Name: A pro-Israel case against Israel | Today, Explained
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Hi and welcome to TODAY Explained Saturday.

This week we talk with Rahm Emanuel, former congressman, White House chief of staff under President Obama, two term mayor of Chicago and the former ambassador to Japan under President Biden.

Well, first, very few people have operated at every level of power in American politics like he has.

Also, Emmanuel has a specific lens when it comes to the growing conflict in Iran.

He was one of the people who helped negotiate peace agreements alongside President Clinton in the 1990s.

Emanuel was also in the Obama White House as they took the first steps toward the Iran nuclear deal.

Emanuel also has a long and testy history with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who's at the center of this conflict and is increasingly a controversial figure in domestic politics.

But my first question to Rahm Emanuel was pretty simple.

Ambassador, mayor, Congressman, let's dig in.

I know that you're someone who has led the Democratic, has been a big part of shaping the Democratic Party over the last 20 years.

If you were in Congress right now, I'm sure you followed Congressman Ro Khanna's war powers resolution that he's, that he's tried to put on the floor along with Congressman Thomas Massie.

I was wondering if, you know, what do you think about that war powers resolution and would you vote for the president to have to come to Congress for approving the Iran strikes that we saw?

But let me fill in the blanks because I think it's important.

One is the Congress is a day late and a dollar short.

You knew this and they should have been forcing this issue and debating it.

They should have been debating this second piece.

And the reason I'm a yes is the a the president in his eight minute video over the weekend uses the term war.

So once he says that it is, it triggers it.

You could argue through the merits of this, but

we're going to go after the nukes, we're going to go after the ballistic missiles.

We're going to go after the capabilities, the proxies and left it in the strategic or military area.

And that includes both Democrat, Republican president, you would do that.

But once he says war and once he says regime change and moves it into the political column, then you absolutely have to have that vote and you have to have that debate.

I mean, I think that makes a clear point about the process.

The White House has given contradictory, varying reasons for this.

You can pick whatever you want from the salad bottle.

From every interview he's given, he said everything from this isn't regime change, this maybe is regime change to this is kind of punishment for years long anti American crimes.

But let's try to take the the reasoning that White House press Secretary Caroline Levitt said that this was about permanently decapitating Iran's nuclear capability and punishing a regime that was fundamentally anti American.

If President Trump and hypothetically would have made that case in front of Congress and you were there, would you have voted to authorize this?

So let me again, let me go back a second here.

First of all, the administration is silent to a fault when they start.

Literally, not only the president is silent, his cabinet is even even out trying to explain it to the country on Sunday morning.

So you've gone from silent to multiple choice.

You had the secretary of state, secretary of defense, the two individuals that sit on either side of the president in the cabinet room based on ranking in the cabinet, etc.

Secretary of Defense Hegseth walks the president's comments over the weekend back to more of a strategic Secretary Rubio implies other things that the United States got led into this.

And the president United States says all of it and above and more, etc.

I do think, you know, my guess is if it was left to the strategic the president United States has latitude.

Doesn't mean we don't have a debate as a country about it.

The political component of this is what has hurt the cause.

Because at this point the president, if he had stuck in the administration to not only more limited, you could have argued the country would back it.

Second, he'd be at the point right now of serious success versus you know, you're not going to decapitate.

In 15 months, this president has taken military action against eight countries just in 15.

Now we got three more years to go in 15 months, Iran twice.

But you have Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Venezuela.

Now they may have said this could be a calculation Intelligence gives the president a briefing and say, look, if you don't move now in a year from now or just say six months from now, here's what where our thought is both on nuclear startup and on ballistic missiles, then you have a case in A situation which is either this window closes and you don't act and they're just, you think.

And it's probably true, given the Iranian history, they're not really negotiating with you, they're acting like they're negotiating with you.

And now do I think that they had a thorough discussion sitting around the Situation Room the way that President Obama had 14 separate meetings about Afghanistan?

I think he decided down in Mar a Lago, last person to talk to him.

You mentioned your years in Obama's White House's chief of staff.

You worked with him as he helped Warcraft the Iran nuclear deal.

there was an opportunity for the Biden White House maybe to rejoin that deal in early 2021.

They chose not to be braced and tried to negotiate a stronger deal that never really came together.

I wanted to know if you thought that was a mistake.

So again, each of these are not yes or no.

We started earlier, but I was mayor when the agreement came.

What comes into the Oval Office is bad and worse.

And so when you're sitting down in the situation, you're trying to weigh equities and trying to look around the corner.

I think that's why I had my own kind of indigestion.

But in the end of the day, as mayor, I supported that agreement because I thought the equities slightly tilted over the liabilities.

I do think, given the six years blind, you just don't hit reset.

So does President Biden want to engage in something else to improve, given what we have missed?

You know, Secretary Marco Rubio recently said that the administration, his justification.

Secretary Marco Rubio gave his own justification for what happened over the week, separate from the rest of.