Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The Trump Administration’s Lies About Trump’s Iran War & Their Costly, Chaotic Choices That Hurt American Families

Washington, D.C. - Today, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke on the Senate floor to denounce the Trump administration's war of choice in Iran. Leader Schumer criticized the administration's failure to protect Americans from skyrocketing fuel costs due to the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Below are Senator Schumer's remarks, which can also be viewed here:

As the war in Iran continues, Donald Trump continues what he usually does: he lies. He is lying to the American people. According to public reporting, preliminary intelligence reports suggest, tragically, that American operations may have been involved, unfortunately, in this missile strike on an all-girls elementary school in Iran on the first day of the war. And when Donald Trump was asked about those reports, what did he say? He said, "Well, I don't know about that." That's ridiculous and it's an obvious lie. Donald Trump is the Commander-in-Chief, and he expects us to believe he has no clue about intelligence regarding a horrific attack on a school several days after it occurred?

The vast majority of Americans obviously won't believe Donald Trump. They know he is an inveterate liar. He lies daily. They will know when he says he didn't know about this report. Of course he did. But there might be a handful of Americans that still believe the guy, that don't understand that he's an inveterate liar. Think about that. He's saying he has zero clue about a basic intelligence report regarding this strike. If he didn't know about it two or three days later when all of America did - and he's not lying, which I believe he is - then what chaos, what's going on in this administration? The Commander-in-Chief on something that affects policy while we're at war says he doesn't know about it? That talks about the chaos and confusion that have taken over this administration. The idea that something is all jumbled up in the White House, that there's no information flow to the President on something so important.

So either Donald Trump is lying when he says he knows nothing about the school bombing intelligence findings - he gets these reports every day- or he is dangerously uninformed, which says his staff is really screwed up.

Equally unacceptable is Donald Trump's apparent miscalculation when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz. In the early days of this war, Donald Trump bragged that victory would come easily. "We're going to win shortly, no time, no problem." But now, after the United States has damaged so much of Iran's infrastructure, the new, radical Supreme Leader is focusing on the one point of leverage Iran has always held over the world economy: the Strait of Hormuz. A few moments ago, in his first public comments as Supreme Leader, Khamenei, who's even worse than his father, said Iran will continue to block the Strait of Hormuz. Freeing it could potentially require American boots on the ground.

How did Donald Trump not see this coming? How did his planners not see this coming? This is the one bit of leverage Iran has. Of course, we knew they were going to use it, they used it in the past. A college student with a basic understanding of geopolitics could tell you that Iran's greatest leverage is this narrow passage through which a huge share of the world's oil must travel. And now, 13 days we're into the war, the administration is scrambling to contain the damage and deal with rising oil prices. And Donald Trump, just by saying, "oh, the war's going to end soon," you're not going to fix the shortage of oil, or fertilizer, or other products in America.

After I said for days that he should, Donald Trump finally announced he is tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Should've done it sooner. But in any case, even this decision was marred by chaos and confusion-it caught our allies completely off guard because for days it seemed Trump would hold back. There's such disorganization and chaos when we're in a war. You can't afford chaos in a war. I don't know of any other time America went to war and things were so chaotic. There is not a single strategic decision Donald Trump has made in this war that was not born from chaos, confusion, misinformation, and lies. And there is nobody, nobody up there in the White House around him willing to stand up and tell him when he was wrong.

In his first term, Trump had Kelly, Trump had Mattis - people who had courage, who had backbones, who had military backgrounds, and told him the truth. He eventually fired them for telling the truth, but they told him the truth. Where is the truth teller now? No one is there and America is paying the price unfortunately in lives: eight brave troops we lost. In Fortune, they said the first week of the war cost $11 billion. We could fix a lot of health care with that eleven billion. And in strength. This has gone too far, with too much chaos, too little thought, and it's hurting America.

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