Elizabeth Warren tells Colbert GOP colleagues ‘don’t make eye contact’ out of shame over Iran war

Veteran senator says Republican members of the Senate walk around with their eyes ‘glued to the floor all the time‘ because they know they cannot explain or justify the conflict
Massachusetts Democratic Sen.

Elizabeth Warren has told Stephen Colbert that her Republican colleagues in Congress can no longer meet her eye because of embarrassment over President Donald Trump ’s Iran war .

Guesting on CBS’s The Late Show Thursday for the 19th time in her career, Warren was quizzed on attitudes to the conflict in Washington, D.C., as the prospect of peace talks with Tehran continue to remain out of reach and the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked.

“It’s no secret that [when] Trump ran for president one of his promises was no foreign wars,” Colbert put it to the senator .

“Certainly no regime change wars, and here we are in one that doesn’t seem to have an exit strategy – and not much of an entrance strategy, either.

“Last year, when you were here, you said that your GOP colleagues in the hallways of the Senate ‘don’t make eye contact anymore’ because they know he’s wrong.

How’s the eye contact these days?”
The former presidential candidate and Harvard University professor took a deep breath and answered: “Oh man, those guys… Their eyes are just glued to the floor all the time.

“Because they truly do understand.

The president and his team cannot explain why we went to war, what the strategy is in this war, what will constitute winning this war, how to get out of this war…”
She continued: “And the number one thing they cannot explain is how this war is helping one single person in the United States of America.

It is time for those Republicans to help the Democrats and put an end to this war right now.

Right now.”
Her response drew an emphatic round of applause from Colbert’s studio audience, before the pair agreed that American soldiers deserve a clear “rationale” for the danger they are being placed in, let alone the public and its elected representatives.

Warren went on to point out that the Constitution stipulates that only Congress has the power to declare war and that Trump’s failure to consult the legislative body before commencing Operation Epic Fury on February 28 was therefore unconstitutional.

She said she had written to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanding answers on the “chaos and incompetence” of it all and had received no reply, warning that the ultimate cost would be measured not just in human lives or financial expense but in damage to the U.S.’s stance globally.

The senator also warned against Trump’s new nominee to lead the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, calling him a “sock puppet” and saying she believed he was only being installed to raise interest rates at the president’s behest to swing November’s midterms, breaking with the central bank’s history of independent decision-making.

The host also addressed the conflict in his own opening monologue, introducing a “breaking news” segment with a dramatic graphic, the substance of which proved to be that there was no breaking news and that the situation remains a stalemate.

Colbert also used his address to look ahead to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this weekend, at which Trump is expected to make a rare appearance, having shied away from the gala for a decade rather than have to face a roasting in person with the obligatory good-natured grin.

The comic discussed reports that the president intends to take to the stage to lambast the Washington press corps over its negative coverage of his administration before turning on his heel and leaving.

The event will also feature a turn by mentalist Oz Pearlman, Colbert noted, who has promised to read Trump’s mind as part of his act.

“Really?

Reading his mind?” the host scoffed.

“When has he not just immediately blurted out whatever’s rattling around in his skull?

[Impersonating Trump] ‘I bet you can’t read my mind.

What number am I thinking of?

Three!’”
Colbert later dusted off his aviator sunglasses to give his favorite Joe Biden impression an encore and derided Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr over the latest reporting on his morbid interest in animal anatomy and vivisection .

The Late Show is due to air its final episode on May 21, with Colbert announcing that former president Barack Obama will be one of his final guests before he steps away out of the spotlight to work on the new Lord of the Rings screenplay he announced in March.

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