging. And I'll tell you, Pete Heggs 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 BRICS 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.

21:48They had a bigger position there with Xi and Putin and Prime Minister Modi, who Donald Trump, of course, was attacking Modi, and all the other BRICS nations, the president of Brazil, all these people who Donald Trump's been out attacking, they had their arm, 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 there just seems to be a global dynamic that's changing too. Yeah, Ben, I hate to say we, I mean, I fall into that trap sometimes too. It's Donald Trump has outcasted the United States.

22:28He's pushed away our allies and he's destroyed these relationships. And I think it's generous to say pushed away. I mean, 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 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 being asked on extended deployments where we have service members who have now jumped off of the ship because of the conditions aboard the ship.

23:23and a secretary of defense who doesn't want to address it and says, no, military commanders have everything they need. And the 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 missions, 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 in this indefinite blockade. I know Trump doesn't want to call it a war, but that's a war posture, right? Where our sailors.

24:06Except for when he calls it a war. And then our end, except 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 CENTCOM keeps on posting on that bizarre social, it's like the weirdest social media account. Like, I'm thinking, this is the CENTCOM, it looks like Trump's controlling it. It's how I observe it. You know, they're like, we blocked 100 commercial ships. I'm like, of course you can. You're CENTCOM. Like a hundred commercial ships, like that's not really the boat. Of course you can do that. Not that hard to do.

24:40Not 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 a ship not to transit the Strait of Hormuz. You just threaten them. That's it. And ships aren't going to want to go through there. Insurance company isn't going to want to insure them. The board of directors of the company isn't going to want to lose this really valuable asset. So the straight shutdown. Brent crude is up again over$100 a barrel I saw a couple days ago.

25:23It's probably going to continue to go up. Diesel in California, I think, just hit$9.99 a gallon. and what is the end game? 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 even said, look, if you keep this going, we're going to make sure nobody gets oil.

26:01So what do we see now? The East-West pipeline shut off, severely damaged. Saudis tell Europe that they're not going to get oil coming up in the next few months. We see damages to Yambu and Abqaq, Abqaq, you know, area. And you see the Houthis controlling the Bab el-Mondab Strait right now. And apparently they're mining that, you know? And so it's like, this was the plan? Like, Like, who are these idiots doing this? Like, it's outraged. They had no plan. That's it. I mean, the plan was Pete Hegs' plan. Maximum lethality, drop bombs, don't put safeguards in place. That's how you wind up with a bunch of dead Iranian kids.

26:40And hit as many targets, set records. I mean, he went to the podium multiple times and said, we set a new record. We bombed, 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 really made these decisions to hit all this stuff and burn through? I think the estimate today was something like we spent$38 billion.

27:24I 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, look, there's the inspector general's report where that number comes out of. But remember, the old inspector, you remember, I'm talking to Senator Kelly, but the old inspector general got fired back in January 2025 and then sued the Trump regime. and then they put 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.

28:04To me, it's in the hundreds of billions, but it's still severe. And in contrast to the lies that Trump's saying, so let's finish with this piece of it, which is a barrage of lies, The meaning is 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 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 U.S.

28:42on the world. He's embarrassing the post-World War II architecture. He's embarrassing the legacies. And it's hurting and causing the suffering. So I'll leave you to reflect on that before we go. Well, I would love to get the inside scoop on the conversation between Putin and Xi. When they get together, they pop in the champagne bottle. 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.