In his first public remarks following the U.S. assassination on Iran's Major General Qassem Soleimani, President Donald Trump said the killing was an act intended to "stop a war. We did not take action to start a war."
"The world is a safer place without these monsters," Trump said, noting there had been an imminent threat to Americans in the region.
The president ordered the airstrike in Baghdad that killed Soleimani, one of the top Iranian military officials, and several others. However, on Friday Democrats quickly decried the president's failure to notify Congress and the bipartisan 'Gang of Eight' before making the decision to escalate tensions with the Middle Eastern power.
Meanwhile, Republicans have said this was a necessary action to deter the defiant nation from further aggression against the U.S.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis. 8th District), who serves on the House Armed Services Committee told Cheddar "You don't always have the luxury of being able to notify Congress," although he noted it is better to do so, when possible.
In the past, "when we have stepped up and said 'We are the superpower here,' we were able to convince them" to back down, Gallagher said. He called today's move a defensive action and said Iran usually backs down when "confronted with a credible American threat."
However, in the immediate aftermath of Soleimani's death, Iran did not appear to be backing down, as the nation's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei quickly promised severe revenge for the drone strike.
Soleimani, who led the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, played a large role in Iranian policy, which made him a target for years, but both presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama opted not to escalate tensions by ordering a strike against him. Soleimani bolstered Shiite influence in the region, supported Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and was behind hundreds of American deaths in Iraq. He and four other Iranian officials were designated as terrorists in 2011.
After Iranians took to the streets to protest and the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei promised retaliation, the Pentagon announced it will send 3,500 more U.S. troops to the region, further complicating the situation in the Middle East only months after the president vowed to bring home troops from Syria and Iraq. The U.S. said Soleimani was planning attacks on Americans in the region.
Democratic and Republican responses have been divided.
Speaking in front of an audience in Anamosa, Iowa on Friday, Democratic presidential contender Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said "Trump promised to end endless wars. Tragically, his actions now put us on the path to another war." Democrats have said the move was both imprudent and done without Congressional approval.
On the Senate floor, Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) noted the president failed to notify the top Congressional leaders usually briefed on military actions. However, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C), who is not a member of the group, said the president did brief him during his trip to Florida. "I appreciate being brought into the orbit. I really appreciate President Trump letting the world know you cannot kill an American without impunity," Graham said on Fox & Friends.
As the U.S. comes up on the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection.,A.C. Thompson, investigative reporter at ProPublica, joined Cheddar's Baker Machado to discuss updates to American Insurrection by FRONTLINE, ProPublica and Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program. The documentary investigates the attack on the Capitol touched off by the lie that the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump but with new information gleaned since the event including interviews with lawmakers and law enforcement and the evolution of groups like the Boogaloo Boys and the Proud Boys behind the attack. "In some ways those groups that were kind of the vanguard of January 6 are maybe no longer relevant because their message is everywhere," he said.
A new report from ProPublica and the Washington Post found that Facebook Groups played a major role in the spread of misinformation linked to the January 6 insurrection with more than 650,000 posts claiming that Joe Biden's election victory was illegitimate.
Millions of Americans with young children have relied on the child tax credit since the federal government began issuing checks in July 2021. The last round of payments was sent out just before the Christmas holiday — at the same time as the omicron variant surged. Leah Hamilton, associate professor of social work at Appalachian State University, joined Cheddar to discuss what the end to the tax credit means as the U.S. sees the end of many relief programs and its highest number of COVID cases since the start of the pandemic. "It'll become harder for families to meet their basic needs, increasing national childhood poverty rates and the proportion of families who have difficulty putting food on the table, maintaining stable housing, and paying their bills," Hamilton said. She also pointed to research that the credit as a long-term investment in children offsets claims that it contributes to macroeconomic impacts like inflation.
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over the week-end, just days after he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The call comes as Washington prepares to meet with Moscow on January 10, as tensions mount over Russia's military build up near its border with Ukraine. Cheddar News speaks with Mustafa Tameez, a former advisor to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, about the issue.
Several Silicon Valley insiders are being accused of contorting a 1990s-era tax break to avoid taxes on millions of dollars of investment profits. The tax break is known as the qualified small business stock exemption, and it allows early investors in certain companies to avoid half of the taxes on up to $10 million in capital gains. A piece recently published in the New York Times says venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz replicated the tax exemption by giving shares of companies to friends and family, who would otherwise face a 23.8% capital gains bill. The CEO of Roblox is also accused of replicating the tax break for his family members at least 12 times. Although the loophole known as 'stacking' is considered to be legal, the Times piece implies that the exemption has been manipulated for the ultra-wealthy to become more wealthy. Greycroft co-founder and Chairman Emeritus Alan Patricof joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Chris Sommerfeldt, City Hall reporter for the New York Daily News, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he discusses both the wins and losses of Bill de Blasio's eight years as New York City Mayor.
The push to regulate the gig worker economy is gaining steam as the share of workers who participate in freelancing through businesses like Uber and Lyft have also exponentially grown during the pandemic. Employment attorney Mark Kluger, founding partner at Kluger Healey, LLC, joined Cheddar to break down how the battle to reclassify gig workers will continue in the new year, and why the issue continues to generate conflict. "More and more workers are using gig work as their primary source of income and as a result of that they are not like employees in the sense that they don't have benefits like health insurance," Kluger noted.
