Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Sunday questioned the timing and worth of President Trump’s decision to kill Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and said the U.S. should be working to wind down wars in the Middle East instead of expanding them.
“We are not safer today than before Donald Trump acted,” the presidential candidate told CNN’s State of the Union. “Why now? Why not a month ago, why not a month from now?”
The administration says Mr. Trump acted on intelligence that suggested additional attacks on American interests after rocket attacks that killed a U.S. contractor and an Iran-backed siege on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
But Mrs. Warren, of Massachusetts, said the administration “can’t keep their story straight” and even evoked the 9/11 attacks at one point, despite the lack of a nexus between that tragedy and Iran.
She compared it to the shifting story the administration offered for holding up military aid to Ukraine even as Mr. Trump asked Kyiv to assist investigations that may benefit him politically.
House Democrats impeached Mr. Trump over the Ukraine situation, and Mrs. Warren said it is a “reasonable question to ask” whether there is a connection between the decision to kill Soleimani and the looming Senate impeachment trial.
“Why does he pick now?” Mrs. Warren told CNN’s State of the Union. “I think people are reasonably asking about the timing.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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