CNN "The Lead with Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) is Interviewed about State Department Security Officials Weren't Notified of "Imminent" Threats to Four Specific Embassies

Interview

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That was Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah acknowledging to me yesterday that in a classified briefing to Congress, he never heard anyone mention a threat to four U.S. embassies.

President Trump says that threat or that belief of a threat led him to order the strike to kill Iran's top military general.

I want to bring in Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger. In addition to being on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Congressman, thanks for joining us --

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): Yes, you bet.

TAPPER: -- as always.

First of all, let's -- you know, there's no debate, Soleimani was a bad guy, had innocent blood on his hands. I do want to talk about the intelligence though. Soleimani planning to target four U.S. embassies is a very specific claim.

When you were briefed last week, do you remember that being mentioned?

KINZINGER: No, they didn't go into a ton of specifics of where, but there were very specific things about the dates, and it seems that my friends have forgotten that when they came out. When I came out, I said that was actually about as detailed as I've

heard in any briefing before, because usually we learn absolutely nothing in large briefings with 400-some people.

And there were specific dates there put out by a person in that room, I won't go into more specific detail, and that was extremely specific. And, by the way, those dates were very near-term.

Now, if you don't believe the intelligence, you being generically that anybody that doesn't believe the intelligence, you have to think that General Milley was lying, because he had said he read the report 25 times, and was convinced. You have to believe that Gina Haspel, a career CIA, now the director of the CIA, was lying, same with Mike Pompeo and everybody else up there.

Now, you can believe that. That's a legitimate view point. I happen to believe that they were telling the truth.

TAPPER: Well, just to defend skeptics, because that is what I do professionally, I mean, we have heard before from different CIA directors, secretaries of defense, secretaries of state different claims about intelligence that ultimately prove to be false. I think --

KINZINGER: Sure, sure.

TAPPER: I think after years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's healthy for people to question this kind of thing, don't you think?

KINZINGER: Yes, I agree, but when we're talking about a full massive invasion, and everything else, it's one thing. When we're talking about the fact that a guy that everybody knows was bad, everybody sees a history of 20 years, they see a history of 20 years of escalating attacks. They saw what happened in the last week that both targeted Americans, targeted an embassy.

And then we see that the man was actually in Iraq. What was he in Iraq for? He was not there to make peace. Trust me, he was there to coordinate again.

It's not a huge leap to then understand that there may be reason to believe that there were attacks on the horizon. Imminent -- it depends how you define imminent. But that's in a day, maybe it's in a week, but we know his history and we know his future.

Unless he, you know, somehow found a different religion and, all of the sudden, wants to make peace with everything, then I think it's easy to look at that and say, we know what he was going to do.

[16:20:08]

TAPPER: I asked Secretary of Defense Esper yesterday whether there were specific intelligence that as President Trump claimed, the Iranians were plotting to target four U.S. embassies. Take a listen to part of his response. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK ESPER, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: What the president said with regard to the four embassies is what I believe as well. And he said he believed that they probably -- that they could have been targeting the embassies in the region.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Are you uncomfortable at all with the president talking about his general beliefs as opposed to what the intelligence and evidence states?

KINZINGER: Fifty-fifty. So, I mean, the president has a right to declassify whatever he wants. I like when stuff, you know, that can actually be potentially harmful is not put out and I think he's done a good job of not putting that stuff out.

But I also think -- the one criticism that I will give to the White House in all of this is after this happened, there should have been a better communications plan out of the White House. I think an Oval Office address, I think the statement from the press secretary right when this happened would have set the table, where we want it to go. That didn't happen, and we ended up learning a lot more on Twitter, which Twitter can serve a purpose, but in that case, not really.

And so, look -- but I think getting into the minutia of this is I think exactly frankly what my good friends on the other side of the aisle want to do, because the reality, this was a good move. It's hard to defend and say that Soleimani shouldn't have been attacked because to think of all of the Americans that have died, all the attacks that have, all the people that have died -- look in Syria and elsewhere -- we didn't target 200 Iranian military that just wanted a paycheck for retaliation. We actually targeted the man that did it.

And then by the way, Iran escalated. They expected a response, which is why all their air defense systems were up, which is why they shot down an airplane, and once again, Donald Trump didn't respond.

TAPPER: President Trump said today, it doesn't matter whether or not the attack on -- the attack by Soleimani was imminent, because Soleimani had this horrible past.

I agree with you, he had a horrible -- I agree with the president and I agree with you, he had a horrible past, he did a lot of horrible things, not just to American soldiers, by the way, to the Iraqi people, the Iranian people, people in Syria, people in Lebanon. But does it not matter? I mean, it does matter whether or not it was imminent. That's how they're using -- that's how they're justifying the strike, and that's how they're justifying not bringing you guys in Congress into it all.

KINZINGER: Well, look, I think that if it's -- first off on the congressional piece, this idea that they needed to come to Congress to get permission to strike Soleimani, I disagree. We can't debate on the floor of the House of Representatives whether we're going to strike somebody, because at what point does that threshold stop? Is it anytime a weapon is released against a terrorist, we have to debate it on the floor, I don't know.

TAPPER: No, but you can loop in the Gang of Eight.

KINZINGER: Yes, so I have no problem with it, afterwards, right? And even if it's prior, that's fine. And I think they should have done as I've said from the beginning.

But what we're missing here is the fact that this guy was the mastermind and this was a proportional response to take out the guy responsible. And what do we see as result? I had a lot of friends out here that were saying that it is the beginning of World War III.

We saw Iran do a face-saving response. We saw an actual failed response of what they felt was air defense which tragically took 170 lives. And we see today that it did unite the Iranians street, like some of my friends set out there. You actually have people on the Iranian street right now angry at their government, and I hope people are watching that.

TAPPER: Yes, well, we're certainly bringing that to them, and showing it to them. I hope that you're right that, that's it, but the Iranians have a way of waiting a month and then doing something that can't be tied to them.

KINZINGER: And they've done that.

TAPPER: Yes.

KINZINGER: And they've done that for 20 years, and this is first time we've ever struck back at them.

TAPPER: Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, thank you so much for your time as always. Appreciate it.

KINZINGER: Yes. Same to you, Jake.

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