Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, declared last Friday, May 13, that the United States is at war. He did so not just once, but three times in the course of debating oil policy, and suggested in the process that political debate should be pushed aside because we are at war. Said the Maryland Democrat:
“Very frankly, we’re at war. A dictator has invaded without justification a friendly country.… It is unfortunate that at a time of war that we spend all our time blaming our own President…. I wish we’d get off this, and really focus on the enemy. I know there’s a lot of politics here, but we’re at war.”
Congress has not voted up a declaration of war, as required under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, but Hoyer stated without thinking twice what is de facto the case.
Kentucky’s Rep. Thomas Massie (R) immediately shot back: “What the heck. We didn’t vote for war.” Massie followed up with a video montage, interspersing clips from his “I am urgently warning you” speech two days before, that the United States is playing an insane nuclear chicken game with Russia, with clips of Hoyer insisting (unconstitutionally) that that war is already on. [https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz/status/1525199217542762500]
When then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked the same day for “a clarification” about Hoyer’s statements, because “it’s not the White House’s belief that we’re at war or we’re engaged in any kind of conflict?” Psaki refused to say no, answering only:
