News Anchor (4:16)

That threat at the US Consulate in the east of Saudi Arabia was still in place. So a level of intelligence seeing these threats coming. But to your point, the ability to interdict missiles coming at US Consulates and embassies seems to be diminished. Look, take Riyadh here, the capital, Saudi Arabia yesterday as an example. Four drones get through to the and hit in and around the US Embassy here. Yet five drones fired at the massive Saudi military airbase just outside of the capital. Those were all brought down. The two drones that were fired at the big Saudi oil refinery near Dharan in the east of the country. Two drones fired there, they were shot down. Some debris did set fire to oil facilities. But it seems that there is a weakness or a hole in the defense systems around now.

Aaron Dash Parnas (5:06)

The justification around this war remains unclear. Yesterday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that Iran was planning, or rather Israel was planning on striking Iran. And that's why we needed to get involved today. Marco Rubio says his statements from yesterday are not true.

Senator Mark Warner (5:22)

All right, Yesterday. Yesterday you said. Yesterday you talked about Israel. Mr. Secretary, please.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio (5:27)

Guys, I can't Hear him all. Yes.

1-800-Flowers Advertiser (5:28)

Yesterday you told us that Israel was going to strike Iran and that that's why we needed to get involved.

Aaron Dash Parnas (5:35)

Today.

1-800-Flowers Advertiser (5:35)

The President said that no, Iran was going to get.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio (5:37)

Yeah, your statement is false. So that's not what I was asked very specifically. Were you there yesterday?

Senator Mark Warner (5:41)

Yes.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio (5:42)

Okay. No. Did you. Were you the one that. Because somebody asked me a question, did we go in because of Israel? And I said, you asked me, are you that follow up? And I said, no, I told you this had to happen. Anyway, the President made a decision and the decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program, that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ability to conduct these attacks. That decision had been made. The President systematically made a decision to systematically destroy this terroristic capability that they had. And we carried that out. I was very clear in that answer. This was a question of time, of why this had to happen as a joint operation, not the question of the intent. Once the President made a decision that negotiations were not going to work, that they were playing us on the negotiations and that this was a threat that was untenable, the decision was made to strike them. That's what I said yesterday. And you guys need to play it. If you're going to play these statements, you need to play the whole statement, not flip it to reach.

Aaron Dash Parnas (6:32)

Now, I spoke with Senator Mark Warner, who's the chief Democrat on the Intelligence Committee today. And I want you to watch this interview because it's a very important one. We talk about Americans stuck abroad right now. There are hundreds of thousands of Americans stuck with no end in sight for when they can get back home. There's no airlift coming from the American government. We talk about the justification for the strikes on Iran. He talks about the intelligence that he's seen behind the scenes and tells us that there is no justification to strike Iran other than maybe that Israel was under some type of threat. But the United States is not Israel, even if Israel is a key ally to the United States. So major developments right now. Make sure to like, comment, share and subscribe. Subscribe to my substack, click the link below, support my work or send a Venmo to Aaron Dash Parnas to keep me caffeinated. Here's my interview with Senator Mark Warner, excited today to be joined by Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Now, Senator Warner, I really want to jump right into it. A lot of Americans are concerned about the ongoing conflict in the Middle east and Iran. I want to start out by asking you, are we at war with Iran?

Senator Mark Warner (7:36)

We are at war. The president himself has used those terms. And this is a war of choice. This is not. You know, if we think about military actions by the United States over the last decade, many times it's been the case of the United States reacts to some other action. This, on the other hand, is a proactive war of choice. There was no imminent threat to the United States. And so it was Donald Trump's choice to put American soldiers and sailors in harm's way. And I can just tell you, I was on Sunday down in Hampton Roads, Virginia, Norfolk, Virginia beach, those communities where the sailors who are on the Ford, who are in combat now, half of every crowd I spoke to had people that they knew were deployed and they are pretty upset and asking why their loved ones are in harm's way and what's the goal. And I can just say we've already heard four different goals come out of the administration so far of what their objectives are.

Aaron Dash Parnas (8:45)

Well, I ask you if we're at war because some of your Republican colleagues have used the terms military operation or combat operation as a way to kind of get around the fact that Congress has to declare war, not the President of the United States. Do you hear the same thing behind the scenes? Is that what Republicans are saying right now to kind of get around having to take any action to justify the conflict?

Senator Mark Warner (9:07)

I think, Aaron, yes, you're going to, you're seeing, you know, linguistic jumps and hoops to try to avoid using the terms. But, you know, this shouldn't be a hard case to make. Play the tape where the president called it a war repeatedly. And again, I go back to the fact that this is a war of choice because there was no imminent threat to American interests. There were threats, I would even argue not imminent, to Israel and Iran is an existential long term threat to Israel. But even though Israel is a great ally, before we put our troops in harm's way, I think American interests have to be weighed. And we now have an administration that has first said the war is because they want to get rid of Iran's nuclear capabilities, which, by the way, the president claimed were totally obliterated in our bombing nine months ago. Then they're saying they're going against the short term, short range and mid range missiles. Then yesterday there was even talk about getting rid of the Iranian navy. And then there was talk of regime change and, and on the regime change, let me be clear. I have no love lost for the Iranian leadership. They were brutal. I'M not going to shed a tear for the demise of the supreme leader and others, but regime change in a nation of 92 million people is not as simple as extracting a Maduro from Venezuela. And one of the things I worry about, Aaron, is the president has called on the Iranian people to kind of come and take their government back. Well, if 100,000 protesters show up tomorrow or the next day in Tehran trying to extract that regime change in the Iranian military, the IRGC kills 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 of them. What obligation does America have to stand behind those protesters who took the president at his word?

Aaron Dash Parnas (11:05)

Has the administration adequately briefed you all on what the day after plan looks like here?

Senator Mark Warner (11:11)

No, I'm not sure they have a day after plan. I mean, they didn't brief as well on, because we've seen this coming literally now for months. They don't have a plan to even extract the literally hundreds of thousands of Americans who are around the region. If we knew this was coming, we had this buildup, why not get the people out of the Emiratis or out of the, out of Saudi or out of Qatar or out of Israel? And now our. I can tell you my office is being overwhelmed by desperate Americans trying to say how we get out. And echo on top of that or add on top of that. You know, if the President had acted, this is where I think the President thinks about all these things in isolation. One off, if the President had acted in early January when the Iranian people were on the streets in record numbers, I might have disagreed. But there was a logical nexus there. People were protesting. He said, we're there to help. A little nudge, who knows? But he didn't act for two reasons. One, because he didn't have the capability, because the aircraft carrier that was supposed to be there was off the coast of Venezuela on another one of his military forays. And our European allies that have better ties into Iran than we do were obviously very concerned about the President's other crazy folly about going after Greenland. So instead, we've waited months for this buildup, and now it seems like the timeline has been more dictated by Israel than by the United States. And on questions like what our ultimate goal is, as well as how do we get Americans safely out of the region, we are scrambling. And that, you know, again, does it even get to the question of what happens the day after?

Aaron Dash Parnas (13:01)

Well, what are you telling Americans right now? Maybe someone's watching and they're in the United Arab Emirates or they're in Israel and they can't get out. What are you telling them? What is your office telling them?

Senator Mark Warner (13:10)

Well, I'm telling them we are trying on an individual basis. We are putting a lot of pressure on the State Department to try to get more flights in. The commercial airspace in many of these countries is closed. This should have been thought about ahead of time. But we are putting as much pressure as possible to see if we can get an airlift. I mean, you know, I don't want to make this complete comparison, but it almost eerily seems familiar to how we exited Afghanistan. And obviously that was a disaster. It was a disaster under a Democratic president, but I sure as heck hope it doesn't get that awful in terms of exiting Americans from this region. But after that disaster of leaving Afghanistan, you would have thought there would have been more planning put in place.

Aaron Dash Parnas (14:06)

Now, I'm not sure if you saw, but the President told the New York Post yesterday that he doesn't have the, quote, yips about putting American boots on the ground, not ruling out the possibility of ultimately having some troops in Iran. Are you concerned that that could be a possibility at some point?

Senator Mark Warner (14:23)

Yes. And again, if the president's going to propose that he has to come to Congress and make the case to the American public, I could see, frankly, this being forced in a certain way. If Iranians who have answered the president's call for regime change are being brutally murdered on the streets of Iranian cities, there will be pressure. But I think, again, those are the things that should have been thought through. And there's no appetite from Americans to get in another endless war in the Middle East. I mean, I don't want to be crass. I mean, we've already seen, unfortunately, six American soldiers killed, that's awful. But the amount of money that is being spent to try to replenish the munitions, the fact that it cost about $700 million just to assemble this armada, and this is an administration that had no money for extending healthcare benefits or wants to even do further cuts to Medicaid, but is kind of opening a checkbook for a war of choice without making the case to the American people. And I think that's wrong.

Aaron Dash Parnas (15:37)

Well, before I let you go, I do want to touch a little bit on the munitions part of it. Based on what? You know, are you at all concerned that American, the stockpile of munitions right now is going to run too low to be able to defend interests, say, in Asia as well or in Europe because of what's happening in Iran?

Senator Mark Warner (15:56)

Well, I think it's safe to say that we all know that our munitions have started to run low. We are trying to continue to fund or produce oftentimes the Europeans paying for now to keep the Ukrainians in the fight. We have spent literally billions of dollars trying to strike at the Houthis over the last year. We are now running through additional munitions. So yeah, I worry because there's a question of the Iranians have additional missile capabilities. You know, we've not seen them shooting back at the volume that we thought. Now is that because, you know, we've managed to eliminate the launchers or is it because they may be holding back so as they, if they draw down our munitions, they then can strike at a greater level when our munitions are low? These are the kind of questions I think that should have been addressed at the front end before we went into this conflict.

Aaron Dash Parnas (16:58)

Senator, thank you for taking a few minutes today.

Senator Mark Warner (17:00)

Thank you so much, Aaron.

Aaron Dash Parnas (17:02)

Hey folks, thanks so much for watching. Feel free to add this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you watch for the latest breaking news and daily hits throughout the day. Make sure to follow subscribe. See you soon for more.