Rep. Ro Khanna: Iran Wasn’t An Imminent Threat, Now They Are; “We’ve Created A Threat”
California Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna told FNC’s Jacqui Heinrich on “The Sunday Briefing” that rather than eliminate a threat to the U.S., the attack on Iran has created one. “There was no imminent threat. Now there’s a threat to the United States. We’ve created a threat.”
JACQUI HEINRICH, FOX NEWS: Are you saying that Iran should have just been allowed to continue enriching uranium? I mean, through their actions and even their statements in this negotiation they were not going to give that up. REP. RO KHANNA: Absolutely not. They should not be nuclear. But we have the JCPOA that had their enrichment down to about 3.6 percent. We could have had through Oman tougher sanctions and negotiations. The Oman mediators were saying that — HEINRICH: But even Democrats acknowledge that which is putting off the eventuality of them getting a weapon not blocking it entirely. I mean Democrats have accepted that. KHANNA: Well, pretty good for 15 years, that’s what the JCPOA would have done, and then you could have that tougher negotiation in terms of making sure they didn’t have missiles. But there was no imminent threat. Now there’s a threat to the United States. We’ve created a threat. There were no ICBMs that Iran could launch there. And then the administration would — HEINRICH: I believe they said they have the material to make 11 bombs. KHANNA: But they couldn’t reach the American homeland. I mean, everyone acknowledges they don’t have ICBMs. Now we’ve put our troops at risk. Thirteen Americans are dead. And I hope we can end this war. I just want the president declared victory, end the war. I don’t want more Americans dying. I don’t want $ 2 billion a day going into the Middle East. You know we were dragged into this war in a way that isn’t helping the American people. People, you know what they talk about in my district around the country? How are my kids going to get jobs? How am I going to focus on getting health care? How can I afford child care? Why are grocery prices too high? That’s what people are concerned about. They don’t want to spend $ 2 billion a day fighting a war in the Middle East and putting our troops at risk? HEINRICH: I hear your point on the economy. I think the other side of that this whole debate is that you know once Iran gets a weapon negotiation doesn’t really matter much because the whole field changes. So that’s where we are today. KHANNA: They were nowhere close to getting a weapon. President Trump just six months ago said we’ve destroyed all of it. They’re nowhere close to getting a nuclear weapon or getting that enrichment, and we could have continued with tough sanctions and diplomacy to make sure that they did not enrich. But what happened? Netanyahu said he was striking. Rubio said, Netanyahu said I’m striking, I guess we got to go. American people are tired of us being dragged into the Middle East wars. They want American leaders who are actually going to put America first, put money into our manufacturing base, into jobs here, into the child care. That’s why the president’s numbers are down. He hasn’t released the Epstein files. He promised that. Massie and I had to force him to release the Epstein files. He said he wasn’t going to get us into foreign wars. He’s getting us into foreign wars. I just hope he stops with what he’s doing and remembers what he ran on in 2016 and 2020 and 2024.
