The Trump administration has lied to the American people yet again.
Since striking Iran in late February, Donald Trump and top administration officials haven’t been able to get their stories straight about the rationale that drove them to war.
Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, tells Mehdi, “They’ve had these constantly shifting rationales, and the reason they have to keep shifting them is because when they say that one thing was their goal – like getting rid of Iran’s nuclear capacity, they claimed – that turns out to be just not true.”
What is true, though, is that Trump played right into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hands when he decided to strike Iran. “Netanyahu just a few weeks ago said he’d been waiting 40 years for an American president to join him in attacking Iran. And in Donald Trump, he finally found somebody stupid enough and reckless enough to actually do it,” Van Hollen explains.
While Van Hollen, who is widely considered a possible 2028 presidential candidate, slams Trump for acquiescing to Netanyahu and Israel, he doesn’t spare Joe Biden either:
“The Biden administration did nothing to hold the Netanyahu government to account, and now the Trump administration is not only doing nothing to hold them to account, but essentially just giving them a blank check to do whatever they want in Lebanon or in Iran.”
But the war in Iran isn’t the only thing the two touch on. In this wide-ranging interview, Mehdi and the senator also discuss:
Whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should resign
His new bill, the Working Americans’ Tax Cut Act
How Trump and his MAGA base are threatened by midterms: “We know that Donald Trump will try to rig the elections.”
The lack of accountability for Americans killed in the West Bank: “It’s an absolute abdication of responsibility by the American government.”
His response to ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt accusing him of perpetuating antisemitism
And the online rumors that Benjamin Netanyahu is dead.
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