Schumer: Trump Iran address to nation 'unhinged' |
Schumer: Trump Iran address to nation ‘unhinged’
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday railed against President Trump’s primetime address on Iran, describing his remarks as “unhinged” and a reflection of his lack of planning prior to starting the war.
“In a rambling, disjointed speech, an unhinged President failed to justify his disastrous decision to go to war with Iran. Donald Trump’s address to the nation said nothing that can explain the logic of starting a war with Iran with no clear plan and no clear objectives,” Schumer said in a statement.
“It was merely a desperate attempt to justify his actions in Iran as Americans pay the price and pay $4 a gallon for gasoline. Instead, he should just end the war immediately,” he added.
Trump, during a 19-minute speech to the nation, suggested the war in Iran was almost complete, indicating strikes would continue for at least another 2 to 3 weeks.
Trump said the U.S. would bomb Iran “back to the stone ages” if it didn’t strike a peace deal, but did not say what he is demanding in negotiations. The commander-in-chief also did not mention the possibility of putting boots on the ground in Iran, as he ramps up U.S. troop deployments in the region.
“Thanks to the progress we’ve made, I can say tonight that we are on track and the country has been eviscerated and essentially is really no longer a threat,” Trump said.
“We’re going to finish it very fast. We’re getting very close,” he added.
However, Schumer strongly disagreed.
“Donald Trump’s actions in Iran will be considered one of the greatest policy blunders in the history of our country, failing to articulate objectives, alienating allies, and ignoring the kitchen table problems Americans are facing,” the senate minority leader wrote in a post on X.
Prior to the speech, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian issued a Wednesday open letter urging the American public to question the war’s impact on the nation.
“Exactly which of the American people’s interests are truly being served by this war?” Pezeshkian wrote.
“Does the massacre of innocent children, the destruction of cancer-treatment pharmaceutical facilities, or boasting about bombing a country ‘back to the stone ages’ serve any purpose other than further damaging the United States’ global standing?” he added.
Other world leaders have also raised serious concerns with the strikes and Trump’s vow to expand U.S. bombing, to include electricity plants.
“Every person involved in war has to prioritize civilian protection and innocent civilians,” Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin told Newstalk radio, according to The Associated Press.
“We all know that the Iranian regime was a very oppressive one. But this war is creating death, destruction to people in Iran who had no act or part in the regime,” he added.
A major focal point for the war has been reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which was effectively closed by Iran due to U.S.-Israeli joint attacks.
Trump has urged countries that rely on Middle Eastern oil to forcibly reopen the strait. French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said a military operation in the corridor was “unrealistic.”
“There are people who advocate the idea of the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz by force, through a military operation, a position that has at times been expressed by the United States,” Macron told reporters Thursday during a visit to South Korea.
“That has never been the option we have chosen, and we consider it unrealistic,” he added.
Macron is set to meet with 35 other countries on Thursday, including those on the “Coalition of the Willing,” to discuss proposals on how to reopen the choke point responsible for carrying a fifth of the world’s oil transports per day, according to Reuters.
The United Kingdom is leading the virtual talks that will involve all G7 member nations except for the U.S.
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