After he said he was denied access to a U.S. military base in Qatar this week, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., tore into Pete Hegseth, accusing the defense secretary of carrying out a “cover-up” for President Donald Trump’s war with Iran.
“It is intentional as part of a campaign to mask the cost and the consequences,” Murphy told MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace on Thursday.
During a congressional delegation to the Middle East earlier this week, Murphy said the military, despite weeks of advance notice, denied him access to Al Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. military base in the region, which was struck repeatedly by Iranian forces earlier this year. The Pentagon said the denial was consistent with Hegseth’s March directive on travel restrictions for congressional delegations in the region.
“Our job is to do oversight over war. The Constitution makes it clear that it’s Congress that has the responsibility to declare war, and then once a war is underway — even in an illegal war like this one — it’s our job to fund the war, or to stop funding the war,” the senator explained. “The only way you can do that is by seeing it for yourself.”
Murphy, who sits on both the Senate’s Foreign Relations and Appropriations committees, said this was the first time in his 20-year congressional career that he has been denied access to a military base to conduct oversight. He told Wallace that in the past, he visited conflict zones, including Iraq and Afghanistan, “during incredibly hot periods of those wars,” and “every single time I, and every other member who visited, were allowed in.”
He said that previous administrations, “whether they were Republican or Democratic, knew that that was our obligation under the Constitution to see war for ourselves to decide whether we should continue funding it or not.”
Murphy urged Republican lawmakers to speak out against the Pentagon’s efforts to block members of Congress from carrying out their constitutional duties.
“I just hope that my Republican colleagues feel as offended by this as I am,” he said. “No matter what you think about this war, it is our responsibility under the Constitution to do oversight.”
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Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”