Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said Sunday if President Trump wishes to go forward with more military action against Syria, he has to go to Congress first.
“Currently we do have an effort to fight against ISIS in the region and that is our main focus — this is secondary to that,” Ernst said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. “But certainly if [Trump] wishes to go any further, he does need to work with Congress.”
Although Ernst said she was comfortable with the limited airstrikes against chemical weapon facilities in Syria, and working with France and Great Britain, she would be uncomfortable if Trump wanted to commit ground troops to that area.
“So, the airstrikes, I am comfortable at this point with that, but as many of my colleagues have also stated, we need a new AUMF, we need to address this situation. And the president does need to come to Congress and we need to have those discussions,” Ernst said.
Regardless, the senator from Iowa said there does need to be a discussion regarding Authorization for Use of Military Force because ‘we don’t see that Bashar al-Assad will all of the sudden become a real nice guy.”
