Page 4 - War Authorization News Today

Well see what the next guest thinks. joining me now is chuck schumer of new york. senator schumer, welcome back to "meet the press," sir. >> good morning. >> all right, i want to start actually with niger. as the senate democratic leader have you been briefed? >> not yet. i hoped to briefed early next week. >> why not? was jack reed briefed? >> no, i dont believe he was either. he sent a letter along with john mccain demanding they come in and brief him. >> i understand that. i guess if you ge...

Military. its very emotional. >> as a member of the committee, to say nothing of a senior senator whose son is serving, have you gotten any answers to what happened in niger with these special forces? >> andrea, i would say insufficient answers. i would say a little bit and what i do know is unclassified. i would say generally. the members of the public, if they knew what military action is engaged in now, and most of this military action is premised on the 2000 authorization to go after the al ...

Democratic congresswoman barbara lee of california was the only member of congress to vote against the u.s. taking military action. for more than a decade, congresswoman lee has continued pushing her colleagues to repeal that 2001 war authorization. this past june she finally had a breakthrough when the republican-led house appropriations committee approved her amendment, requiring congress to debate and approve military action in the middle east. >> the question is on the lee amendment. all tho...

Authorization and that an authorization from 16 years ago really doesnt address the fight across the nation? >> thank you, andrea, good to be with you. i think members of the house were realizing they werent even present to vote. 300 members now who are currently serving were not serving in 2001. >> 300 out of 435. >> two-thirds. first, americans are war-weary. secondly, they want us to do our job. thirdly, weve been able to present the case in terms of where this authorization has been used unr...

With war authorization? so jeff flake and i have an authorization pending. had a really wonderful hearing yesterday with secretaries tillerson and mattis about it to hear the administrations perspective. heres what we would do. authorize action against the non state actors, taliban, al qaeda and isis for five years, have a fairly tight definition of who could be considered an associated group with those three entities. that the president would have to list the group before congress and saying th...

House and their field commanders on a constant basis. that generally through the secuty council. i think in this case, though, the general thought this weapon was appropriate and there were no reports of casualties. so the operation, i think he deemed was appropriate. he might have informed someone, but i dont think he went out of the way to do it. >> obviously, anything we do in afghanistan is covered by a war authorization. that was passed a long time ago. there is still some question whether ...

It to level with the american people the cost and benefit. it is a matter of letting us know what were in for if this is what were doing. i think thats something the president owes all of us who are sitting by and watching him do this but then dont understand what plan b is. sean spicer said a red line is barrel bombing in syria. assad barrel bombs on a daily basis. are we going to bomb syria every time he does that? we need to know what the strategy is as is american people. >> shannon: the pre...

>> he already has that authority. every -- you got some good people on this program. i differ with them in this regard. i thinhak the president has authorization to use force. assad signed the chemical weapons treaty ban. there is an agreement with him not to use chemical weapons. what did we learn that war criminals dont police each other very well. p the putin regime is a bunch of war criminals, and we expected them to police assad, that didnt work out very well. so all these resolutions or li...

As a member of congress was agnst e war in iraq. when we get sucked into a war we do not know the unintended consequences. >> house minority nancy pelosi, meanwhile, demanding that speaker paul ryan actual lawmakers back from whats currently a break to debate some kind of war authorization. i am joined by david corn. karen tumulty and jens david olen. professor, how legal is this operation at this point, and what might be required if it continues? >> i mean, i think its legal under u.s. law beca...

Coalition to get half of congress to give him a kind of broad authority here. thats the kind of authority that obama really never wanted but i think trump probably wants it. >> karen, i was exploring this point earlier about how the middle east is different. both parties were saying its a mess over there. were going to use drones, war-making authority wherever we want. putting syria to the side, president obama taking a lot of flak over the red line, but folks will remember he was bombing five-p...