The chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa defended President Donald Trump's warning of catastrophic consequences for Iran if it does not agree to a peace deal by 8 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday.
Trump wrote Tuesday morning on Truth Social: "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will."
Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., told "CNN News Central" on Tuesday, shortly after Trump's post, the president was not referring to wiping out the Iranian people.
"It is their energy infrastructure and their civilian infrastructure, including roads and bridges," Lawler said, according to a transcript of his appearance.
"That will cripple the Iranian regime and certainly their economy. That is not something we want to do because ... we are not at war with the Iranian people. We want them to be free from this oppression and tyranny that they have lived under for 47 years.
"But if the president has to take necessary action to strike their energy and infrastructure, that is going to cripple the regime. That is what he is talking about."
Lawler accused CNN anchor John Berman of parsing words after Berman asked whether Congress should have a vote if the U.S. "is going to make a whole civilization die."
"The fact is, we're talking about energy and civilian infrastructure," Lawler said.
Lawler said Congress already rejected a Democrat-led push for unilateral and immediate withdrawal, despite many Democrats previously saying the Iranian regime must go and cannot have nuclear weapons.
"So, Congress has already taken action," Lawler said. "The president is within his legal authority to conduct this war.
"He has taken action to obliterate Iran's ballistic missile program, their naval fleet. The issue remaining really, you know, is with regard to the Strait of Hormuz and the enriched uranium that is hardened."
Trump's post alarmed top Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.
"Congress must immediately end this reckless war of choice in Iran before Donald Trump plunges us into World War III," Jeffries wrote on X. "It's time for every single Republican to put patriotic duty over party and stop the madness. Enough."
Iran has rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal and said it wants a permanent end to the conflict, a joint U.S.-Israeli military operation that began Feb. 28.
The U.S. on Tuesday reportedly struck targets on Kharg Island, a roughly 5-mile landmass that handles about 90% of Iran's oil exports.
The island has come under heavy fire from U.S. forces since the conflict began. The latest strikes did not impact oil infrastructure.
"The president's deadline has been followed by us and everybody else," Vice President JD Vance told reporters in Budapest, where he met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. "He said very clearly we will not strike energy and infrastructure targets until the Iranians either make a proposal we can get behind or don't make a proposal. But he is giving them until Tuesday at 8 o'clock.
"Fundamentally, what Iran is trying to do, because they have been defeated militarily, is they're trying to extract as much economic pain on the world as possible. And the president of the United States is a man who recognizes leverage, that if the Iranians want to exact a certain amount of pain, the United States has the ability to exact much, much greater pain.
"The president doesn't want to do that. I don't want to do that. That's why we are negotiating so aggressively. But fundamentally, the ball is in the Iranians' court," Vance said.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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