Rep. Adam Smith: We Need An Investigation Into The U.S. Strike on The Iranian Girl’s School

Summary

Bulwark Takes – Episode Summary

Episode: Rep. Adam Smith: We Need An Investigation Into The U.S. Strike on The Iranian Girl’s School
Date: May 12, 2026
Host: Sam Stein (A)
Guest: Rep. Adam Smith (B), Ranking Member, House Armed Services Committee

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Episode Overview

In this urgent, candid episode, host Sam Stein interviews Congressman Adam Smith about the ongoing U.S. war in Iran and the urgent need for oversight. The discussion covers the spiraling costs of the war, the lack of transparency from the Trump administration and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the state of U.S. munitions supply, regional fallout (especially the closure of the Strait of Hormuz), and accountability for civilian casualties—notably, the tragic bombing of an Iranian girls’ school.

Smith forcefully argues for a Congressional investigation into the school bombing and reflects on the net strategic loss for the U.S. in Iran, delivering a blistering critique of Trump’s military and diplomatic decision-making.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. War Costs and Transparency

• Spiraling Costs:

  • Original estimated cost: $25 billion, recently updated to $29 billion without detailed breakdowns. Smith and Stein question the accuracy, noting hidden costs (munitions, operations, bases, equipment losses, wounded/killed personnel, regional economic fallout) and lack of transparency.
    • Quote [01:02]:

      “We haven't seen sort of the level of transparency necessary... There's no sort of breakdown in terms of the munitions that are expended... destroyed equipment. ...the real cost of the war comes in while lives lost... So the cost has been enormous and it's been a net loss.”
      — Rep. Adam Smith

• Comparison to Previous Conflicts:

  • Historically, Congress would receive more granular cost tracking and data. Smith points to a dramatic reduction in transparency and press access under the current administration.

• Lack of Strategic Benefit:

  • Smith argues the war has not improved U.S. security or advanced stated objectives—just the opposite.

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2. The Decision to Go to War

• Trump’s War Plan(s):

  • Smith outlines what he sees as a misguided series of plans—shock-and-awe bombing to topple the regime, then a blockade—as well as repeated, baseless claims of Iranian capitulation.
    • Quote [03:25]:

      “President Trump now has no idea how to get out of it. ...The plan was ...shock and awe strike ...would fundamentally break the Iranian regime...everyone ...was pretty confident that wouldn’t happen, and it didn’t.”
      — Rep. Adam Smith

• Arming the Kurds:

  • The rumored plan to use Kurdish forces offensively is dismissed by Smith, who says U.S. support was defensive only.

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3. Strait of Hormuz Crisis

• Iran’s Seizure of the Strait:

  • Unexpectedly successful Iranian disruption of the Strait of Hormuz has created a global shipping crisis.
    • Quote [07:54]:

      “You just have to have the threat... commercial shipping is not to run the gauntlet... they can’t get insured.”
      — Rep. Adam Smith

• “Project Freedom” Fiasco:

  • The short-lived U.S. plan to provide naval escort corridors is ridiculed as “cowboy movie logic,” emblematic of reactive, incoherent Trump policymaking.
    • Quote [09:55]:

      “It’s sort of the equivalent of an old cowboy western movie where it’s like, ‘you run for the house, I’ll cover you.’ I mean, that’s basically that.”
      — Rep. Adam Smith

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4. Munitions Stockpile and Defense Strategy

• Stockpile Sustainability:

  • While the Pentagon claims sufficiency, Smith warns U.S. munitions do not match actual defense needs for multiple concurrent conflicts.
    • Quote [15:47]:

      “...those stocks do not match our national defense strategy... there are other ways to meet our deterrence needs...”
      — Rep. Adam Smith

• The “Golden Dome” Missile Defense Idea:

  • Smith derides the proposed $1.2 trillion U.S. missile dome as unrealistic, advocating focused investment in limited space-based missile defenses instead.
    • Quote [18:11]:

      “That is not a realistic option. We do not have $1.2 trillion to spend on this... But building some of the systems ...is absolutely part of how we meet our national security needs.”
      — Rep. Adam Smith

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5. Administration Evasion and Oversight Challenges

• Evading Congressional Oversight:

  • Smith describes Defense Secretary Hegseth’s aggressive, sycophantic behavior in hearings, which stymies genuine oversight.
    • Quote [20:03]:

      “Hagseth’s default position is to be arrogant, sycophantic and aggressive... That makes it hard... that reduces the transparency.”
      — Rep. Adam Smith

• Question Needing a Truthful Answer:

  • What’s the real military plan to force Iran to accept U.S. terms? Smith doubts any such plan exists—or could ever work.

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6. Strategic Defeat & What Next?

• Admission of Defeat:

  • Smith deems the war a “massive strategic defeat” and argues for a new path—international cooperation to reopen the Strait, accept lessons, and negotiate with Iran from a diminished position.
    • Quote [23:57]:

      “This is a massive strategic defeat. The best we can do is... cut a deal to open the strait, lick our wounds and deal with the Middle East that now has a more powerful Iran because of the colossal mistake that we made.”
      — Rep. Adam Smith

• Negotiating Another (Inferior) JCPOA:

  • Only option left is to negotiate a version of Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, but on worse terms due to the war’s fallout.

• Reflections on U.S. and Israeli Strategy:

  • Smith criticizes Netanyahu’s maximalist policies and the persistent U.S. fantasy of removing Iran as a regional player.

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7. Investigating Civilian Casualties: The Iranian Girls’ School Strike

• Demands for Accountability:

  • Smith vocally supports a Congressional investigation into the fatal U.S. strike on the Iranian girls’ school, denouncing the administration’s ongoing non-answers after eight weeks.

    • Quote [31:27]:

      “It’s a ridiculous assertion... The idea that this is still being investigated is a bald-faced lie. They know what happened and they’re attempting to bury it because they don’t care.”
      — Rep. Adam Smith

  • He pledges as committee chair to:

    • Push for House investigation and public conclusions.
    • Subpoena video evidence, especially for the “double tap” boat strike.
    • Bring oversight and accountability back to military operations.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Costs:
  “[They] are not giving an honest accounting about that. ...most interested in is the lack of benefits... this war has taken us backwards, not forward.” — Smith [01:02]
• On Trump’s Decision-making:
  “He just says what’s on his mind. ...the notion that he is in any way thought this out in a logical linear pattern is laughable to me.” — Smith [10:35]
• On Iran’s Regional Power:
  “All Iran has to do is threaten it, and then there’s no insurance and everything gets bogged down.” — Smith [07:54]
• On Investigating the Girls’ School Bombing:
  “We are now over two months past when the strike on the girl script. The idea that this is still being investigated is a bald-faced lie. They know what happened and they’re attempting to bury it because they don’t care.” — Smith [31:27]

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Important Timestamps

• War Cost Escalation & Transparency: 01:02
• Trump’s Shiftless Iran Plans: 03:25–05:46
• Strait of Hormuz & Project Freedom Mockery: 07:24–09:55
• Munitions Shortage & “Golden Dome” Skepticism: 15:47–18:11
• Avoiding Oversight, Hegseth’s Hearings: 19:27–21:37
• Strategic Defeat Acknowledged: 23:57
• JCPOA & Israel Policy Issues: 24:59–27:32
• Oversight Plans if Democrats Regain House: 28:53
• Demand for Investigation into Girls’ School Bombing: 31:10–33:44

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Flow and Takeaways

The episode delivers a sobering, insider’s critique of U.S. involvement in Iran under President Trump. Smith, measured but relentless, shares deep misgivings on costs, competence, and legitimacy, often with sardonic humor and blunt language that underscores the emotional and political weight of the moment. The resounding call: the war has been a strategic calamity that demands urgent transparency, oversight, and reconsideration of U.S. security strategy—especially in the wake of deadly civilian casualties that remain unaddressed.

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For listeners seeking a lucid, pointed breakdown of the U.S.-Iran conflict’s failures and the urgent need for accountability, this episode is essential.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, managing here at the Bulwark. And I'm joined by Congressman Adam Smith, who is the ranking member of the House Defense or Armed Services Committee, I should say. He is joining us to talk about the war in Iran, the oversight hearings that we've seen with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, what's happening with our munition supplies, and so much more. Congressman, thank you so much for doing this. Really appreciate it.

[B]

Thanks for giving me the chance.

[A]

All right, so let's start with Secretary Hegseth. He's been on the Hill for the past couple days, I think, evading some answers, to put it politely. But there are a few things that have stood out for me, and I'm wondering if they stood out for you. One is the cost of the war. A couple weeks ago, I think you managed to get a data point from the administration that it had cost 25 billion up to that point. Today, the cost was put at 29 billion. People who are in this field are a bit suspicious and skeptical of that total. What's your understanding of how accurate that total is? And if it's not that accurate, what's your guesstimate for what it really is?

[B]

Yeah, we don't really know. We haven't seen sort of the level of transparency necessary to figure that out in terms of how did they get to the 25 or the 29 billion. I mean, it's worth noting that prior to that answer that I got from the comptroller at the hearing, we had been asking for almost two months at that point and had been consistently told, we don't have that for you. We'll get back to you. And then this guy just said 25 billion. I wanted to turn to Hegseth at that point and see was that so hard answer, but no. I mean, there's no sort of breakdown in terms of the munitions that are expended. And, you know, replacement costs are really more important than what the actual munition cost and then operations and maintenance. How are they counting that? How are they counting having 60,000 US service members in the Middle east more than usual at a higher tempo, all of those pieces and then crucially, destroyed equipment. You know, we lost two C130Js, and the rescue mission for the downed airmen, $110 million a pop. You know, the damage that's been done to multiple bases throughout the region? So, no, I don't think they're giving an honest accounting about that. And then, of course, keep in mind the real cost of the war comes in while lives lost. I mean, hundreds of service members have been wounded, 13 have been killed, thousands of civilians have been killed. You know, some of them non combatants. You know, certainly the strike on the girls school was, you know, not intended, but definitely had a severe cost to the region. And then the economic cost, the cost to our allies and partners who are all suffering horribly because of the shutdown in the Middle East. So the costs spiral out and then frankly, what I'm most interested in is the lack of benefits in terms of our position with regard to Iran and our security in the world, that this war has taken us backwards, not forward. So the cost has been enormous and it's been a net loss. There really has no, not been a benefit even on the objectives that the the President and Secretary Hagseth have periodically laid out over the course of the last several months.

[A]

I probably should have started with the broader before going into the more specific. But since we're talking about costs, help the sort of casual viewer of this program understand in prior conflicts, what kind of data would you be getting? Would you be getting a more detailed breakdown and if so, what would it say?

[B]

I would take a step back on this because I don't think this is the most important aspect of this. Look, we can certainly dive into the lack of transparency from HQs Defense Department on a whole series of issues. I mean, they kicked the press corps out of the Pentagon that they didn't like to begin with, have to have pre approved questions. So certainly there's been a much slower, lower transparency. But the real problem, the real issue here has a lot more to do with the fact that we made a disastrous decision to start this war. President Trump now has no idea how to get out of it. And I want your listeners to understand it's wrong to say he didn't have a plan. He had a plan. The plan was they were going to do a shock and awe strike and then four to five weeks of bombing and that would fundamentally break the Iranian regime. That basically the Iranian regime would either collapse and be replaced by somebody else or they would be so broken that they would agree to whatever Trump wanted. That's what Trump, to the extent that he thought about it in any detail, thought would happen. Well, pretty much everyone who looked at this was pretty confident that wouldn't happen, and it didn't. All right, plan B then was to go with the blockade. And you've heard the rhetoric on that. The blockade is going to do the same thing. It's going to fundamentally break the Iranian regime. Except that, again, most experts say that it's not going to for a variety of different reasons that we can get into. Meanwhile, because we started this war, Iran felt emboldened enough to do something that they weren't willing to do before, and that was to assert ownership of the Strait of Hor moves absent an existential threat to their regime. That is a move that would have alienated them from a lot of very important partners. But because they can say, look, what choice did we have? They were coming to basically destroy us, they've now seized the Strait of Hormuz, which has substantially weakened our position, certainly in the Middle east, but also globally. And the crucial question now is, okay, what now? Plan C, by the way, seems to be just to claim that Iran has agreed. I mean, how many, how many times has Trump came out and said, oh, Iran has capitulated on every point? And I want people to understand he's literally making that up. I think most people, most people have in their head, well, you know, I guess they had a conversation and then they were going to. No, no, no, no, no. He's literally making that up.

[A]

Yeah. The latest was they were going to agree to a memorandum of understanding to restart talks, but they couldn't get an agreement on the MOU itself. So I want to actually backtrack because you mentioned the objectives in the plan early on in. I genuinely do agree with how you outlined it. I would just add there's one element I think gets underexplored. I'm curious if you feel the same way, which is bombarding Iran for a four or five week period so that the regime was toppled. Yes, but under the surface, and it's been alluded to a couple times by Trump himself, was this idea that you might arm the Kurds as a way to topple the regime, not just bombardments. And then there's been a question about what happened to the weaponry. And we've had a couple of different variations of the answers. Kurds may have taken them and not done anything with them. We may not have even been the weaponry. What's your understanding of that element of the campaign, the phase one of the campaign that you call.

[B]

Yeah, no, I don't, I don't agree that that's what my understanding is. That was purely defensive, that that was, you know, anticipating that, you know, Iran, because Iran's been having skirmishes with, with the Kurds for a while, they've lobbed missiles occasionally into Kurdistan and certainly they've dealt with their own Kurdish population. So my understanding is, okay, we're starting this war, IR likely be more aggressive. We want to make sure you're in a position to defend yourself. It is not my understanding that there was ever a part of the Trump administration that envisioned a few thousand Kurds pouring across the border and toppling the regime. Even Trump, I don't think, would be that stupid in terms of a military assumption that's generous.

[A]

With respect to the Strait of Hormuz, I think it's fair to say that this was anticipated by some people. In fact, there were people in the Trump administration who left the Trump administration who white papers suggesting that they would in fact, close the Strait of Hormuz. And yet I'm still surprised by the ability of Iran to actually effectuate the plan. Right. I mean, as far as we understand, they've mined a bit of the Strait. They have speedboats that can almost kamikaze some ships. They can launch some drone attracts. Why is it so difficult?

[B]

I think in all likelihood, Iran is a little bit surprised by their ability to do it, too, because they didn't think about it, and we didn't think, well, sorry, in the simplest terms, you don't have to be able to destroy every ship or frankly, any ship going through the Strait. You just have to have the threat, okay? And they've been able to hit enough of them, either with missiles or drones or fast attack boats, that commercial shipping is not to run the gauntlet of the strait on the hope and the prayer that they won't get hit. And part of that is, even if you had commercial shippers who were willing to be sort of cowboy about it and take a shot, they can't get insured, all right? And they're sure as hell not going to take that shot if they know they're out. Whatever $80 million worth of cargo goes down. So all Iran has to do is threaten it, and then there's no insurance and everything gets bogged down. So I think there was a lower barrier to really effectively shutting down or dramatically reducing traffic in the Strait than some people might have thought.

[A]

One of the things we should say the administration tried, albeit incredibly briefly, maybe not even 24 hours, was this concept of Project Freedom, I believe they dubbed it. You're giggling, but it's.

[B]

Yeah, no, I am, and I'll tell you why.

[A]

Well, yeah, just so people understand essentially what this was. We would serve as a security corridor for ships, the US Navy, and we would basically give them a path to follow, and we kind of take their guns and arrows, and that would open up some sort of Pathway through the strait. And then it just got kind of thrown out after about 18 to 20 hours.

[B]

Yeah, several different layers to this. I mean, first of all, the reason I was chuckling is because whenever I hear that the Project Freedom analysis, it's sort of the equivalent of an old cowboy western movie where it's like, you run for the house, I'll cover you. I mean, that's basically that.

[A]

Is it?

[B]

Yeah, that's basically what this was. And the guy running for the house usually doesn't fare particularly well in those movies. So. Yeah, I mean, it was never a sound strategy to begin with because you couldn't really provide that coverage. But it also points to the. How to put this. Exactly. Incoherence of Donald Trump's approach to public policy. And I know it's become fashionable amongst Republicans attempting to justify the unjustifiable, that Trump is engaged in some elaborate plan. And he may speak like it's. He may sound like it's nonsense, but he's got a plan. He's. He's compensating.

[A]

Four dimensional chess or something like that.

[B]

Exactly. He's doing this elaborate weave. And it's not that Trump doesn't have a policy thought or two in his head or a policy desire, but have we not learned the dude just says what's on his mind. Okay. I mean, that's what it is. And just ideas pop in. Whether it's sticking bleach into your body to kill the virus, whatever. He just says what's on his mind. The notion that he is in any way thought this out in a logical linear pattern is laughable to me. And, oh, gosh, you know, it's the madman theory. He's keeping people off. But no, it's just Trump popping off. And there's not a consistent set of thoughts to that approach. So I don't know why he said it in the first place or why the next day he decided to walk away from it. But, I mean, that's asking, you know, your cat, why he went outside. I mean, I don't know. We don't speak the same language.

[A]

I don't have a cat. I have a dog, but I wouldn't ask them if they went outside. You didn't take the bleach for Covid?

[B]

I didn't. I survived somehow without it.

[A]

Good for you.

[B]

I'm proud of you.

[A]

I want to get back to the munitions because this is something I think gets underappreciated. I want to play the exchange with the comptroller, and we're going to I'm going to tee up a question off of that. Let's play that exchange between the Joint

[B]

Staff and the comptroller staff. Our operational cost estimate is now $29 billion. A lot of that increase comes from having a refined estimate on repair and replacement costs for equipment. Our munitions costs are fairly fixed. We think they're very accurate. And there's some O and M costs there as well. We're not making an estimate for MILCON at this time. We don't know what our future posture is going to be. We don't know how those bases would be reconstructed, and we don't know what percentage our allies and partners will pay for that reconstruction. So you do not consider installations that have been damaged in the conflict?

[A]

Correct.

[B]

We just don't have a good estimate at this time.

[A]

So a couple things there. First of all, that's Jack Reed, not you. But secondly is two things. One is, I'm curious what your understanding is about our munition supply. But two is this notion that was kind of tucked in there that our allies would pay for the reconstruction costs of our bases. I had not heard that before. I'm not sure why they think that would happen.

[B]

Is it. Why did. Why did Trump think that Mexico was going to pay for the wall? Again, you're analyzing this in a logical way.

[A]

I'm trying to find. Fair enough. But I'm working with what I can work with. Let's put it.

[B]

That's fair enough. No, there's no reason to believe that our allies would pay for that. There is reason to believe that our allies will rethink the wisdom of allowing us to have basing rights in their region. Now, that's, to be fair, that's a yin and a yang. On the one hand, Iran is now a greater threat than to our allies in the region than they were before this war started. And that's not to say that they weren't a threat before they were. Absolutely. It's just that now that we've moved into this much more conflict phase, much more conflicted phase, where there's a now they're a greater threat. And you could say, okay, that means they need us more, they need us there to help protect them. And that's possible. It's also possible that they say, might they not be shooting at us if we weren't housing a US Base. That too is possible. And we don't know. Nobody knows ultimately where the Gulf states are going to come out once we get somewhat to the other side of this in terms of how they recalculate their national security interests with regard to Iran and the United States. But it's definitely on the table. So no, I don't think they're going to pay to repair those bases. I mean it's not. I mean, I guess you could make an argument, hey, we're there to defend you. Maybe, I don't know. But it seems, it seems unlikely given the cost that they've already borne for this war that we started over their objections with the exception of Saudi Arabia and Israel.

[A]

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[B]

Well I think we can sustain the level that we're out. Keep in mind we haven't shot anything in a while but before this conflict started we have a problem in terms of our emission stocks and that problem is that those stocks do not match our national defense strategy. The assumptions that are contained in that national defense strategy. If we got into a conflict with China, if we got into a conflict in the Middle East. If we had to help defend the Baltics against Russia, how many Patriots would we need? How many different missiles would we need? We're short of being able to do that now. I have a minority view on this, which is part of the problem. There is just having too ambitious a plan and imagining that there's somehow an amount of money and amount of manufacturing capacity that can enable us to build enough to accommodate all of those rather dire scenarios. I think we should use other efforts, diplomacy partners and allies, figure out other ways to meet our national security needs and imagining that somehow we're going to suddenly be able to produce hundreds of thousands or whatever the numbers are of the various missiles that we need. There are other ways to meet our deterrence needs other than just imagining we can build an infinite supply of munitions. All that said, we need to get better at manufacturing and this was a threat. This is why we did the big acquisition reform, the bipartisan thing we did last year. We are starting to make progress. We are producing more Patriots. We are producing more. I'm sorry, I'm forgetting the shoulder fire anti tank thing that was early on in the Ukraine war. But SM6s, the missiles that we need, we are producing more of them, just not a lot more. And so part of the strategy, independent of the Iran war, was figure out how to build more stuff. Obviously, the Iran war has taken us down a little further and I think

[A]

that we can restock that eventually. And as you know, we haven't been firing things. The other thing that appears to be a new priority relative to the new priority, which I guess would alleviate some of this in the most optimistic scenario, is this idea of a golden dome defense system that we would build the US version of what essentially Israel has. And it's been talked about by the administration and in fact, the Congressional Budget Office just released its analysis on what it would cost, discovered it would be about or projected it would be about $1.2 trillion to develop and operate for 20 years. Is that a realistic option here at this point in time?

[B]

That is not a realistic option. We do not have $1.2 trillion to spend on this. I think the easier way and the better way to think of this. And again, we stumble into Trumpian world where he imagines, oh, I'm going to build this magnificent golden dome. It's going to be the best thing the world has ever seen.

[A]

That's why we needed Greenland. Right?

[B]

Every single missile. Exactly. By the way, we already had Greenland threatened Denmark, and Denmark would have said sure. And we could have skipped all the draw.

[A]

Not anymore.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I mean, they're negotiating that. I had an argument with Michael Turner about that this morning with the Politico folks. But at any rate, look, the thing about Golden Dome is its missile defense. Now, primarily what it's looking at is can we do missile defense from space? Can you have space assets to do it? And I think the answer to that question is yes. And I think certainly in the mix of things that we're looking at to meet that one crucial aspect of modern national defense, being able to shoot down missiles, I think, yeah, absolutely, we have to do that $1.2 trillion so that we completely protect every single aspect of the United States of America. No, that doesn't make any sense. But building some of the systems that give us the ability to do space based missile defense is absolutely part of how we meet our national security needs.

[A]

I believe you talked to, you referenced early up top. And I think this is kind of one of the underlying issues of all these answers is the evasiveness of the administration and providing some sort of clarity or answers or even understanding of their strategic objectives here. And I know this is a bit of sort of like theater criticism, but I'm going to ask it anyway. When you go into these hearings and you know that Pete Hegseth is going to sit across from you and that he's going to give these demonstrative answers that are meant to appease and please Donald Trump, how does that impact how you go about the questioning or your expectations or just the sort of conduct of the hearing itself?

[B]

Well, for me, and there's two ways you can go on this. One is you can sort of play into it and make him look like an arrogant buffoon, which is not hard. And some people do that. I don't do that. I try to figure out how I can ask the questions in the calmest, most rational way possible to still elicit substantive information, which I think I did successfully in the last hearing. But it's hard because, look, Haig says default position is to be arrogant, sycophantic and aggressive. I mean, you could ask him the most innocent question in the world and be like, oh, I know you hate Donald Trump, but you know, that's. No, no, no. I'm just asking, you know, what's our plan for missile defense? You know, what's our plan in Europe? And he is very aggressive and very sycophantic. And that makes it hard. I mean, same is true when you guys are trying to ask him questions. And that reduces the transparency. So that reduces the transparency. But the second thing that is a problem is arrogance will only get you so far. That seems to be a cornerstone of the Trump Hegseth worldview. If I stand up, and of course in Hegseth's case, flex quite literally and say, we're kicking their ass, we're the toughest, meanest people on the block, they're going down, we're gonna win. Somehow they think that impacts the way our adversaries react and that's going to prove that they're winning. But again, arrogance will only get you so far. Eventually, facts and reality will intervene.

[A]

Let's say in theory that you gave him truth serum for one question. What is the most important unanswered question that you think of right now with respect to the war?

[B]

With respect to the war. And again, I don't know if true serum would help.

[A]

It can't hurt.

[B]

Yeah. But I would think the most important question would be, what is the connection between your plan? What are you going to do militarily that's going to force Iran to actually agree to the terms that we want? Because they're not there.

[A]

Now, if you're just thinking this through, what are the actual answers to that question? Right? I mean, there's a few options.

[B]

They're all huge answer to that question. And it's in. So you gotta, you gotta balance cost with benefit. All right, so the benefit that we want to get is we want to get on Iran that no longer is trying to get a nuclear weapon, doesn't have a ballistic missile program, isn't supporting terrorist organizations, and isn't attempting to undermine the region and attack Israel. That's what we want. So how do we force them to do that? Conceivably you can try to put pressure on them in a way that gets them to change their behavior. But I think given Iran's 47 year history, that was unlikely to work in the first place. Now, oddly, it kind of worked a little bit on the Houthis. Part of what worked on the Houthis was, yes, we bombed them for three months and they didn't want that to start again. But also Saudi Arabia made peace with the Houthis, and there's all kinds of details that go into that. But at the end of the day, part of the reason the Houthis stayed out is they didn't want to reignite a conflict with Saudi Arabia. So it's a combination of force and diplomacy. And I think we had that combination in a better place. Before this war started, Israel's 12 day war, Israel's destruction of Hezbollah, the collapse of Assad in Syria, which I don't think anyone particularly drove, that was more just the collapse. All of that had Iran on their heels, and we were in a position to negotiate a good deal. But the truth is, Trump is the worst deal negotiator the world has ever seen. And he sent Witkoff and Kushner over there, two real estate guys from Jersey who didn't know what the hell they were doing and then bought into the notion of starting this war. All of that happened. So you asked me, now, how do we get there? I don't think we do. I agree with what Robert Kagan wrote yesterday.

[A]

You think it's a. It's a lost war.

[B]

This is a massive strategic defeat. The best we can do is to work with all the rest of the world. There's 50 different nations now that are working with the UK and France trying to get the strait opened, cut a deal to open the strait, lick our wounds and deal with the Middle east that now has a more powerful Iran because of the colossal mistake that we made.

[A]

Let me push back a tiny bit it, please. And we could do in the abstract, a version of the jcpoa.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

I mean, the Strait of Hormuz, it would be worse because. It'd be worse because now you're negotiating over the strait, which was open prior to the war, and the sanctions relief would probably have to be higher. And Iran's more emboldened regionally because they will say we fended off the United States. So obviously all those elements are worse. But you could do a version of the JCPOA to extract the country from this mess it's in. And this gets me to the sort of, what I think is the kind of fundamental problem here, which is that Trump has to cut a deal that is Obama's deal, but just worse. And he can't do that.

[B]

Yeah, no, I agree with that. No, I think we're witnessing Obama derangement syndrome because Obama did it. It must be bad, but also fried. Zakaria wrote a really good piece about a week ago where he said the problem that all administrations, except for one, have had with Iran is we've been caught in between two notions. One, Iran is a big problem, but they're there. How do we deal with them? And two, how can we make them go away? Okay. And you've been in that tension between those two things, because those are two entirely different things. And what President Obama was willing to accept that no other president was. Was the reality that as much as we may want Iran gone, there is no path to accomplishing that that isn't unbelievably costly and at great risk of not succeeding. All right? And so if we're not willing to remove Iran, then we better start figuring out how to live with them and living with them. Plan A is stop the nuclear weapon. And that's the deal that Obama cut. And I said this over and over again with all my AIPAC friends who yell at me about supporting the jcpoa, and they'd say, well, Iran's doing this and Iran's doing. And Iran's terrible. And they're off, and they're horrible. I said, okay, but the choice before us isn't getting rid of all of that or not getting rid of all of that. The choice before us is either we can have an Iran that is every little bit as horrible as you just said with a nuclear weapon, or we can have Iran that's every little bit as horrible as you just said without a nuclear weapon.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And I choose door number two in that scenario.

[A]

And I think they would argue, well, sure, but if you're giving them sanctions relief on the order of the jcpoa, then you're funding their regional instability and the terrorist proxies.

[B]

I mean, look, and this is the big disagreement that I have with Israel, and I'm not unsympathetic. I know what they face in Hamas, in Hezbollah, in the Houthis, in Iran, okay? But Netanyahu thinks he can vanquish all of his enemies. He thinks he's gonna, and he can't. There's just too many of them in too many places. And I'm sorry, Israel, I know it's tough. You have to live with a certain amount of insecurity. You have to live with the fact that you have people around you who are threatening you. Now, we have helped you for generations now to deal with that, and you've managed to grow and prosper in spite of it, but you are not going to eliminate Iran and eliminate Hezbollah and eliminate all of Hamas sympathizers. You have to find somebody to make peace with.

[A]

Well, since you brought it up, I hadn't planned on asking you this, but Netanyahu went on 60 Minutes over the weekend and he did talk about, which was I actually kind of curious what your read on it was getting U.S. military aid to Israel down to essentially zero, just kind of segueing away from it. Is that acknowledgement that there's just not. He's just sort of reading our domestic political tea leaves and recognizes the sports no longer there.

[B]

Yes. And I think he's right. I mean, look, Israel needs to start trying to make peace. And this was a great mistake. And this was Netanyahu's worldview. And I know this. I, I met with him 25 years ago at this conversation. His worldview was they're coming for us. We got to get them first. And I'm not going to work with anybody. So that's why he undermined the Palestinian Authority. He undermined every reasonable Palestinian alternative to Hamas because he didn't want them to be legitimate. And I think he was wrong about that. And I think October 7th proved that point.

[A]

I have two more questions for you, just forward looking. One is assuming the Democrats win back the House, it got a little dicey, I suppose, this past week with all the redistricting, but I think the betting market's still heavy. Yeah. And you take over the chair role again. What's the sort of first order of business with respect to oversight with this administration?

[B]

Well, my order of business is I am going to be engaged in an epic effort to balance two things. One is what you just said. There needs to be more oversight. We cannot just allow the Trump administration to ignore Congress over, you know, take over all control of everything. You know, and I want oversight over Hegseth, you know, politicizing the position of secretary of defense and politicizing the US Military. Stopping the politicization of the US Military is not supposed to be a suck up organization for Trump. You know, him trying to prosecute Mark Kelly repeatedly for daring to criticize it. So, so oversight of that is going to be really important. Reining in their worst impulses and most extreme actions. Getting a serious look at the boat strike campaign, which everybody has forgotten about down in Latin America, but which goes on apace on a day in and day out basis. So that oversight piece to rein in the worst aspects of what Trump is doing. But then second, we've got really important reform to do within the military and some aspects of Trump Pentagon are trying to help with that. I think Deputy Secretary Feinberg is doing a good job of trying to figure out. Back to your munitions question. How do we up our manufacturing? How do we build more? How do we take advantage of innovative technology to meet our defense needs in a more cost effective way? So I got to try to work with my Republican colleagues on the committee who are 100% with me on that second part while dealing with the first part. And then the third thing is trying to get people to recognize we're over 100% of GDP in debt right now. This notion that we can just keep upping the defense budget to infinity to meet our national security needs is not going to fly. How do we find more cost effective solutions? And they're out there. Eric Schmidt got this company that developed a counter drone munition that's $15,000 a shot and unbelievably effective. We need more ideas like that that are cost effective and fewer boneheaded ideas like a $22 billion battleship. So those are the three things that are little moving Venn diagrams that I'm going to be trying to, to, to manage.

[A]

My last question, you referenced it earlier and I, I wanted to make sure that it was brought up again. Which is this, which I like the boat strikes I think has kind of been forgotten and not discussed is the bombing of the girls school.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In Iran. We're talking about over a hundred kids dead. The administration clearly is either full of shit or just, you know, digging its heels in because they keep saying the investigation into it is not done, it's ongoing. I don't believe that because we're now eight, nine weeks in.

[B]

It's a ridiculous assertion.

[A]

Okay, is there any, do you know of any other investigation being launched into what happened here?

[B]

I will absolutely watch an investigation as Madras. And this gets into a much broader problem. You talk about oversight. I mean Pete Hagseth's approach that there should be no rules of engagement, no quarter, it doesn't matter what we do, we'll just use our military and whatever collateral damage happens is not worth questioning. Is a grave threat to legitimacy of the United States of America. And there's countless examples of that. But you hear him talk. He wants us to be like Putin. You know, he wants us just to use violence in the most random chaotic way possible without any accountability or any authority. And the girls school is a good example. We know what happened. They are just ignoring it, not dealing with it because they don't give a shit. Okay, look, and I was, I think I was chairman. Yeah, I was chairman when we took that strike right after Abbey Gate and did a drone strike. And it turned out that we just hit the absolute wrong target. Killed like 10 civilians. Initially there was like, oh, that was a righteous strike, blah blah, blah. Within days we knew it was wrong and came out and publicly apologized and admitted it with in days. We are now over two months past when the strike on the girl script. The idea that this is still being investigated is a bald faced lie. They know what happened and they're attempting to bury it because they don't care.

[A]

I might have talked over you at the beginning, but did you say you would investigate that as chair?

[B]

100%. I would demand an on the right. Sorry. I hate saying demand because you can't really demand things in this life.

[A]

I got people running around strongly request.

[B]

I would strongly urge and I would even do my own investigation and this I could do and have the House Armed Services Committee reach our own conclusion about what happened and put that publicly on the record if this administration is unwilling to do it themselves. But I would do whatever I could to pressure them into making sure that they acknowledge that. I would also push on the double tap vote strike to have an acknowledgment of what happened there and to release that video. Yeah, I would subpoena the video, as a matter of fact, because I think everyone has a right to see that.

[A]

All right, well, we'll check back in with you post November. Follow up on that for sure. All right. Congressman Adam Smith, ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much for your time. Genuinely am grateful for it. And we'll be in touch.

[B]

Thanks. Appreciate the conversation.