Following President Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. conducted strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran, New York leaders in Albany and Capitol Hill all responded to the strikes with mixed messages.
“Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons,” Republican Rep. Mike Lawler said in part. “I fully supported Israel’s move to strike Iran, and fully support the deployment of US air assets to finish the job.”
Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik responded to the Iran strike as well:
“President Trump and our brave American troops have made the world safer by striking the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities that threatened the world,” Stefanik said. “Thank you President Trump and thank you to our courageous servicemembers. Now is the time for peace.”
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez weighed in, and saying the action is impeachable.
“[Trump] has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries slammed the strike, calling for Congress to receive an immediate briefing in a classified setting and, saying the president shoulders total responsibility for any adverse consequences.
“Donald Trump promised to bring peace to the Middle East,” his statement reads in part. “He has failed to deliver on that promise.”
Meanwhile, Gov. Kathy Hochul said her top priority is New Yorkers, and that she is “receiving intelligence briefings and closely monitoring the evolving situation in Iran alongside federal and local partners. The New York State Police are working to protect at-risk sites and fight cyberattacks.”
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said she was “deeply concerned” by the decision, and said the Trump administration “must fully explain to the American people the rationale for this military action and a strategy to avoid being mired in another Middle Eastern war, and it must give Congress a full intelligence briefing immediately.”
Trump asserted that Iran’s key nuclear sites were “completely and fully obliterated” in an address to the nation from the White House Saturday night.
Hours later, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the time for diplomacy had passed and that his country had the right to defend itself, saying the U.S. had “crossed a very big red line.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
