Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he expects Trump administration briefers to lay out their legal justification for strikes against Iran, as they meet with top congressional leaders this afternoon.
“I suspect they’ll have good legal justification for it,” Thune said, arguing the administration did not need congressional approval for the operation.
“What this administration has done is consistent with what previous administrations have done. And in prior conflicts, you go back to Bush 41, go back to Obama, there have been similar circumstances in which they are responding to what is perceived to be a national security issue that needed to be addressed or a threat that needed to be responded to. And I think that’s what this represented,” he said.
The administration, he said, believed “the ballistic missile threat that the Iranians possess is something that threatened our troops in the region, and obviously our allies in the region as well.”
The GOP leader did not rule out the possibility of US boots on the ground as the conflict continues. “I don’t see that happening, but … again, I’m not prepared at this point to say what is and what isn’t out,” he said.
He added that Iranians need to shape their future government.
“I think it’s gonna largely be in the hands of the Iranian people. But, you know, the entire leadership of the … Iranian regime has essentially been taken out,” he said. “So, they’ve got a unique opportunity and moment in history in which they can make a decision about whether or not they want to create a democracy and … be a partner of the world instead of constantly threatening the world, and more specifically their neighborhood.”
“I don’t think that’s probably our place to go in and figure out what that is,” he said.