Transcript of Trump Blindsided by House War Powers Vote New

On this vote, the yeas are 215 and the nays are 208. The concurrent resolution is adopted. With— without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

There you have it. The House of Representatives just voted to pass a war powers resolution to block Donald Trump's unlawful and catastrophic war in Iran. 4 Republicans joined with the Democrats to pass this war powers resolution. These Republicans included Thomas Massie, Warren Davidson, Tom Barrett, and Brian Fitzpatrick. You'll recall over the past 2 weeks, MAGA Mike Johnson shut down the House of Representatives because he feared that there would be a vote that would pass the War Powers Resolution. So he sent everybody home because it's a privileged resolution. It had to be taken up again when they returned. So it was taken up again and it just passed. Now it has to also still pass in the Senate. The Senate already passed a procedural hurdle regarding a War Powers Resolution. So now the Senate would have to formally take it up, but they have the votes in the Senate to pass it as well. So Essentially, you have the Senate and the House rebuking Donald Trump in his unlawful and catastrophic war in Iran. And this comes at the same time that we see open hostilities escalating in the Middle East. Donald Trump violating the ceasefire and having the United States military strike in the Strait of Hormuz in the Qeshm Island area.

Uh, we saw Iran retaliate by striking a airport in Kuwait, uh, international airport terminal, as well as a military base in Kuwait belonging to the United States and the Kuwaitis. Also striking a military facility, a naval facility in Bahrain. Remember, CENTCOM tried to act like none of this happened and that Iran's missiles were taken out by the interceptors, which we now know to be false. Congress on a decently bipartisan basis just completely fed up with Donald Trump's unlawful and catastrophic war. Also, Donald Trump held this disastrous press conference in the Oval Office right before the War Powers Resolution passed, and Donald Trump was saying that he's talking to Hezbollah and he's talking to Iran and things are looking great, and that his idea of a ceasefire in the Middle East is when things aren't that bad, but when you still shoot at each other. I mean, it was a bunch of incoherent gibberish that was very, very, very alarming just about Trump's kind of mental and physical abilities as well. I'll get to that in a moment. But let me show you right now, MAGA Mike Johnson, right as this vote was taking place, you can see him kind of running away from the press, from Manu Raju and others, when he's being asked a very basic question like, why wouldn't you as the speaker want to join in this war powers resolution?

Don't you want to assert your Article 1 authority that this is a congressional power, the ability to declare war? Don't you want to like actually utilize your authority? Or are you just like the Russian Duma? He didn't say the Russian Duma part, but that's essentially how I think we all view Congress under MAGA Mike with a lot of these MAGA sycophants. Watch what MAGA Mike says here. Play this clip.

Check. Why do you not support giving Congress a check on the president's authority here? It's been 95 days since this war began.

I think it is a very dangerous prospect to take away from the administration and the commander-in-chief right now the ability to negotiate. That's what this does. It weakens us, our position and our leverage in negotiation on the peace. In that situation, Operation Epic Fury is concluded.

Shouldn't you guys have a check on it? Why doesn't Congress assert its authority here? It's constitutional authority.

This question could have been asked at any time over the last half century when Congress has not passed War Powers Acts, when presidents like, oh, I don't know, Barack Obama were dropping bombs and missiles all around the world.

AUMF for Iraq and Afghanistan.

This operation was immensely successful. The objectives that were well-defined were achieved. The president is now in the process of concluding a peace agreement. And we have to allow him the latitude to do that. And I think a war powers resolution right now is very untimely and a very, very negative and dangerous thing for the country.

Now, as I noted, Donald Trump was holding a press conference in the Oval Office. It's the first time he held a public event in about 8 days, and he looked absolutely horrible. I gave you my opinion, and I'll be clear, this is opinion speech. In my opinion, it looked like he had a mini stroke over the past 8 days. And I think there were other reasons why he probably didn't go to Don Jr.'s wedding and he couldn't travel. I'm just giving you my opinion. And I think that Walter Reed visit and the 8 days that he hasn't been on any public events, I think is— I think something else is going on. I'll just leave it at that. But anyway, a reporter asks him, so how do you define a ceasefire, right? This War Powers Resolution passed. You're saying that there's a ceasefire, but there's a war taking place. You know, we, we know, we, we see it. So how do you define a ceasefire, which means cease the fire, stop firing, move towards peace? Watch Donald Trump's kind of rambling, incoherent, and just awful answer here. Play this clip.

How do you define ceasefire? Uh, how do you define ceasefire? Uh, pretty much the way it is. It's a different part of the world. You know, I'd say in that part of the world, ceasefire is when you're shooting in a more moderate manner.

More from this press conference as well. A reporter said, you know, you also said last week that the United States military would be joining forces with the IRGC and we'd be digging up the nuclear dust together in Iran. So did you just make that up? I mean, what's, what's going on there? Is that just one of your kind of fictitious stories that you tell? Like, why would you say that when that's clearly not something that's happening? It's odd that the President of the United States just makes things up. Tell us, Donald. Here, play this clip.

You said last week that the US would go in and dig out the buried nuclear material. You're with him. With them.

Right.

Did Iran actually agree to that? Well, it depends on what day you're talking about. They did agree. And then sometimes they did. They agreed. Well, that's what I'm saying. It's one of the things we talk about. It's very overrated. I'm the one that overrated it. I thought to me it was important. To other people, it's not important because those beautiful B-2 right here, the B-2 bombers. They obliterated, you know, when CNN said maybe it was an obliteration, they knew, I mean, before the pilots even came back home, before anybody saw the site, but then the Atomic Energy Commission, when they said it was obliterated, then Donald Trump says that if the Iran deal works out, you know, maybe him, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner could really work with the Iranians on some real estate deals.

And maybe they can build apartments together. Donald, the Iranians don't want to build apartment complexes with you. They don't want to do what Jared Kushner is trying to impose on Albania, right, where he's trying to build a $4 billion resort in protected areas. Nobody wants the Epstein class building apartment buildings or real estate in their countries. Just get away. Get the American troops out of the Strait of Hormuz. Let's allow the Strait of Hormuz to be open and just cut it out. Cut it out. You look weak and pathetic, and every day you look more weak and pathetic at this point. Okay, so just get the hell out of there. You shouldn't have been there in the first place. It's ridiculous. Let's play this clip.

You know, there's a chance if this really worked out, they could rebuild. You know, it used to be a very, very good nation. You go back, I have friends that used to— old timers, they used to go there and they used to do well. They used to build and run. They built apartment houses and they built office buildings that are hard to believe. Right. But there's a chance that maybe that comes back. But whether it comes back or not, I think we have a very powerful deal that we're negotiating. The exact—

And then he just started doing some of this incoherent ranting as well. He talked about how much he loves grass. And grass has life. Did you know that grass has life? He says here, play this clip.

1922. Think of that. 1922. It hasn't worked. Never worked from the day they built it. It never worked. But you're going to see that. And people are all thanking me because Washington is beautiful again. The parks are open. We changed the grass. You know, grass has a life also, like people. Grass has a life. And that grass hasn't been changed in 70, 80 years.

And then again, while the American people are suffering right now, he has the audacity to pull out a chart. And he starts talking about how the reflecting pool is taller than the Empire State Building. Who compares something that's on the ground to a building? What I don't even understand. It's like, did you know that a mountain is bigger than the I don't know, the biggest skyscraper in Dubai. Did you know that? Here's what he says. Let's play this clip.

I just had this done. You're getting a first glimpse, but that's your size compared. So those are compared to— those are among the tallest buildings in the world, including the Empire State Building, World Trade Center. Sears Tower, Chicago. So if you lay it on its side, you'd take 2 or 3 of them to fill it in because the width is very— almost 200 feet wide.

And folks, we've seen the photos right here of the Kuwaiti airport that's destroyed. One of the things though I should note that Iran claims— Iran says, look, we targeted the military base which is right next to the commercial airport in Kuwait. They claim that the damage that was done to the international terminal in the Kuwait airport, which is right next to the military base, they said that was actually a Patriot missile that was being shot at the ballistic missiles hitting the military facilities. And that what happened was it was the Patriot missiles seemed to backfire and boomerang and then hit the international terminal. There is footage, to be clear, that suggests that that could have happened. I mean, I'll show you the B-roll of that footage right now. We also see satellite footage of where the military airbase was hit. You can see the destruction of drone and aircraft shelters, which may have been sheltering drone and aircraft and other things. That was successfully targeted by Iran. Also, Iran successfully targeted the Navy fleet location in Bahrain, where the US keeps a lot of Navy ships as well. You know, notably Maersk, which is one of the largest and oldest shipping companies— you ever see those, you know, those big containers on those cargo ships?

Maersk, you ever see those? They said, we're done with the Strait of Hormuz in general. Maersk suspends all Strait of Hormuz transits, says the Middle East conflict adds another $500 million a month in costs. They said the security costs are too much. We're just done with the Strait of Hormuz. We'll find other routes, but we're just getting out of there in general. So great job there. Great job there, Donald. You know, and again, doesn't his press conferences look like Baghdad Bob? Do you remember Baghdad Bob? When America invaded Iraq and you had Baghdad Bob saying, everything is fine here. All of our losses are due to accidents. Everything is good, everybody, right? I mean, how, how did in the world did our CENTCOM, CENTCOM become this? Everything Donald Trump touches dies. I mean, here was the statement from CENTCOM earlier in the day. An additional wave of Iranian drones attempting to attack US forces in Kuwait failed to impact intended targets tonight. US Central Command and Air Defense successfully downed multiple drones and ensured no American personnel or assets were harmed. I don't know how you say that when we know that American assets were harmed.

It just, again, it looks so utterly weak. We have the video inside of the Kuwaiti International Airport too. And then Donald Trump's like, you know what, I actually, I spoke to Hezbollah, had a good conversation. Didn't know they speak. You didn't speak to Hezbollah, man. You're— did you stop making up that you're having conversations with Hezbollah? This— I don't know Is your intended audience just some of the remaining people who watch Fox? Is that who this is? Because when you're not speaking to these people, they're looking at you like you're a clown and you're representing the United States like a clown. I don't care what political party you are watching this. This behavior is that of a war criminal. It's also just pathetic. It's just pathetic to see somebody, you know, be behaving like that. I think about the NBA Finals that's on tonight, right? Knicks versus Spurs. Like, could you imagine if, you know, the Knicks or the Spurs brought out somebody who couldn't make the JV team and they were out there pretending that they were playing, you know, in the NBA at the highest level? You'd be like, dude, this person doesn't even belong there.

That's to me Donald Trump in the Oval Office. I mean, you conned your way in there, but you don't belong there objectively. Regardless of one's political beliefs, you don't know what you're doing. You're clearly scared. You're clearly scared. You're scared to make a deal that you're going to offend your base. You're scared to escalate, which by the way, you shouldn't escalate. You should be scared to escalate, but you threaten that you're going to do it and then you don't do it. And all that demonstrates to Iran is that you're weak and you're scared because you are. And you've reduced the United States military to that, and you've reduced the United States military to that of like pirates. You're bragging about being— we're pirates. Yeah, okay, great. You're blowing up little fishing boats and committing war crimes in the Caribbean. Okay, that's how you want to project American strength. It's not only is it war crimes, it just— it makes you look so weak to our adversaries. Anyway, here's him talking about Hezbollah. Let's play this clip.

Uh, we actually spoke with Hezbollah for the first time ever. We didn't know they spoke. And, uh, they agreed yesterday. They're not gonna shoot. Israel's not gonna shoot. We're just gonna say.

So rounding this up, everybody, I think it's a good thing this war powers resolution passed. I think it's good that these 4 Republicans joined with Democrats. I think the Senate will now get to the next stage after their procedural vote, and I think they'll pass it. Then it goes to Donald Trump's desk. I think Donald Trump will veto it. He has the ability to veto it, but it will send a powerful message that both chambers say you're involved in an unlawful, unlawful, disastrous war. Stop it. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Thanks for watching. Wanna stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our Substack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.