Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California told NBC’s “Meet The Press”

KRISTEN WELKER: You just heard Energy Secretary Chris Wright argue that the threat from Iran is so significant, not just to the world, but to the United States, that invading now will ultimately make the world more secure. Do Trump officials have a valid point there, Senator? SEN. ADAM SCHIFF: No, I don’t think they do. And I don’t think the President has really leveled with the American people. First, by promising the American people he wouldn’t bring us into another foreign war. Then, being unwilling to tell us what the real costs of this war are going to be. And we still don’t hear from the Secretary, don’t hear from the president with the real cost of this will be, how long it will go on. Already we spent billions and billions of dollars. And more significant, we’ve lost 13 service members as a result of the war. And we still haven’t heard a clear articulation of why we’re at war. What was the imminent threat we were facing? They’ve said it was the nuclear threat, but the intelligence doesn’t back that up. They said it was the threat of being hit in the United States by ballistic missiles. That is years and years away. They want regime change, but then they say they don’t want regime change. And when you ask how long this war’s going to go on, the secretary can’t tell you, the president won’t tell you. And it’s because not having a clear object in mind when we began this war, it makes it very difficult to tell when its objectives have been accomplished. This is why I think the president was so vague with you when he wouldn’t describe to you what kind of a deal is he looking for with Iran – because it just isn’t clear. And now there’s the prospect with the 31st Marine Expeditionary force going to the region, that we have boots on the ground. And I don’t think they’ve leveled with us about that either. So I don’t think the war is worth the costs, and it has already unleashed a lot of things that should have been foreseen, like the closing of the strait, like Iran’s attack on its neighbors. But it’s not clear that the President had a plan for any of this. KRISTEN WELKER: You did here Secretary Wright say he anticipates the conflict will be over in the next few weeks. Do you accept that timeline? Do you think that’s realistic, based on what you’re seeing? SEN. ADAM SCHIFF: Well, the one thing I agreed with the secretary on is when he said there are no guarantees in war. It may very well have been that when they began this war they expected it to be over very quickly, that they thought it would be like Venezuela. Except Iran isn’t like Venezuela. You can’t simply pick the number two mullah to replace the number one mullah and expect things to be any different. So the bottom line is they don’t really know when this war is going to end. And I hope and pray that it does end very soon. But as we have seen, our enemy also has a vote in when things end. And if Iran keeps blowing up ships, or trying to blow up ships in the strait, and gas prices continue to go up and up for Americans, then it is very foreseeable we could become even more entrenched in this, to try to keep the strait open. I have a very hard time believing that China and the other countries the president listed to you are really going to be escorting ships through the strait. That just doesn’t add up to me. So the bottom line is, we simply don’t know how long this war is going to go on. But we know the costs to the American people are already too high. For a president who promised to bring down the cost of living for Americans, this is doing exactly the opposite, and raising the cost and the difficulty of Americans to be able to afford simple groceries, and lodging, and rent, and energy prices. It’s simply unsustainable.

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