Who?
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) — Vice Chair, Senate Intelligence Committee
LISTEN: Laslo & Warner
Ask a Pol asks:
In President Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting this week, it seemed the administration was totally blindsided by Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz — were they?
Key Warner:
“No. If they had read any intelligence, it’s obvious they would close the Strait,” Senate Intel Vice Chair Mark Warner tells Ask a Pol Politics. “Somebody didn’t read the intelligence or some of the intelligence community’s leadership is totally inept.”
Caught our ear:
“If you’re spending $2.4 million per missile to take down a $50,000 drone, if you’re going to do a war of choice, why in the hell wouldn’t you have had the Trump White House accept the Ukrainian drone capability that they can knock down Ukrainian or Iranian drones for under five grand a pop,” Warner tells us.
Below find a rough transcript of Ask a Pol’s exclusive interview with Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), slightly edited for clarity.
TRANSCRIPT: Sen. Mark Warner
SCENE: Ask a Pol founder Matt Laslo catches Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner in the basement of the US Capitol as he’s on his way to a vote on the Senate floor.
Matt Laslo: “Were they totally blindsided by the Strait of Hormuz?”
Sen. Mark Warner: “No.”
ML: “So, how does this…”
MW: “No. If they had read any intelligence that Iran, this is one of the reasons the Iranian regime has been awful for 47 years. Why do you think somebody else hasn’t done this before, including Trump 1.0? Because it’s obvious they would close the Strait, obvious they would hit all the Gulf nations adjacent.”
ML: “Yeah?”
MW: “And if you were planning this, this is the part that I’m terrified about right now is that we are exhausting our number of interceptors. And when you keep, it doesn’t take a lot of rocket science to realize if you’re spending $2.4 million per missile to take down a $50,000 drone, if you’re going to do a war of choice, why in the hell wouldn’t you have had the Trump White House accept the Ukrainian drone capability that they can knock down Ukrainian or Iranian drones for under five grand a pop.”
ML: “Trump said he was surprised that US allies in the region were hit. What do you make of that?”
MW: “Somebody didn’t read the intelligence or some of the intelligence community’s leadership is totally inept.”
ML: “Yeah?”
MW: “You know, the absurdity of what was said by some of the witnesses — maybe it was [DNI Tulsi] Gabbard last week — that the President of the United States, one of them said, ‘the President of the United States is the only person that can determine what’s an imminent threat.’”
ML: “Yeah?”
MW: “That is totally bonkers. The role of the intelligence community is to speak truth to power and provide them with their most honest assessment of how close the bad guys are to being a real threat. It’s not the President of the United States’ responsibility to do that.”
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