Trump has ‘failed to provide any justification’ for Iran strikes: US House minority leader

The Trump administration has “failed to provide any justification” for its strikes on Iran, US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on Monday night.

Jeffries, who was set to attend a “Gang of Eight” meeting in a few hours, said that he would “continue to look for information … to suggest that there was intelligence indicating that Iran was prepared to strike the United States. Nothing has been presented to justify what’s taking place up until this point.”

He said this information was owed to the American people.

Americans want the government “to focus on making their life better, making their life more affordable, not getting involved in another endless war in the Middle East that is going to end in failure,” he continued.

“This administration somehow found the resources, has found billions of dollars for bombs, but can’t find any money to actually bring down the high cost of living here in the United States of America,” Jeffries added.

The lawmaker also questioned President Donald Trump’s authority to start a war with Iran, citing Article I of the US Constitution, which he says “explicitly provides Congress with the authority to declare war.”

“The framers of the Constitution made that decision because they were concerned about kings, throughout time, getting their people into unnecessary wars, impoverishing them, or imperiling their very well-being by sending them off to a foreign conflict,” he said, adding that lawmakers will be forcing a vote on a war powers resolution in response to Trump’s actions.