WATCH: Sen Schiff Recaps Trump’s Broken Promises to Not Start New Wars, Lower Costs on MS NOW’s Morning Joe

Schiff: "We're at war right now, and I think it is important for us to push back on what the president is doing, because it is raising the costs on the American people and putting our soldiers and our Marines now in harm's way."

Washington D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined MS NOW's Morning Joe at the start of the third week of the Iran War to recap how President Donald Trump has broken his promises to the American people to not start new wars and to lower the cost of living and gas.

Schiff also discussed the Trump administration's failure to coordinate with other countries and its denigration of international alliances, which have undermined American efforts to confront Iran.

View the full interview here.

Key Excerpts:

On the lack of planning by the Trump administration before going to war:

[…] I think this reflects the lack of broader planning for this war. You bash our NATO allies. And then when you need them, they're reluctant to get involved, particularly if they're not brought into the war plan to begin with.But the fact that the administration really didn't foresee the asymmetric nature of the threat to the strait is telling also.

On the real cost Americans face with the Iran war:

[…] The heaviest cost is the one you mentioned that we've lost 13 servicemembers already. I hope that we lose no more. I grieve the fact that we've lost so many already,and it's particularly troubling when there was no imminent threat to the country. It's one thing if we're attacked. It's another if they're on the precipice of attacking, and it's another thing still, if we decide, for reasons that are still not clear, that we're going to go to war, a war of choice.

In addition to those human costs, you have the immense financial costs, and those take the form of the billions of dollars we've already spent dropping bombs over Iran. But it also is a cost that people are paying at the pump, and people will be increasingly paying at the grocery store.I sit on the Agriculture Committee, a lot of the fertilizer and other inputs to agriculture come through that strait also. Which is going to mean farmers are pinched even more, and consumers are going to be facing even steeper hikes at the grocery store. All of this brings into stark relief the fact the president promised to do the exact opposite of what he's doing. He promised to bring down costs. He promised to keep us out of foreign wars. Now he's bringing us into foreign wars and driving costs up further.

On the potential for boots on the ground:

This is a deep concern of mine, that you could see Marines inserted to try to reopen the strait. It may not be possible to fully secure the strait without having boots on the ground, without making sure that Iranians who might be targeting those ships from shore can be taken out by boots on the ground.And that, of course, introduced a whole new level of risk of further loss of life of U.S. troops, but also the potential that you could have U.S. troops held hostage by the Iranians. And what a mess that would be. The reporting about the president being briefed on the fact that Iran might close the strait, I think the president here was the victim of his own success militarily in Venezuela in thinking this was going to be easy, and the cautions by General Caine or others were simply not worth listening to or abiding by. We could overcome them. And that kind of overconfidence, the failure to recognize that in war things are unpredictable, has led us into this increasing quagmire.

On reasserting Congress' role in the conflict:

[…] We're at war right now, and I think it is important for us to push back on what the president is doing, because it is raising the costs on the American people and putting our soldiers and our Marines now in harm's way.But more broadly, Democrats have articulated a vision that is a deep contrast to the president.

[…] Democrats are solidly in support of Ukraine. We want to provide stronger material support for Ukraine. We would not be lifting sanctions on Russia right now, which is just filling the Russian War coffers with more money to make war against Ukraine. We would be seeking Ukraine's help, participation in countering the Iranian Shahed drones, which they have great experience. That's contrasting with the president denigrating Zelenskyy, blaming Zelenskyy for his own actions, for the president's own actions in taking the pressure off Russia. There are some sharp contrasts that don't involve simply saying we support international institutions. But I would also say that we are very firmly supportive of NATO. We recognize NATO's value. The president does not, and we see with the president's call now on NATO to help bail him out of this problem. He's created the necessity of having strong alliances.

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