Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) slammed President Trump for referring to the war in Iran as an “excursion” on Monday.
“You can’t watch that and feel that that way of characterizing this is [not] deeply disrespectful,” Kaine told host Kaitlan Collins on CNN’s “The Source,” after watching the dignified transfer of Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
Pennington, from Glendale, Ky., died on Sunday from injuries sustained during an Iranian attack on a Saudi Arabian military base seven days earlier. He is the seventh U.S. service member to die in the conflict with Iran since it began on Feb. 28, along with Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor of White Bear Lake, Minn.; Capt. Cody Khork of Lakeland, Fla.; Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens of Bellevue, Neb.; Sgt. Declan Coady of Des Moines, Iowa; Maj. Jeffrey O’Brien of Indianola, Iowa; and Chief Warrant Officer Three Robert Marzan of Sacramento, Calif.
Earlier Monday, Trump called the war “a little excursion” during a House Republican retreat at his golf resort in Doral, Florida.
“We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some evil,” the president said. “And I think you’ll see it’s [going to] be a short-term excursion.”
Democrats on Capitol Hill have largely criticized the war. Kaine was joined on CNN Monday by Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin (Wisc.), Cory Booker (N.J.) and Adam Schiff (Calif.), as the quartet called for public hearings from Trump administration officials on the conflict.
“This president has been anything but clear from the very outset,” Baldwin said.
U.S. Central Command said Monday that it has targeted Iranian command and control centers, headquarters of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and ballistic missile sites, among other facilities, during the operation. But as of Monday, over 1,240 Iranian civilians, including at least 194 children, have died from U.S. and Israeli strikes, according to the Iran-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
All four senators also denounced the war on Monday as a waste of taxpayer dollars amid nationwide concerns over the cost of living. The Washington Post reported Sunday that the first two days of strikes in Iran cost the Pentagon $5.6 billion.
“Costs for average Americans are skyrocketing and this president wants to spend tens of billions of dollars in his adventures overseas without coming to Congress,” Booker said.
“What is the case to be made for this? When Americans can’t afford their groceries, they can’t afford their medicine, they can’t afford the cost of living and yet we’re dropping a billion dollars of bombs, it seems, every day in Iran,” Schiff remarked.
