During an interview on Tuesday with MS NOW’s Katy Tur, New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler said that President Trump has fulfilled his plan for a “four to six week” military campaign against Iran, and now the U.S. is negotiating to remove Iran’s enriched uranium and get them to stop supporting groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah. He compared this to President Obama’s 2011 intervention in Libya, where “we were in a seven-month war that resulted in a civil war” and a still-failed state. “Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi fully endorsed it, fully embraced it, said everything was great and the president was well within his authority.” “The fact is this was a just war that the president engaged in to stop the Iranian regime from possessing a nuclear weapon. You can say that over the past eight weeks, in your opinion, nothing has been done,” Lawler said. “But the fact is, their leadership is gone. The ayatollah is dead. The clerics are dead. The leadership of the IRGC is dead. The remnants are what we are dealing with right now.” “The president promised that in six weeks, it would be over,” MS NOW’s Katy Tur said. “Yes. And if you look at the military operation itself — we are ending the two-week cease-fire right now. The military operation took about six weeks,” Lawler said. “What we are dealing with is the remaining issues to negotiate, which is their enriched uranium and their financing of terrorism.”
KATY TUR, MS NOW: They may be backed into a corner, but that corner is well-stocked. And it seems, it appears the president is the one who is more desperate in this moment. Do you not agree? REP. MIKE LAWLER: Well, let’s look back. Barack Obama engaged in a seven-month conflict in Libya that resulted in a civil… TUR: We don’t need to go back to Barack Obama. We can stick… LAWLER: No, no, no, we do. We do. TUR: Let’s stick with President Trump. I want to live in the moment, I don’t want to do a 10-minute detour for President Obama. LAWLER: Excuse me. It’s not a detour. It’s not a detour. It’s a relevant fact, OK? We were in a seven-month war in Libya that resulted in a civil war. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi fully endorsed it, fully embraced it, said everything was great and the president was well within his authority. TUR: How does that make this war OK or better? I’m talking about this president, who promised no foreign wars. LAWLER: I know you just want to spew out the talking points for the left here. But the fact is this. This was a just war that the president engaged in to stop this regime from possessing a nuclear weapon. And, ultimately, OK, you can say that, over the past eight weeks, in your opinion, seemingly, nothing has been done. But the fact is, their leadership is gone. The ayatollah is dead. The clerics are dead. The leadership of the IRGC is dead. The remnants are what we are dealing with right now. And, yes, if you think they’re using the Straits of Hormuz as leverage is a problem, what do you think it would have been if they actually had a nuclear weapon? What do you think they would have done using a nuclear weapon to extort the rest of the world? The president made a very difficult decision, but it was a necessary one. And the fact is, yes, things have progressed significantly forward. For the first time in a very long time, they are actually engaged in real negotiations over their 60 percent enriched uranium. They are engaged in negotiations over their financing of terrorism. And, yes, they are trying to kick and scream along the way. But the fact is, this is a belligerent regime. We all know that. That’s why there was a problem. That’s why there’s been a problem for 47 years. What is amazing to me is all the people on Capitol Hill who have said this is a problem, all the members in the media who have said this is a problem, but because something was actually done, now say, oh, I can’t believe we did something. Give me a break. The fact is that they needed to be dealt with, and somebody actually took action to go after a regime that has acted belligerently for 47 years and killed thousands of Americans… TUR: This president — I’m going to reclaim my time here. LAWLER: Go ahead. TUR: This president said that he was not going to get into foreign wars. This president, it does not appear that he has a strategy for how to ensure there is no nuclear weapon or enriched uranium. That would require a regime change. There is a new ayatollah. They have made no concessions on that. I will ask you this instead. And I’m not defending this regime. I don’t think they’re good. No one does. OK. LAWLER: Well, frankly, some of my colleagues seem to be defending them, which is really quite jarring. TUR: Though let — hold on. Hold on. What is your line for what would — how this would be considered a success? What does the president need to get out of this from the Iranians to determine or deem this war a success? LAWLER: OK, so let’s go through it. Number one, would you agree that the elimination of the ayatollah, the clerics, and the leadership of the IRGC was a positive step forward? Who… TUR: There’s a new ayatollah who might be much more hard-line. LAWLER: You say that. It’s amazing, Katy. Based on what? Based on what? The guy has not even been seen in eight weeks. You all repeat the same talking point. TUR: Based on the best reporting that we have about him. Do you have better reporting? You’re on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Do you have better intelligence? LAWLER: You all report the same talking points. Well, I am on the Foreign Affairs Committee. And I am the Chairman of the Mideast Subcommittee TUR: Do you have intelligence that you can relay to us about who this ayatollah is? Tell me. LAWLER: You’re literally repeating the same nonsensical talking point that every member of the media does and every far left Democrat does that this is now a much more hard-line ayatollah. Give me a break. TUR: Tell me about him if you know about him. LAWLER: The fact is, you have seen the ayatollah, you have seen the clerics, and you have seen the leadership of the IRGC eliminated. You have seen the ballistic missiles programs severely debilitated. You have seen their naval fleet nearly obliterated. Yes, there are still issues to resolve, including the enriched uranium. But, as CBS News reported this weekend, they had the capabilities to produce nine to 11 nuclear bombs. Would you have liked to wait until they actually had the nuclear bomb? Would you have liked to wait until they used the nuclear bomb? Would you have liked to wait until they use it in a negotiation? Decisions had to be made, and it was made. TUR: So, Congressman, what is your line of success? LAWLER: Well, we have already seen over these eight weeks serious progress made in dealing with a regime that has been at war with the United States for 47 years. We have also seen an Iranian regime, the remnants of it, actually start to negotiate on red lines that we have said, including turning over their enriched uranium. Is it going to be resolved in five seconds? No. That is the challenge with war. That is the challenge with complex negotiations involving a terrorist regime. TUR: The president promised six weeks, that it would be over and it would be done in six weeks. LAWLER: Yes. And if you look at — and if you look at the military operation itself, OK, we — we are ending the two-week cease-fire right now. The military operation took about six weeks. What we are dealing with is the remaining issues to negotiate, which is their enriched uranium and their financing of terrorism. These are things that I would hope every member of the press and every Democrat in elected office would support ensuring that their enriched uranium is removed from their country and that they stop financing terrorism. When you have people like Chris Murphy, he could say it was sarcastic, but actually saying “awesome”<\/a> about a false report about 26 Iranian ships getting through a blockade, it didn’t happen, but, of course, you have people actively rooting for failure here. That is embarrassing. It is pathetic. And it is something that everybody in Congress should be working against. We want success. TUR: Let me… LAWLER: Success means getting that enriched uranium out of Iran. That is something you and everybody else… TUR: Everybody wants success. Everybody want a new regime. LAWLER: I would hope. I would hope. But that doesn’t seem to be — that doesn’t seem to be what you all want. TUR: Everyone wants democracy for Iran, absolutely. Everybody wants to be safer. Everyone is worried that it’s going to become something much more dangerous. … I am the chair of the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs. I am engaged heavily on these issues. Anybody who has been involved in Middle East politics has said for years that Iran cannot possess a nuclear weapon. What the Biden administration did was, they eased sanctions on Iran. They allowed the Iranian oil trade with China to explode to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. That is what funded Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis. That’s what funded their ballistic missiles capability. That’s what funded their nuclear program. President Trump made a decision, difficult, maybe unpopular, but he made a necessary decision to strike their nuclear facilities last summer. And he made a necessary decision, as the Iranian regime increased its ballistic missiles capabilities, producing hundreds of ballistic missiles a month, so that it could try and rebuild its pursuit of a nuclear bomb. It was either now or later. And the fact is, later may have been too late. The president made a tough decision. I support it. I stand by it. And I have always responded to my constituents. I have held numerous town hall meetings. I have engaged with them on these issues. I don’t run and hide from it. I’m coming on your show directly to answer for this issue. But the fact is, we have to have a rational, honest discussion about it, not just reciting the tried-and-true talking points because we hate Donald Trump. TUR: Congressman Mike Lawler, it is always good to have you. LAWLER: Thank you. TUR: You have had those town halls. And they — and the video looked pretty tough. Lawler, thank you so much. LAWLER: They were all good. Thank you. TUR: Appreciate it.
\nRealClearPolitics Videos<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During an interview on Tuesday with MS NOW’s Katy Tur, New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler said that President Trump has fulfilled his plan for a “four to six week” military campaign against Iran, and now the U.S. is negotiating to remove Iran’s enriched uranium and get them to stop supporting groups like the Houthis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[324,28833,261,28832,24174,9473,1571,5042,5395,12846,2392,201],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91463"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}