WATCH: Sen. Schiff Stresses Continued Push to End Trump’s Illegal Iran War on MS NOW’s All In with Chris Hayes

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined MS NOW's All In with Chris Hayes to discuss the Senate's vote today on his, Senator Tim Kaine, and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer's (D-N.Y.) War Powers Resolution to ensure any U.S. participation in hostilities against Iran is explicitly authorized by Congress. He emphasized the illegality of Trump's war in Iran and the danger of Congress failing to restrain the President or any future president when it comes to declaring war.

He also discussed the House Oversight Committee's vote today to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi over the DOJ's handling of the Epstein files.

View the full interview here.

Key Excerpts:

On the U.S. Senate's vote to block further action in Iran without congressional authorization:

I introduced the resolution along with Tim Kaine, Senator Schumer and Rand Paul, for the reason that we shouldn't be in this war number one. This is a war that was not brought on by any imminent threat from Iran. We've heard all kinds of varying explanations for why. Rubio says we were threatened. He says it's because Israel was going to attack, and they would attack us, Iran, that is, if Israel attacked. And then the President says, no, that wasn't it at all. And then you hear Pete Hegseth say something different. And Witkoff say, no, this was about them potentially getting the bomb. They can't explain why we're at war. So, first and foremost, to stop this war of choice.

But second, because constitutionally this is unlawful, you can't commit the nation to war without seeking the approval of Congress. It's one of the most important powers that we have. It has atrophied. And if we're going to allow a war like this to go on where we've already lost U.S. service members, and essentially not make a peep about it in Congress, then we're telling this President and any future president, you can make war whenever you want, wherever you want, for whatever reason you want, and Congress will not step in to put any constraint on you. That's just dangerous to the American people and to our troops.

[…] I think that they're trying to have it both ways. They're trying to say, yes, we acknowledge this is war, but no, it's not war in a constitutional sense. And why is that? Because we don't want to have to vote to authorize it, because we recognize this vote could come back and haunt us. That's the kind of political cowardice that we're seeing. And if we're going to put our servicemembers on the line than members of Congress ought to have the courage to at least call a war a war, and being willing to vote it up or down, the Republicans have not been willing to do it with a few very notable exceptions. But you're absolutely right. This is war. They've acknowledged it, and there's no escaping it.

On a potential supplemental funding bill to fund the Iran War:

[…] I think we need to continue to point out the costs, and you've just mentioned some of them that this is a trade off. You could build a lot of hospitals with a billion dollars there. We're basically dropping hospitals on Iran. We're blowing up the opportunity to invest in our own people, in our own country, in our health care system, and bring down the cost of living. There's no free lunch here. There's a real financial cost to all of this, you add up whatever we spent in Venezuela, what we spent in the first Iran war.

[…] I think it's going to be really important for us whenever that resolution comes that we point out the real opportunity cost, the real sacrifice they have made by blowing up the opportunity to invest in America.

On the House Oversight Committee voting to subpoena Pam Bondi:

[…] We had that opportunity in the Senate Judiciary Committee recently, and I think the key thing Chris is not just bringing her in, but actually demanding real answers to the questions that members have. Don't let her come in and simply insult members or obfuscate or deny or whatever. It's all in the follow up. So I applaud the Republicans who went with Democrats in subpoenaing her to come in, but demand real substantive answers, demand real documents be returned, demand to see what they're holding back. This is what real oversight is about. The hearing is just the first step.

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