White House accidentally releases video of Trump saying the truth about war's priority

Before I play you this next very instructive clip, I want to note that the only reason we have it is because the White House seemingly accidentally posted a live stream of it, which they then tried to delete, but not before the internet saved it for posterity. And just for context, Donald Trump starts by referring to the head of the Office of Management and Budget, the Christian nationalist author of Project 2025, Russell Vogt. We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people who are fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare. You got to let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it too. They should pay. They have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. We have to take care of one thing, military protection. We have to guard the country. All right. All these little scams that have taken place, like that little scam daycare. Joining me now is Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Senator, good to see you. Thank you for being with us. Let me throw some numbers out at you. Apparently, the Penn Wharton budget model says this war has cost $65 billion so far. The White House is asking for $200 billion for it. The Tomahawk missiles alone are $3 billion. They take a year to two to build per missile. We've spent $3 billion on them. This is in a country where we had Doge ripping apart the government last year. We had people not getting their food stamps. We have people not getting their Obamacare subsidies, but we're spending somewhere between $65 billion and $200 billion on a war that no one is able to explain. Well, Ali, that's right. We should all remember that during the campaign, candidate Donald Trump promised that he would keep us out of foreign wars and focus instead on trying to make things better right here at home. Instead, he has, along with Prime Minister Netanyahu, started a foreign war. Prices are going up, and now he says, well, we've got to pay for this war in Iran by cutting back on federal investments. You played the clip with child care, but there are also other points in that speech where he talks about cutting Medicaid, cutting Medicare. So the bottom line is the president who said he wouldn't start a war now wants to pay for it by cutting deeply into American health care programs and other programs that help American families here at home. But that's not that surprising, is it, Senator? I mean, you go back to the history of wars that America has started. One group tends to benefit from this very well, either oil producers or munitions makers. I mean, that's the nature of the game. It becomes too much money that we have to pay for a war, so you're going to have to cut it from the people who can least afford it. Well, that's exactly right. I mean, you've got defense contractors who are going to be raking it in, and other folks who are close to the president are going to be raking it in. But the American people will suffer. And of course, this comes on top of what Donald Trump and Republicans in Washington did last year, right? They passed their so-called big, beautiful bill, which was beautiful if you're a billionaire. You got really big tax cuts. But to partially pay for that, they cut Medicaid, they cut food and nutrition programs. So now comes this year, and Donald Trump goes off and starts a war and says, well, we're going to have to cut back on Medicare, we're going to have to cut back on Medicaid, we're going to have to cut back on our efforts to make childcare more affordable. So at the end of the day, he is screwing the American people and doing exactly what he said he was going to avoid. He said he was going to focus on things here at home, keep us out of foreign wars. He's done exactly the opposite. I was talking to Ben Rhodes about this a minute ago. I want to play it for you. Something that he said about gas prices in the Oval Office. Let's listen. Gas prices today, they hit four dollars. Four dollars, yeah. And we have a country that's not going to be throwing a nuclear weapon at us in six months. Of course, but Americans are feeling the effects in the interim. And they're also feeling a lot safer. What is the plan to bring them back down? All I have to do is leave Iran, and we'll be doing that very soon. And they'll become tumbling down. We're not going to have a country that's going to be throwing a nuclear weapon at us in six months. That's just nonsensical talk. There was no — I mean, you know these things. You're on serious committees in the Senate. There was no discussion about Iran throwing a nuclear weapon at America in six months or six years. It was a complete and total lie, Ali. And, you know, the president himself, you know, told the country last year that he had decimated — Obliterated it. — Iran's nuclear enrichment program, obliterated it. And then his DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, testified publicly the other day that Iran has made no effort to try to reconstitute that nuclear enrichment program. And so that was just a complete and total lie. And as you and Bed-Rhodes discussed, I mean, they're nowhere near any kind of ballistic missile that can reach the United States. So this was all a fabrication by the president of the United States to try to justify his actions while Americans are hurting here at home. We've lost 13 of our service members, hundreds wounded. As you discussed, thousands of civilians killed in the region. And we're paying $2 billion a day, we, the American taxpayers, while gas prices are going up. And now Donald Trump says, well, you know, we've got to cut back on other investments that are important to the American people. This war should never have started. We should end it now. Donald Trump is talking about asking for another $200 billion. And I can tell you, Ali, I won't vote for one more dime for this illegal war of choice. I think we're going to find a lot of people on both sides of the aisle who are going to say, no one has given us an explanation as to why we need to be spending another dime on this war. Senator, good to see you as always. Thank you for joining us.