Top Trump Officials Collapse Under Cross-Exam on War
3/19/202624 mincomplete
0:00Wow. Donald Trump's top officials just collapsed under cross -examination during a United States Senate
0:08hearing regarding Trump's unlawful war in Iran.
0:12During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Donald Trump's Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and
0:20Donald Trump's Director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, were cross -examined about the justification for
0:28this unlawful war and whether they had briefed Donald Trump about the dangers of this
0:34war and that it could spiral out of control precisely what is happening right now.
0:40I want you to watch what took place at this Senate hearing.
0:44Democratic Senator John Ossoff, cross -examined Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, watch how she
0:53responded. Play this clip. The White House stated on March 1st of this year that
0:59this war was launched and was, quote, a military campaign to eliminate the imminent nuclear
1:05threat posed by the Iranian regime, end quote.
1:09That's a statement from the White House.
1:11Quote, the imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime.
1:15Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was an imminent nuclear threat
1:19posed by the Iranian regime?
1:23The intelligence community assessed that Iran maintained the intention to rebuild and to continue to
1:29grow their nuclear enrichment capability.
1:31Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was a, quote, imminent nuclear
1:35threat posed by the Iranian regime, yes or no?
1:38Senator, the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat
1:42is the president. False. This is the worldwide threat searing where you present to Congress
1:48national intelligence, timely objective and independent of political considerations.
1:53You've stated today that the intelligence community's assessment is that Iran's nuclear enrichment program was
1:59obliterated and that, quote, there had been no efforts since then to try to rebuild
2:03their enrichment capability. Was it the intelligence community's assessment that, nevertheless, despite this obliteration, there
2:12was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime?
2:16Yes or no? It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and
2:20is not an imminent threat.
2:22Okay. That is up to the president based on a volume of information that he
2:26receives. No, it is precisely your responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat to the
2:31United States. This is the worldwide threats hearing where, as you noted in your opening
2:38testimony, quote, you represent the IC's assessment of threats.
2:44You are here to represent the IC's assessment of threats.
2:49That's a quote from your own opening statement.
2:52And so my question is, as you're here to present the IC's assessment of threats,
2:58was it the assessment of the intelligence community that, as the White House claimed on
3:04March 1st, there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime?
3:09Yes or no? Once again, Senator, the intelligence community has provided the inputs that make
3:16up this annual threat assessment.
3:18You won't answer the question.
3:19It is the nature of the imminent threat that the president has to make that
3:23determination based on a collection and volume of information and intelligence.
3:27You're here to be timely, objective and independent of political considerations.
3:33Exactly what I'm doing. No, you're evading a question because to provide a candid response
3:39to the committee would contradict a statement from the White House.
3:44Let me ask you about.
3:45Very pathetic indeed. Great cross -exam there by Democratic Senator John Ossoff.
3:51More cross -exam right here from John Ossoff.
3:55Let's play it. Yes. And you noted in your opening statement you're here fulfilling a
4:00statutory responsibility and that your testimony, quote, represents the IC's assessment of threats, correct?
4:08That opening statement as submitted to the committee in advance of this hearing stated that
4:13as a result of last summer's airstrikes, quote, Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated, end
4:20quote, correct? That's right. And is that in fact the assessment of the intelligence community?
4:25Yes. So the assessment of the intelligence community is that Iran's nuclear enrichment program was
4:30obliterated by last summer's airstrikes?
4:32Yes. In the opening statement you submitted to the committee last night also stated, quote,
4:38there has been no effort since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability, end
4:42quote, correct? That's right. And that's the assessment of the intelligence community.
4:46Yes. The White House stated on March 1st.
4:49Next, you have Democratic Senator Kelly cross -examining John Ratcliffe, the CIA director and Tulsi
4:58Gabbard. Here are their responses to his very basic questions.
5:04Let's play this clip. Or did he just disregard him?
5:07And I just want to point out something that was released about six days ago.
5:10This is a fundraising email from the president, from the president of the United States.
5:17And in this email here, where there's multiple links to donate money, it says, as
5:24a national security briefing member, you'll receive my private national security briefings.
5:34Director Gabbard or Director Radcliffe, do you think the public should be able to, supporters
5:41of the president should be able to pay and receive his private national security briefings?
5:46I assume these are briefings, Director Radcliffe, that you provide to the president that is
5:52now going to be provided to somebody who makes a donation.
5:55Regardless of what that, I don't know what that document is, but regardless of what
5:59it says, it didn't happen.
6:01Well, no, this is new.
6:03But what I'm telling you is that the Hatch Act would prevent me from an
6:08apolitical role from engaging in that.
6:10I'm not aware that anything like that happened.
6:12Yeah, this says unfiltered updates.
6:15So, Director Gabbard, do you have any comment on whether unfiltered updates of private national
6:21security briefings should be made to individuals that donate to the president?
6:26I'm not familiar with that document.
6:30It's been made very public six days ago.
6:34We'll get you a copy here because I agree with you, Director Radcliffe, that the
6:40Hatch Act should prohibit this type of conduct.
6:44Thank you. Senator Lankford. More from Senator Kelly right here.
6:48Let's play it. Okay. And is it accurate that China's continuing to receive preferential oil
6:54flows from Iran despite the conflict as Iran allows its own tankers to transit the
6:59strait? Thank you very much.
7:02Director Gabbard, I'm going to go back and forth between the two of you.
7:06Thank you. There has been some reporting of China, India and other countries being able
7:14to move their tankers through the strait.
7:16However, it is unclear the volume or the measure of that.
7:21OK, so it sounds like it's accurate.
7:22Thank you. I'm going to move on.
7:24And here, Senator Kelly just wants to understand at a very basic level whether Donald
7:30Trump is even getting intelligence briefs at all.
7:34Do you even brief Donald Trump?
7:36Do you know what your role is at the CIA as the director of national
7:42intelligence? You're claiming that you don't give threat assessments and that you can't share whether
7:50or not your threat assessments are valid or not.
7:53Are you sharing information with Donald Trump?
7:55Is he even asking you?
7:56Let's watch this clip. On Director Gabbard, you tweeted yesterday that President Trump concluded there
8:03was an imminent threat and made a decision to attack Iran after carefully reviewing all
8:09of the information before him.
8:10I think the country deserves to know what the information was.
8:15I'm going to ask a series of questions and just want a yes or no.
8:19We don't need any explanation, just yes or no, starting with, were you asked, I'm
8:27not asking if you did brief this, were you asked to brief on whether Iran
8:32would close the Strait of Hormuz?
8:37I'm not going to comment on what the president did or didn't ask me on
8:41any topic. I'm not even, I'm not asking if you briefed it.
8:44I'm just asking if there was a request.
8:45I understand. By the White House.
8:47Director Ratcliffe, were you asked to brief on whether Iran would close the Strait of
8:54Hormuz? The briefings to the president of the White House typically don't come at the
9:00request of the White House.
9:02So typically when we get intelligence that we want the president to be aware of,
9:06the intelligence community brings that to the president.
9:09Did you produce the analysis for the Strait of Hormuz?
9:12There has been and continues to be analysis with respect to that.
9:16Were you asked to brief on how our adversaries and allies would respond to the
9:23war in Iran? I imagine I'll get the same answer.
9:28So it's just to point out here, it's challenging to forget about actually what was
9:33in the brief for a second.
9:34We're having a hard time finding out not only if you briefed the president on
9:39something, but even if the White House asked if they could be briefed on something
9:46or if analysis was produced.
9:48So I just. And we have Senator Reid cross -examining Tulsi Gabbard.
9:54Let's play this clip. Is the regime in Iran now trying to promote the deceased
10:04Ayatollah as a martyr who should be followed and does that help them consolidate support?
10:14Senator, the Iranians are certainly using that as a call to action.
10:20The effects of that from an intelligence standpoint are remain to be seen.
10:27There is a tradition in Shia, though, to honor martyrs.
10:31One of their greatest celebrations is the martyrdom of the grandson of Mohammed.
10:38Is that correct? That's right.
10:39So we might have played into their cultural biases erroneously.
10:43We might have played into their cultural biases.
10:44Hopefully. Then we hear from Democratic Senator Warner, and he's wondering why, Tulsi Gabbard, in
10:52your printed remarks, you stated you didn't read this during your opening remarks, but it's
10:58written in your printed statements that there has been no efforts by Iran to rebuild
11:05their nuclear enrichment capabilities since the prior strikes last June.
11:11And thus they posed no imminent threat.
11:14It says that in your written report.
11:17So why did you not read it when the cameras were on you?
11:21Did you not think that we were going to ask you about it?
11:24Here, play this clip. I do not.
11:26Thank you. Let me move to Iran.
11:29Now, I understand and I appreciated Director Gabbard's comments yesterday about agreeing that the president
11:36has sole authority, I guess, in his bones to declare whether something is an imminent
11:41threat. I didn't agree with your friend, Mr.
11:46Kent, but I didn't, again, I agreed with him yesterday on the fact that there
11:50was no imminent threat. I guess what I'm concerned about, one thing is, even in
11:57your printed testimony today on page six, and your last paragraph on page six, as
12:03a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated.
12:07There's been no efforts to try to rebuild their enrichment capability.
12:11You omitted that paragraph from your oral opening.
12:17Was that because the president said there was an imminent threat two weeks ago?
12:22No, sir, I recognized that the time was running long, and I skipped through some
12:26of the portions of my oral delivered remarks.
12:32You chose to omit the parts that can contradict the president.
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13:55More cross -examination here from Senator Warner of Tulsi Gabbard, and notice that they continued
14:01to basically say these Trump lackeys, these Trump witnesses.
14:05Oh, we never saw that.
14:07I don't know about this.
14:08I never read this. Oh, I don't know anything about that.
14:12Here, play this clip. He chose to omit the parts that contradict the president.
14:17The president continues to say as well that, you know, he had no idea.
14:22He was shocked. He was shocked.
14:23that the Iranians would move to take over the Strait of Hormuz.
14:27Did you provide any intelligence that would say that it would be, that it was
14:34not likely that the Iranians would try to move on the Strait?
14:37I'm not aware of those remarks, and I think those of us here at the
14:40table can point to the fact that historically the Iranians have always threatened to leverage
14:47their control over the Strait of Hormuz.
14:48Why would the president say he was amazed?
14:50I'm not aware of those remarks.
14:51What about the comments the president made that thought that he was surprised again, reports
14:55that Iran struck the adjacent Gulf states?
14:59Again, I'm not aware of those remarks.
15:01We have been and continued to provide the intelligence.
15:03Did you brief the president?
15:04Did you brief the president?
15:06Did you brief the president if he starts a war of choice that the likely
15:12result would be that Iran would strike adjacent Gulf nations and close the Strait of
15:19Hormuz? Did you brief him on those two facts that I think have been consistently
15:24the assumptions of the intelligence community?
15:28I have not and won't divulge internal conversations.
15:32I will say that those of us within the intelligence community continue to provide the
15:36president with all of the best objective intelligence available to inform his decisions.
15:41I'll show you some questioning from Senator King right here.
15:46Can you give us an update on whether Russia is providing information to Iran about
15:52American assets, about Target to kill Americans?
15:56Does that concern you, Tulsi?
15:58And she repeats this Trump line.
16:01Well, if they're doing it, they're not really doing a very good job.
16:05I'm not sure what war you're watching right now, but America's stuck in an utter
16:09quagmire right now. Here, play this clip.
16:12Update us on the intelligence on Russian intelligence sharing with Iran in the current conflict.
16:20What do we know? Senator, if there is that sharing going on, that would be
16:28an answer that would be appropriate for a closed session.
16:31Well, it's been in the public press.
16:33This is open source that it's occurring.
16:37Is it occurring? Again, if it is occurring, that would be an answer appropriate for
16:43a closed session. What I can tell you is that, according to the Department of
16:50War, any support that Iran may be receiving is not inhibiting their operational effects.
16:58Okay, that's sort of the first cousin of a yes, I guess.
17:05More questioning from Senator King right here, where he says, Donald Trump's been saying publicly
17:11that nobody knew that this was never even conceived of that Iran might strike their
17:19Arab neighbors with American bases in it if America invaded Iran or that Iran would
17:26shut down the Strait of Hormuz.
17:28Did you not know that?
17:30Because kind of everybody knew that.
17:32So tell us about that, Tulsi.
17:34Tell us about that rat cliff.
17:37Here, play this clip. I'm asking the question is, there seems to be a discrepancy
17:40between what the Intelligence Committee has reported over the years and what the President has
17:47said in terms of his, of this action.
17:50For example, Senator Wyden read the report from a year ago that strikes against neighboring
17:56states and action to close the Strait of Hormuz was predicted by the Intelligence Committee.
18:01community and yet the president says nobody knew and my question is did you tell
18:06him anybody want to answer that question senator i'll answer the question so um with
18:18regard to briefings um the president gets briefings constantly about intelligence now the comments that
18:25you talked about uh i had not heard what i can tell you is that
18:29iran had specific plans to hit u .s interests in energy sites across the region
18:36and that's why the department of war and the department of state took measures for
18:41force protection and personnel protection in advance of operation epic fury i think that's what's
18:47most important any any predictions to the president about the straight of hormuz all you
18:53got to do is look at a map and you'll see that the vulnerability of
18:56the straight of hormuz was that was that part of the briefing director gabbard i
19:02think the director ratcliffe made the point here is that uh this has long been
19:08an assessment of the ic uh that iran would likely hold the straight of hormuz
19:13as my question is was that communicated to the president in the lead and it's
19:17because of that long -standing assessment that the ic has continued to report that the
19:23department of war took the preemptive planning measures that it did well they've stated that
19:29they did not plan for the straight of hormuz the president said who knew that
19:34was going to happen anyway let's move on does the president take a daily brief
19:38more cross -exam here from uh senator warner and senator warner's asking so you know
19:45you were involved in an fbi operation to seize ballots in georgia where's the authority
19:53uh for you to involve yourself in domestic law enforcement activity and she's like oh
19:59i i never actually uh was involved in it i was just there watching and
20:05i was just there observing but i wasn't actually involved in it i don't even
20:09know what was happening here play this clip uh i want to correct one of
20:14your statements that you've made multiple times which is false i did not participate in
20:19a law enforcement activity nor would i because that does not exist within my authorities
20:24i was present on the scene are the photos are the photos of you obviously
20:28i was at fulton county sir at the request of the president and to work
20:34with the fbi to observe this action uh that you were just observing and what
20:39would you observe there tulsi what why were you there tulsi in the first place
20:44what were you doing in georgia more questions here from democratic senator kelly watch as
20:50he says uh so you're all aware that russia is making huge amounts of money
20:56right now from this war in iran right they're the ones who are benefiting a
21:01lot from this while killing americans and donald trump's removing these sanctions against russia so
21:07they can sell their oil and make more money while they're targeting americans with iranians
21:11what what what say you hear play this clip that brings us to the war
21:15with iran so this has created one of the largest ever supply shocks to the
21:22global oil supply which has sent gas prices skyrocketing for americans but not everybody is
21:29losing in the world directors gabbard and ratcliffe is it accurate that russia has gained
21:34billions of dollars in additional oil revenue due to price spikes as a result of
21:39the war and loosens sanctions.
21:44Director Gabbard. That is what has been reported.
21:50I defer to the Secretary of Treasury and Energy on that front for details.
21:56Director Ratcliffe. Yeah, I'm not an economist, not going to try and do those calculations.
22:02But as I talked about earlier, sometimes there are decisions made that will benefit adversaries
22:07at the same time policymakers think that it will benefit the American people.
22:10It's clear. I think we'd all agree that sanctions were loosened.
22:14And that means more money into the coffers of Vladimir Putin.
22:21Then Senator King has more questions about, you know, does Donald Trump take a daily
22:26brief from the intelligence community?
22:28And then you'll notice that there is a non -answer.
22:32This is a yes or no question, Senator King.
22:35Is he doing daily intelligence briefs?
22:38Like, oh, we call him like, we speak to him like 15 times a week.
22:42They're all such despicable liars.
22:46Here, let's play this clip right here.
22:49Move on. Does the president take a daily brief from the intelligence community?
22:57This is a yes or no question.
22:59Yeah, the president, I would say, Senator, in my estimation, on average, I brief the
23:05president of the United States on intelligence, probably on average, 10 to 15 times a
23:13week, where I have conversations with him about specific, discrete issues.
23:18Sometimes there are dedicated sessions that last hours in length.
23:23Sometimes I'm briefing him on specific issues, sometimes three or four times a day.
23:28But I would say on average, my interactions where I'm briefing the president on important
23:33national security matters happens probably on average 10 to 15 times per week.
23:38Thank you. Well, there you have it, folks.
23:41Let me know what you think about this all.
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