Rep. Don Bacon Reacts to Counterterrorism Chief’s Resignation Letter, Trump’s NA [0:00-5:00]

And my source tonight is Republican Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska, who I should note is a veteran and sits on the Armed Services Committee. When you look at Jo Ken's resignation letter today, what's your reaction to his reasoning for leaving the administration over the Iran War? Initially, my thought was I respect the differences of opinion. I think good people can disagree about the attacks I ran. I support it for a variety of reasons, which I can go into. Boy, by the way, towards like two-thirds in, he was blaming the Israeli lobby for persuading President Trump and that he was being beholden to Netanyahu, and it just goes back to some of the oldest anti-Semitic tropes that I see. They go way back, way preceding centuries, that there's a hidden Jewish cabal running our country. That's what he was standing to. I didn't like it. I think we should speak up on that. I don't want that in the Republican Party. You believe it was anti-Semitic? I think it was clearly. If you see some of the staff around them that he's had in the past, he's been surrounded with folks who talk like that. But when you blame the Israeli lobby for his going to war Iran, I have a problem with that. And I otherwise would have probably kept my mouth shut, but Republicans have to stand against this. And part of his letter, he also said that he believed he couldn't serve because he thought that Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, which is the exact opposite argument that President Trump and his top aides have been making. I mean, given his position, if there was intelligence that Iran was planning an imminent threat against the United States, wouldn't he have seen it? I think he would have. And you could have a different judgment on this. Again, if you want to talk about the Israeli lobby and try to blame Israel for Trump's decision to go to war, I would have probably, okay, we just disagree, and I respect it. Now I have a different view than he does. We've lost about 1,000 Americans from this IRGC in the regime. And 241 Marines, 19 airmen at Kobayr towers, I served in Iraq for a year. And on the best days, we'd have three rockets from proxy groups to Iran, attack our position, on bad days would be like 30. And so in the worst roadside mines or bombs were from Iran. And so these guys have been killing us for a long time. And I think that's why I support the operation. They've been a war with us. It was time that we paid them back. He reports to Tulsi Gabbard, obviously, or he did before he left. We know he met with her on Monday and the Vice President, JD Vance. They're all, have had similar worldviews before anti-interventionist worldviews. She's actually testifying before the Senate tomorrow, the House on Thursday. What do you want to hear from the Director of National Intelligence, who's been pretty quiet on this war as it started? Her statement today was pretty neutral, saying, it's up to the President to make this determination. She is the Director of Intelligence. You would expect her to have a stronger position on this, but you're right. She has a background of being more isolationist. I think before serving this administration, you would expect her to not want to do this operation as I ran, but they should push her on the intelligence. And again, it's hard to have differences of opinion. I respect that. And as she could have a different opinion, I would respect it. When you start blaming Israel and the Jewish lobby, it's not right. Yeah, well, I mean, differences of opinion is one thing. Obviously, there's intelligence that they look at that you chose others. In terms of, as we're looking at this, the President has been lashing out a NATO allies for not immediately saying yes to his request to help escort ships and reopen the straight of four moves. They say they don't want to do so because one, it's dangerous, two, they weren't coordinated on this war before it started and that it's not NATO's war. When you hear that and the President suggesting that the United States could leave NATO without the consent of Congress, what goes through your mind? Well, anger because NATO is the best alliance, strongest alliance in history. They've gone to war on our behalf after 9-11. He seems to forget that, but he has talked down to our NATO allies from day one, and when you treat your allies disrespectfully, you can't just expect them to jump when you say jump. In this case, I sort of understand that they were not coordinated with, talked to about the attacks that I ran, and then they suddenly want them to help out. It's probably a bridge too far for most, but he needs to work on strengthening our alliances. If you have a strong friendships, they're more willing to do this, but when you've done a great Denmark and all these other countries, they're going to be more reluctant, and there's a loss of trust with their NATO allies right now. We have a lot of work to do to repair this loss of trust. Is he wrong when he says that he can leave NATO without Congress? He's wrong. Maybe a situation you ask, if he broke up NATO on his own, it would be a civil war in the Republican caucus, but it confers. Most of us define that totally unacceptable, and I'm not alone. There's a large group of us that believe in our alliances and standing up for freedom