Why a Democratic Congressman Is Supporting Trump’s War with Iran
Most Democratic members of Congress have criticized Donald Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran, with some describing Trump’s move as flagrantly illegal and others arguing that he should have at least come before Congress to lay out a clear plan of action. (In the days since the war began, Trump has offered numerous reasons for launching the war: the threat posed by Iran’s missile systems and its nuclear program, Iran’s funding of terrorism, Trump’s own desire for “regime change.”)
But Congressman Greg Landsman, a second-term Democrat from Ohio, is one of the few members of his party who has actively supported Trump’s war. Landsman, a strong supporter of Israel, has backed the coördinated American-Israeli military action and stated that “this was the moment” for war against the Iranian regime, citing the country’s abysmal human-rights record. “I hope these targeted strikes on the Iranian regime’s military assets ends the regime’s mayhem and bloodshed and makes way for this lasting peace in the region,” Landsman wrote in a statement on Saturday, just hours after the war began.
I recently spoke by phone with Landsman. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed what the U.S. and Israel hope to accomplish with the attack; why he trusts the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio; and whether Trump cares about civilian casualties.
Why, unlike most of your Democratic colleagues, have you chosen to support the current war with Iran?
Well, I wouldn’t describe it as that. I’d describe it as what I hope is a very limited operation where we are destroying their weapons systems, particularly their missiles and their bombs, to stop the ongoing mayhem, chaos, and violence that this regime has caused.
So you wouldn’t describe it as a war?
No. No. I mean, it’s definitely a military intervention, and so far it has been targeted at those missile systems, and core military infrastructure. And my expectation is that remains the case and that this gets wrapped up fairly quickly. However, I do support and have introduced, with a few others, a War Powers Resolution. It allows for short-term targeted strikes and requires Trump to come to Congress for a vote. This is a constitutional democracy, and he needs to act accordingly. And it specifies no ground troops. We should not be doing nation-building.
How does your War Powers Resolution differ from the one that Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie are putting forward, which you oppose?
That would require the immediate removal of all military assets, which would make our American service members, our bases, and our allies very vulnerable. Ours requires the President to get a vote within thirty days if this thing were to continue or move beyond the very targeted strikes on military assets.
I’m not sure how targeted it has been. Israel recently said that it dropped more bombs in the past three days than it dropped in the Twelve-Day War against Iran in June. Trump has promised that bigger strikes are coming. There have already been civilian casualties. Americans have already lost their lives. This is the biggest story in the world.
Oh, sure. I’m not downplaying it at all. It’s a very big deal. I’m just saying that the strikes have been focussed, I believe, entirely on military assets.
Well, we are also assassinating the heads of the regime.
Well, the head of the regime was, in this case, the Ayatollah, who is the chief military commander who also happens to be a theocrat with apocalyptic plans for the world.
Sure, a very bad guy. I just meant that it seems like we were trying to effectuate regime change, which the President himself has said, rather than just knock out military targets.
Yeah. And let me also be clear. I’ve never trusted Trump on this, or on the economy, or on keeping us safe in general.
You are trusting him on this, though, right?
No.
You aren’t?
I’m trusting the military and our generals. I’m trusting what I understand to be the operation and the people leading it—that is, the generals and our military and our allies.
You’re trusting the people leading the operation who don’t include the President?
Well, I don’t trust that guy. Yeah.
He’s the Commander-in-Chief, right?
Sure. Yeah. But I can’t [trust him]. And he’s proven that over the past couple of days, being all over the place, unlike everybody else involved in this.
You saw the leaks before the war suggesting that the military, especially chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, were either opposed to the attack on Iran or did not think this could be done very easily, right?
Those are two different things. I can’t imagine anybody thought that this would be simple. If it were simple, it would have been done already.
Do you feel like you understand why Trump wanted to wage this war, or “military intervention,” as you described it?
Yeah, I think so. I think the Administration has writ large articulated that it is entirely about these weapon systems, which to me makes sense.
Nuclear weapons or weapons systems?
All of it. That is not just a threat, but an existential threat to us and our allies.
An existential threat?
Well, to our allies and potentially to us, yeah. There is a point of no return, arguably, with this regime, where if you continue to allow them to stockpile missiles and launchers and all of the things—
You think Iran having missiles and launchers is an existential threat to America?
I would love to finish my sentence. I was going to answer that question. This seems a little combative, which is understandable.
Sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t have interrupted.
That’s fine. So their ability to get out in front of and stop Iran’s ability to do what they clearly are intending to do, which is to stockpile these missiles and launchers, which will create a shield for them to do the nukes, which would be an existential threat.
I know you were in favor of the strikes that President Trump launched in June, which he said obliterated Iran’s nuclear program. So your sense is that maybe the strikes hadn’t obliterated Iran’s nuclear program?
No, I never thought it had obliterated Iran’s program. It did serious damage, and it was very, very significant, but I always believed that additional strikes could be necessary.
Even so soon after the June, 2025, strike?
I’m surprised by that pace, but I think it had more to do with how rapidly Iran was rebuilding the missile capabilities that would protect them from another strike.
So just to clarify, they could have developed more missiles, which would have led to them being able to develop nukes, and the nukes would be an existential threat. So we have to stop the process somewhere along the line.
Yeah, correct.
What should or should not prevent a U.S. President from deciding that he or she can wage military action or bomb another country if he or she wants to? What should be the constraints? It doesn’t seem like Trump has laid out a clear reasoning for why he’s doing this.
I think the Administration has. I think Marco Rubio did lay out a clear reason for doing this now, why it was important, and why it will be limited. Again, Trump is not a disciplined person, and so his communication has been all over the place, and that is, in and of itself, bad.
Rubio also said on Monday, “There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked and we believed they would be attacked [by Israel], that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded.” What did you make of that statement?
I was really disappointed that he tried to lay the blame on somebody else.
Especially because Rubio is not the erratic one. That’s Trump.
Exactly. I was disappointed in that, but especially when he clearly set out to make one argument during that whole press conference, which was this is a focussed operation on the missiles and the missile launchers and the nukes and the ships.
Not the nukes. They don’t have nukes.
Sorry, you’re right. The facilities, the nuclear facilities. And he was locked in on that, and I think that is the argument. I think that is the operation. That has to be what they continue to focus on. That he would veer from that was disappointing, and I suspect he was disappointed.
That’s definitely telling us that he’s thinking about these things.
Yeah. Look, it’s obviously multiple countries and not just Israel. This is becoming a much bigger moment. Despite real tragedies here, which are awful—and there’s nothing to say other than it’s terrible—may this all be for something very powerful and good and transformative, which is the end of this regime. Absent Iran’s chaos, I believe there’s enough space to see the region come together and create an entirely different Middle East.
Trump said Gaza could be the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Well, I don’t share his vision in that regard. I believe that Gaza should be led by Gazans, and they should rebuild based on what they want without corruption and terrorism. The same with Yemen, the same with Syria, the same with Iraq. All of a sudden, you can imagine a Middle East where you land in Dubai, and you make your way to Beirut, down to Tel Aviv, to Gaza City, to Cairo.
It’s like the domino theory, but in reverse.
Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
You mentioned this becoming a much bigger moment. And then you laid out this positive vision of the region. Do you think there’s any tension between that and saying what you did earlier, that you wanted this to be a very limited, very small operation that you didn’t want to call a war?
There could be. Yeah, there could be. Yeah. There could be.
That’s what I was thinking.
Yeah, there could be, but I do think the first and most important step is to get in front of the rearming of this regime and hopefully get to a point where the regime walks away from its goal of causing chaos.
With Trump, it’s just hard to know what his aims are.
Yeah. There’s no question that this is a big risk, and I do trust our generals in the military and the folks on the ground. Trump is a chaotic guy, and my position in terms of this guy being chaos has not changed. But I trust the people leading the operation.
It would be nice to trust the Commander-in-Chief, but if you can trust everyone else, then it should be O.K.
I would love to get back to a place where we do trust our Commander-in-Chief.
You mentioned that some tragic things have already happened. I was thinking about the girls’ elementary school that was bombed in Iran, resulting in a hundred and sixty-eight deaths. Do you have a sense that the Prime Minister of Israel or the President of the United States cares about things like that?
I would hope so, yeah, I do. I would hope so.
Well, I would hope so, too.
Yeah, you know, look, I don’t know Donald Trump. I’ve never met the man.
All I meant, Congressman, is we’re putting the war in the hands of two people, and I asked you if you think that they would care about a girl’s school being bombed, and you—
Yeah. I mean, but again, I would certainly hope. But the people who are making these decisions, the folks who are on the ground actually executing these decisions, I believe they do care. And yeah, they care. And yeah, they care. ♦