‘This war has been a disaster’: Top Dem on the House Armed Services Committee

[0:00] And for more now, we're joined by Democratic congressmen from the state of Washington and [0:04] ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Adam Smith. [0:07] Congressman, thank you so much for your time tonight. [0:10] Two of your House colleagues resigned today amid allegations of misconduct. [0:14] Senator Ruben Gallego had this to say about your departing colleague, Eric Swalwell. [0:18] Look, we all heard rumors in Washington, D.C. about Eric Swalwell for many years. [0:24] The rumors I heard were that he was just a flirty social guy. [0:29] That's it. [0:30] Did you ever hear rumors of misconduct about Swalwell? [0:33] No, I didn't. [0:34] I, you know, I don't follow that stuff that closely. [0:38] I'm busy with my job. [0:39] So, no, I had not heard much of anything about Eric Swalwell other than the times we crossed [0:43] paths working here in Congress. [0:46] Swalwell, of course, was vying to be the next governor of the most populous state in this [0:50] country and was a high-profile figure within your party. [0:54] This comes as Democrats are trying to take back the House and the Senate in the midterms. [0:58] Are you concerned about potential ripple effects from this? [1:01] I'm not. [1:02] And this is what Eric Swalwell did. [1:03] He should be held responsible for it. [1:05] It doesn't reflect on anyone else who didn't do that. [1:07] So, when it was found out, it was referred to the Ethics Committee. [1:11] He resigned. [1:12] So, no. [1:13] This is on Eric Swalwell, and he should be responsible for his actions. [1:16] To the war with Iran now is ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. [1:20] You were set to hear from top Pentagon officials in the committee next week. [1:24] Why is that now on hold? [1:26] Well, because they basically said that the CENTCOM commander was not available until the [1:31] middle of May. [1:32] But, look, that was just a budget hearing that they moved. [1:34] We've been demanding since this war started for a public hearing to specifically talk about [1:39] the war in Iran. [1:40] The answer that we got back from the majority was, well, we don't need to do that because [1:43] we got CENTCOM, Central Command, sorry, coming in for a budget hearing in a couple of weeks, [1:48] so we'll just do it then. [1:49] That was never satisfactory. [1:51] The details of this war deserve to be aired in public in great detail and be questioned. [1:57] But now even that has been delayed a month. [1:59] There is so much going on here that Congress and the American public need to know more [2:04] about. [2:05] This war has been a disaster for our country. [2:07] The costs keep going up, and there's very little evidence of benefit. [2:11] We need to have a public hearing on this in front of the Armed Services Committee. [2:15] We've seen the whiplash with President Trump first threatening to wipe out a civilization, [2:19] then peace talks now blockading the strait. [2:22] What do you see as the ultimate endgame here? [2:24] Well, look, I mean, that's the problem. [2:26] There was not any clear idea. [2:28] The ultimate endgame in Trump's sort of egotistical mind was that Iran would simply collapse. [2:34] I mean, remember, he's been saying this for like nine years now, that Iran is begging for [2:39] a deal. [2:40] There's very little evidence of that. [2:42] There's never been much evidence of that. [2:44] So I think his notion was if we just bombed Iran long enough, they would somehow fold. [2:49] Now, I've been in the briefings with the details about what Iran has, what their military [2:53] is like, the chokehold that they could have in the Strait of Hormuz. [2:57] We all knew that wasn't going to happen. [2:59] So at the end of the day, the endgame became let's just degrade Iran while the global economy [3:04] suffers. [3:05] Thousands of civilians are killed. [3:06] We've lost 13 American service members, hundreds more wounded. [3:10] So at this point, the endgame is just to find some way out of the mess that Donald Trump [3:15] has created. [3:16] The New York Times was out with an article titled Burned Before Democrats Abruptly Revive [3:21] the Idea of Impeaching Trump. [3:23] A lot of this talk comes after that wipe out a civilization post that Trump made. [3:29] Your colleague Jamie Raskin just today introduced a bill that calls for removing President Trump [3:34] from office using the 25th Amendment. [3:36] Do you think that this is a distraction for Democrats or should your party truly be focused [3:40] on this? [3:41] Several quick thoughts. [3:42] First of all, Trump using the United States of America's military power to threaten the [3:47] erasure of a civilization is a blow to our credibility as a country. [3:52] We're already seeing allies fleeing us from a thousand different other things that Trump [3:56] has done. [3:57] It has a devastating impact. [3:58] And there is absolutely no question that Donald Trump is unfit to be president of the United [4:03] States. [4:04] But we have to think about how best to take that case to the American people. [4:08] The problem with impeachment is you need Republican support, certainly in the House now, but ultimately [4:13] in the Senate, no matter what happens in these elections. [4:16] So we need to think strategically about how to hold Trump accountable for what he's doing, [4:20] get the American people on our side, and stop him at the ballot box. [4:24] Yes, I would be a much happier person if Donald Trump was not president tomorrow. [4:29] All right. [4:30] But that's not going to happen by introducing impeachment resolutions. [4:33] We've got to stay focused on the issues, how what Trump is doing is impacting the American [4:37] people. [4:38] Gas prices are going up. [4:39] Inflation is going up. [4:40] Consumer confidence is an all-time low. [4:42] That's where I think we should focus most of our attention going forward. [4:46] And 25th amendment, you think that that's remotely on the table? [4:50] Well, it's on the table, but the 25th amendment is the cabinet. [4:54] We don't have any control over that. [4:56] Yeah. [4:57] Given what Trump is doing, the cabinet should invoke the 25th amendment. [5:00] But we don't have the power to force them to do that. [5:03] I'm an advocate for it. [5:04] If his cabinet members want to wake up and actually see the light about the damage that [5:08] Trump is doing to our country and remove him, I'm all for it. [5:12] We don't have a leverage point to force them to do that. [5:15] Congressman, we thank you so much for your time. [5:17] Appreciate it. [5:18] Thank you.