SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly and the hosts of “The Fifth Column” clashed on her show Tuesday over whether President Donald Trump led the United States into an official war with Iran following strikes on the country’s nuclear weapons program.
Just two days before Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, the president took to Truth Social on Saturday evening to reveal that the U.S. had carried out a military strike against “three nuclear sites in Iran.” During the discussion on “The Megyn Kelly Show,” the host pushed back on Democrats who said Trump lacked the authority to approve the strike.
“[Alexander] Hamilton and [James] Madison agreed on nothing. They didn’t agree on what color the sky was, but they both agreed that the power to declare war should rest in the Congress,” said “The Fifth Column” co-host Matt Welch.
Kelly then jumped in to correct him, saying that the power granted to Congress is “to declare war,” and added “that’s not what happened.”
“We’re now in the Obama 2011, like, ‘Oh, well, it’s just a kinetic military action. That’s not a war,'” Welch said.
“You really think we started a war with Iran?” Kelly asked. “Is that what you think we did?”
Following the U.S. strikes on Iran, Vice President JD Vance said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that while the U.S. is “at war” with “Iran’s nuclear program,” the country is not at war with Iran. Welch’s co-host Kmele Foster stepped into the argument, saying he believed the U.S. attack on the nuclear program “is still a war.”
“Right, not on the Iranian people. Not on the country of Iran. It’s different. It is not the same,” Kelly said.
While Kelly and Welch continued to argue over the type of attack the U.S. conducted against Iran, Kelly told her guest that Trump’s decision was to “prevent” further attacks from that foreign country, as Iran and Israel had continued counterstrikes against each other since June 12. (RELATED: Even Obama Official Gives Trump ‘High Marks’ For Handling Of Iran Crisis)
“This is a preventative attack. Yes, it is,” Welch said. “That’s not like ‘Oh, gosh, 24 hours, not enough time to notify anybody.'”
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“It doesn’t have to be imminent. Constitutionally, it does not need to be imminent. No, it doesn’t, Matt,” Kelly snapped back. “What’s your authority for that?”
Several Democrat lawmakers who previously backed former President Barack Obama’s Libya strike in 2011 — notably without Congressional approval — called out Trump’s decision. In a Saturday post on X, Democrat New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called to impeach Trump, claiming that the move “is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers.”
“It’s not my authority,” Welch said. “It is, for me, I think that when you say that you should — I think the dropping of a bomb is an engagement in a war-like activity. And if you’re doing that, you should be doing that in defense and not in — ”
“So you’re talking about should, not must,” Kelly pushed back. “I’m trying to defend the president’s power to do what he did. There is no question, as these people talk about impeachment, et cetera — It’s utter folly. He 100% had the legal authority to do what he did.”
Despite Ocasio-Cortez’s push to bring forward articles of impeachment against Trump, Democrats like Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman criticized his fellow Democrat, saying Monday on Fox News that her threats against Trump are not “helpful” and will not go “anywhere.”
“I think it’s open to a legal challenge. My side would lose because successive Supreme Courts have given the president broad authority and the war-making power, to be clear,” Welch said. “But I think to look honestly at the intention of the Founders, including Alexander Hamilton. I don’t think it was the president [who] should have the ability to go out and wage preemptive war farther along. They understood that having a president with that much war-making power would be a temptation towards power and lead to more. I think we’ve lived through this over the last 25 years and the last 50 years.”
“What he did was try to prevent a war. He tried to prevent a war,” Kelly said. “That’s what he did. He dropped a bomb on a nuclear facility that could have killed us all with intel that they were ramping up and getting ready to use it. We can go around and around on this all day.”
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