LEADER JEFFRIES DURING WAR POWERS RESOLUTION DEBATE: "DEMOCRATS ARE HERE TO STAND UP FOR THE RULE OF LAW AND THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION"
Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke on the House Floor in support of House Democrats' War Powers Resolution, emphasizing that our Constitution requires the President get approval from Congress before plunging America into a war and that taxpayer dollars should be used to drop prices at home, not to drop bombs in the Middle East.
LEADER JEFFRIES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank my good friend, the distinguished gentleman from Queens, the great state of New York, the once and future Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Greg Meeks, for his leadership and for yielding.
I rise today in strong support of the American people, in support of our men and women in uniform, in support of the United States Constitution and in support of this War Powers Resolution.
As we gather here today on the Floor of the House of Representatives, there are mothers and fathers across this country who are in mourning, confronting the heartbreaking loss of their loved ones in uniform. My prayers are with the families of the six American service members who have been killed overseas in Donald Trump’s war of choice. We’re thankful for their heroism, their bravery and their patriotism. And may their memories always be a blessing.
Mr. Speaker, every Member who serves in this chamber has sworn an oath of office.
It seems as though many of my Republican colleagues have forgotten that.
So let me remind you in part as to what it says:
I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. So help me God.
In this remarkable country, the greatest nation in the history of the world, we don’t swear an oath to a king, to a political party or to a man bent on desecrating the Oval Office. In the Congress, in the Courts and in the military, we swear an oath to the United States Constitution.
Mr. Speaker, when the Framers drafted that glorious document, they feared the rise of a monarch, a demagogue, a tyrant.
Today, we are here on the House Floor because the Constitution, the binding document that makes us all Americans, is being trampled on by a wannabe king.
As Members of the House of Representatives, the branch of government who the Framers decided would be the closest to the people, to reflect the hopes, the dreams, the aspirations, the fears, the concerns, the anxieties, the life experiences and the passions of the American people—we have a solemn obligation, Democrats and Republicans alike. We are all guardians of the American people and of the Constitution. We swore an oath that compels us to ensure that this President’s modern-day “injuries and “abuses” come to an end.
We are at war now in the Middle East, spending billions of dollars to bomb Iran, when Republicans refuse to find a dime to make healthcare affordable for the American people, to make sure that everyday Americans can go see a doctor when they need one. This war has not been authorized by the people’s representatives here in this glorious House.
Article I of the Constitution explicitly provides Congress with the sole authority to declare war. There is nothing ambiguous about that.
The Framers made that decision because they were concerned about kings, who, throughout time, plunged their people into unnecessary wars, impoverishing them or imperiling their lives by sending them off to a foreign conflict, often to pillage the resources of others for the benefit of a tyrant and his family.
Sound familiar?
That's why the power to declare war was given explicitly to the House and to the Senate, given to the people’s Representatives.
Abraham Lincoln, as a Member of this House in 1848, once profoundly observed, “The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.” – Then-Congressman Abraham Lincoln, Republican Congressman, 1848.
That is why we have advanced this War Powers Resolution today. Donald Trump intentionally refused to get authorization from Congress for this war of choice, a war that has now exploded to more than 10 countries across the Middle East.
The President has not even, Mr. Speaker, bothered to offer a coherent answer to the most basic questions that any Commander-in-Chief should address when making the solemn decision to take us to war: why are we doing this? What are our objectives? How will this all end?
Mr. Speaker, if this military action, this war, is so principled, why is the President unwilling or unable to make his case directly to the American people?
If the tremendous cost to American taxpayers, in terms of sacred human lives and our nation’s precious resources, is so justified, why does the President’s rationale, why does the administration’s rationale change every single day?
Now, make no mistake. Iran is a bad actor. They must be confronted for their nuclear ambitions, painful human rights abuses and repression of its own people, including the slaughter of thousands of civilians during the recent protests. It is the leading state sponsor of terrorism. It is a brutal regime that presents a serious threat to our allies in the Middle East, including Israel, Jordan and the Gulf states.
But the President has a responsibility to justify plunging America into another war that will cost more American lives and billions, if not trillions, in taxpayer resources. That’s the President’s obligation, and he has fallen woefully short of that responsibility.
Now, the Trump administration has offered at least five different reasons to justify the war, all of which are built on deception and misdirection.
First, Donald Trump claimed that the U.S. would attack Iran to protect the demonstrators who were risking their lives to demand democratic change. He even urged them weeks ago to rise up and seize state institutions.
But as the regime cracked down brutally, killing tens of thousands of their own citizens, the President did nothing. Even as Donald Trump urged ordinary Iranians to take greater risks, there was never a viable military option for defending unarmed protesters against a brutal police state without sending hundreds of thousands of American troops into Iran. It was an empty pledge for the Iranian people that the current bombing campaign does nothing to undo.
Second, Donald Trump and his advisors claimed that Iran’s unwillingness to negotiate away its nuclear program left no choice but for us to attack.
Now, this is the very same person, Mr. Speaker, who told the country last summer that Iran’s nuclear program was “completely and totally obliterated.”
The same administration whose Department of Defense has said the Iranian nuclear program was set back several years, and whose State Department said Iran isn’t even enriching uranium today.
Mr. Speaker, was the Commander-in-Chief confused in June, or is he confused right now?
It was not long ago when America could be sure that we were preventing Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon. The Iran nuclear agreement successfully did that, until Donald Trump recklessly decided to pull the plug because he suffers from Obama Derangement Syndrome. The President has spent much of the past year trying, and failing, to restore the same negotiated safeguards he abandoned for partisan political reasons. And because of his failure to negotiate the guardrails that he destroyed, he has now taken us to war.
Third, President Trump claims that Iran poses an imminent threat to the United States through its development of intercontinental ballistic missiles that could perhaps someday reach our shores.
If Iran is actually on the verge of having that capability, the President should provide the evidence. But no such evidence has been presented to this Congress or to the American people. We can only assume that it does not exist.
Fourth, Donald Trump has said he wants to achieve regime change.
Now, Donald Trump is an individual who promised Americans on the campaign trail that launching regime change wars in the Middle East has been one of the most foolish and costly things that the United States has ever done. Those are Donald Trump’s words on the campaign trail.
Candidate Trump said that, if elected, he would never get our country into an endless regime [change] war. President Trump has now done the exact opposite.
Regime change wars are among the most expensive things that we can undertake, and yes, Secretary Hegseth, for decades, they have failed to accomplish their objective.
Vietnam was a regime change war. Afghanistan was a regime change war. Iraq was a regime change war. And despite the incredible bravery of our heroes and patriots, because of failed policy decisions, they didn’t work out.
Even if the Iranian regime were to fall, we have no way to control what comes next, which most experts believe would be the Iranian Revolutionary Guard-led government rising up and being just as repressive and antagonistic as the current theocracy and perhaps even more committed to the acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Fifth, and most recently, Donald Trump said “I had a feeling” Iran would attack first, as some sort of rationale for going to war. Donald Trump had a feeling that Iran would attack. The United States government has initiated a war, put American lives at risk, six patriots have already been killed, thousands of American citizens are stranded in the Middle East and he has plunged the entire Middle East into a war and chaos over a feeling.
That’s outrageous. It’s unacceptable. It shocks the conscience.
In the last few days, six service members have died, and the Trump administration has acknowledged that more of our heroes are going to be killed.
We have no concrete justification for why we are putting American troops in harm’s way and spending billions of dollars on a foreign war while the affordability crisis rages here at home—a crisis Donald Trump said he would fix on day one, but instead, Republican policies have made worse.
Taxpayer dollars should be used to drop grocery prices, drop housing costs and drop health insurance premiums. Instead, Donald Trump is spending billions of taxpayer dollars to drop bombs in the Middle East.
Mr. Speaker, the President’s war is unwise, it’s unpopular, unauthorized, unlawful and unconstitutional. And in the United States of America, we serve the rule of law, not the rule of man.
James Madison once wrote in 1788, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
Our Constitution requires the President get approval from the Congress before launching a war. That has not happened, and that’s why this bipartisan resolution, led by Democrats, is on the Floor of the House of Representatives today.
In their wisdom, the Framers believed that they had made it impossible for a President to do what Donald Trump has just done, and that no other American President has done before–launched a major war in the Middle East without the approval of Congress.
That’s what Donald Trump’s time in office has been all about. Failure after failure. Betrayal after betrayal. Disaster after disaster.
In his return to the Presidency, Mr. Speaker, Donald Trump has left America less prosperous, less safe and less free.
He has hurt us, again and again. Failed us again and again. And now, by launching this unauthorized war of choice, setting fire to our Constitution.
The American people deserve better. And as Democrats, we are committed to continuing to fight to use your taxpayer dollars to lower the high cost of living, to fix our broken healthcare system and to clean up corruption.
And we stand on the Floor here today to make sure that those taxpayer dollars are being used in ways that are designed to make life better for the American people, not launching another endless war in the Middle East that is destined to cost more American lives and waste billions, if not trillions, in taxpayer dollars.
We are here to stand up for the American people.
We are here to stand up for our men and women in uniform.
We are here to stand up for the rule of law and the United States Constitution.
We will not rest until we end this national nightmare and continue America’s march toward a more perfect union.
Vote YES on this War Powers Resolution. I yield back.
Full Floor remarks can be watched here.