Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) on Tuesday told CNN’s Kasie Hunt that if the White House asks for supplemental funding for the Iran war, he intends to say, “no dollars without a congressional authorization that tightly scopes the strategic outcome this president is seeking.”

KASIE HUNT, CNN: What is your reaction to this idea that not only will the administration not rule out these ground troops, but that these briefings are suggesting to Democratic colleagues of yours in Congress that perhaps it’s actually a real possibility? REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): It’s alarming. What we’re hearing from the White House and the Cabinet is unearned arrogance. Arrogance because whether it’s the press secretary, whether it’s Pete Hegseth, they’re saying the commander-in-chief doesn’t know the American public or Congress, an answer on whether we’re going to put boots on the ground, he doesn’t know them an answer about how long this war might last, he doesn’t even know them an answer about the strategic objectives of this conflict. That’s arrogance. And it’s unearned because the American public is rightfully looking at not just the last 25 years of American military adventurism, but also at the last one week of this Operation Epic Fury, which the speaker calls a special military operation, just like Vladimir Putin called his war in Ukraine. And what they’re seeing is that while our military has performed admirably, the strategy is discombobulated. You’ve got the IRGC emplacing Mostafa Khamenei, who is even more extremist, even more hard-line than his father. You’ve got Iran trying to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. And if we don’t clear it, we’re going to demonstrate to the world that Iran has a veto over Middle Eastern policy. And you’ve got Russia’s war effort against Ukraine buttressed by higher gas and oil prices. This is not a sound strategic outcome from day number 10. HUNT: Well, and of course, speaking of money, there’s, of course, reporting that the Trump administration is preparing to request an additional $ 50 billion in funding for the war. Now, the Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, wouldn’t say whether Democrats would back a supplemental funding bill for that. Where do you think Democrats should be on such a measure? AUCHINCLOSS: I mean, I’ll say no dollars without a congressional authorization that tightly scopes the strategic outcomes this president is seeking. If this president is trying to seek, for example, the capture of the fissile material that is loose in Iran, that is a reasonable mission that makes the Middle East safer. If he is seeking to allow the Strait of Hormuz to be trafficked by navies and merchant marine from around the world, that is a reasonable mission. But if he wants some open-ended green light for boots on the ground, for persistent aerial strikes against civilian infrastructure in Tehran, absolutely not. I don’t see how that serves America or its allies’ purposes. HUNT: I know that you talk to colleagues in your own party, but also across the aisle. The president was speaking with House Republicans just this week in Florida. How high is skepticism across the board in Congress, both Republican and Democrat, about this operation? AUCHINCLOSS: I think there’s three different angles here. One angle is constitutional. Does the president have the authority to do this on his own? There, the Democratic Party is united. No, he does not. And any reading of the War Powers Act that would claim otherwise is a very tortured one, and it is a call to action for Congress, my goodness, to rewrite this thing and restore congressional supremacy over the declaration of war. Number two is the military operation itself. And there, I think what we’re seeing is that the U.S. military is exceptional, that it does in fact have air dominance, that its service members are able to integrate effects on target better than any other military in the history of the world, and that it’s a potent weapon. But then number three is, unfortunately, a pattern that we have become exhausted by seeing as Americans over the 21st century, which is a terrific military failed by political strategists, because, as I said, this president has not formulated nor delivered upon a strategic victory for Operation Epic Fury. We have the Strait of Hormuz that has been closed, which has demonstrated the Iranian power in a very dangerous way, and it’s a precedent that we cannot allow to stand. You’ve got a new hardliner in office. We had an 86-year-old guy who was awful. Now we have a 56-year-old guy who’s awful. That is not a win to me. And you’ve got Russia with a stronger hand against Ukraine, while American consumers are paying more at the pump. So the president is failing his military right now by not being able to formulate a commander’s intent and not getting congressional buy-in on it.

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