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For more now on how the White House and Congress are responding to the strikes, I'm joined
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now by our White House correspondent Liz Landers and our congressional correspondent Lisa
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So Liz kick us off here.
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We saw President Trump make his first public appearance today since the war began over
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This was the first public event that the president has had since this started.
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It was a medal of honor ceremony that he had in the East Room of the White House.
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And as Nick pointed out in his reporting there, we really heard for the first time the
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objectives that the administration that the president is laying out here for these
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However, the way that the president has gone about explaining this to the public has been
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He and his allies like to say he's a nontraditional president.
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We've seen these true social videos that he has recorded and posted over the last few
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He's also done a number of phone calls with journalists.
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He's talked with CNN, the Atlantic.
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And earlier today, he spoke with the New York Post and saying something that would impact
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a lot of people, of course, is he was asked if he would send U.S. troops on the ground
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there to the region.
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And he said, if they were necessary, so not ruling that out, reporters in the room trying
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to ask questions of him.
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As he left, I tried to ask a question of the president.
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He did not talk to reporters today at the White House.
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As you know, Liz, this is a president who ran on an America first platform, no new foreign
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How is all of this resonating with his base?
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This was a huge part of why people liked him.
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And when I reported on the 2016, 2020 and 2024 campaigns, a lot of the MAGA base said
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that they really supported this part of the president's agenda.
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Today we're seeing some backlash from some of these MAGA conservative voices and commentators,
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people like Tucker Carlson called the attack, quote, absolutely disgusting and evil in an
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interview over the weekend.
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We also heard from former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a very close former ally of
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the president no longer.
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She said on X, she said, we voted for America first in zero wars.
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He is getting some defense though, from far right activists like Laura Lumer, who we know,
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she does talk to the president occasionally, she is defending these actions.
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But when you also look more broadly at how the American public is responding to this, we're
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starting to get some polling.
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Reuters and Ipsis did a poll post these attacks.
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It's showed that only 27% of Americans approved of the U.S. strikes that killed Iran's leader,
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43%, disapproved of the Iran strikes, 29%, said that they were not sure.
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More than half, 56% of Americans said that they believe that the president is too willing
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to use military force.
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So I'm not, the president definitely still has some selling to do to the American public.
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Julie, so that's where the American public is.
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What about Congress, the branch responsible for war?
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Where are they on the U.S. attacks in Iran?
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Secretary of State Rubio was up on the hill talking to the top eight leaders today.
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And I want to point out something he said to the press before he went in.
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He made the argument that the president not only doesn't need authority from Congress,
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but he didn't even need to notify all of Congress.
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There's no law that requires the president to have done anything with regards to this.
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To begin with, no presidential administration has ever accepted the War Powers Act as constitutional.
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Not Republican presidents, not Democratic presidents.
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That said, we have followed the notification at 48 hours, and we're here today.
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Now the War Powers Act is not just significant because of the notification requirement, but
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because it limits presidents to having this kind of conflict power for just 60 to 90 days.
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And what Rubio is saying here is what other presidents said before.
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They're ignoring that.
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That he's going to keep this up as long as they want.
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Now as for Congress themselves, it was remarkable that he said this just days before we expect
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to vote in the House over whether Congress should block action in Iran without congressional
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It is a tough vote, especially for some Democrats.
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There are some very pro-Israel Democrats that are nervous about the situation they want
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There are others who are Article 1 kind of constitutionalist Democrats that are not sure
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what to do and on the front line.
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Right now, I don't think that has the votes to pass the House, but it is going to be a vote
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While we know DHS funding is a question right now, there's a government, partial government
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Will the Iran action impact that at all?
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The short answer is no.
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It doesn't seem to be.
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Democrats are still digging in.
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They say we may have something overseas that we need to pay very close attention to that
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significant, but that doesn't change the issues that we have.
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Now what could change is when more people start missing paychecks, that is still a week
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Lisa Desjardins, Les Landers.