Sen. Bernie Sanders was delivering a speech to supporters in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Saturday night when news came in that the United States had bombed three nuclear sites in Iran. “We just bombed Iran,” someone in the crowd called out, setting off a wave of angry outbursts that Sanders attempted to quell.
Sanders, who initially looked stunned and troubled by the news, asked the crowd to let him finish his speech before he paused, shook his head, and looked downward. Sanders then read a statement from Trump.
“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform just before 8 p.m. Saturday. “All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Sanders nodded in agreement as the crowd chanted, “No more war” repeatedly. He described the news as “alarming” and “so grossly unconstitutional.”
“The only entity that can take this country to war is the U.S. Congress. The president does not have the right,” Sanders also said.
The legality of the strikes has been questioned by lawmakers. “While President Trump’s decision may prove just, it’s hard to conceive a rationale that’s Constitutional,” wrote Republican Warren Davidson on X soon after the strikes. “I look forward to his remarks tonight.”
“Iran’s key nuclear facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater – and a lot easier,” Trump said in a nationwide address. “For 40 years, Iran has been saying ‘Death to America, death to Israel.’ They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs. That was their specialty … I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen. It will not continue.”
Democrat Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez also addressed the attacks on X. “The President’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers,” she wrote. “He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations.”
The strikes have raised fears that the tension between Iran and Israel could spill over into the broader Middle East. Esmaeil Baqaei, Iran’s Head of Center for Public Diplomacy and Spokesperson, accused the United States of “colluding with a war criminal and genocidal warmonger to wage an unjust war of aggression against our beloved nation in flagrant violation of fundamental principles of international law, the UN Charter, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).”
“This unconscionable act of aggression – perpetrated by a nuclear-armed State and the depository of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which is also a permanent member of the UN Security Council – against a non-nuclear weapon country constitutes a profound betrayal of the basic norms & principles these institutions embody,” Baqaei continued.
“Iran is resolutely determined to defend its national sovereignty, territorial integrity, national security and people by all necessary means, in exercise of its inherent right of self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter as well as in accordance with its rights under NPT.”
