A new episode of the Insider podcast is now out. Ben Wittes, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Lawfare, joins Preet Bharara and Joyce Vance to discuss:
– A reported plea deal between the Justice Department and President Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton;
– A bipartisan House resolution halting U.S. military action against Iran;
– Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte as Acting Director of National Intelligence; and
– Trump’s appointment of Todd Blanche as Attorney General.
A NOTE FROM THE PRODUCER
Jake Kaplan is the Supervising Producer of the Stay Tuned with Preet and Insider podcasts.
On a new episode of the Insider podcast, Preet Bharara and Joyce Vance are joined by Ben Wittes to examine how Congress is pushing back against President Trump’s war in Iran.
By a vote of 215-208, the House of Representatives passed a war powers resolution, which requires Trump to withdraw troops from Iran or seek congressional approval for further military action. Four Republicans joined Democrats to support the measure.
As Wittes explains, the vote may turn out to be largely symbolic, since its chances of passing the Senate remain unclear. Regardless, it marks Congress’s most public show of disapproval of the war and will put pressure on the White House to seek to end the war.
Wittes: “There is no political support for…a protracted war with Iran on an unauthorized basis.”
This rebuke of Trump’s Iran war also underscores growing divisions within the Republican Party. It also suggests that the war has failed to generate broader public support for the president’s foreign policy agenda.
Wittes: “To the extent that we’re talking about the use of foreign policy and war to shore up the president’s eroding popularity and power within the American political system, it is not playing that role at all…You often see a rally-around-the-flag effect, both in Congress and in the general public; with respect to the Iran war, you have not seen that at all. And this is both a reflection of that and presumably a catalyst of that. And so I think it’s politically very bad for the president.”
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Stay Informed,
Jake
