Dem Sen. Murphy: Trump Iran Approach Is to Distract from Budget That’s ‘Actually Going to Matter’

On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) stated that President Donald Trump’s Iran approach is because “He doesn’t want this country talking about the thing that’s actually going to matter, and that’s the Republican budget bill.”

Host Chris Hayes asked, “I also have to say, this kind of zigzagging, which is sort of — we’re all used to it, as much as you can get used to it. We saw it with the tariffs. We saw it with North Korea, as I talked about in the first term, now it’s peace, bomb Iran, no regime change, maybe regime change, world peace forever, I’m mad at Israel. Who knows what tomorrow brings? But, like, do you have any clarity, like, where we are and what this all means, particularly for the role of Congress, whether there’s a war powers resolution — which will fail — or, like, what do you do as an elected member of the U.S. Senate about this?”

Murphy responded, “Yeah, listen, I think you hit the nail on the head. He’s just a content machine, right? He’s creating an episode every day that you have to tune into, and it’s always intentionally designed so that you’re distracted from the thing that matters the most. And it is also true that, right now, this week, we are debating, in the United States Senate, a piece of legislation that would ruin millions of people’s lives. This is a bill, the Republican budget bill, that would kick 15 million people off their health care, would sort of render hundreds of thousands of hungry kids to starvation. And Trump knows that that’s a really bad story for him. So, while I think he just wanted to be part of the good news of Israel’s early strikes and he wanted Fox News to talk about him, too, he’s also not an idiot. He doesn’t want this country talking about the thing that’s actually going to matter, and that’s the Republican budget bill.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett