Congressman Jason Crow Joins Susan Demas | The Budget, ICE, & Iran

As American bombs strike Iranian soil and retaliation follows swiftly, what’s being tested isn’t just military might — it’s constitutional restraint, democratic accountability, and the soul of American leadership. The War Powers Act, designed to prevent unilateral war-making by any president, has once again been sidestepped, a move that pulls us dangerously close to unchecked executive power. But that’s Trump’s move, always and forever. Grab power and never let it go.

And at the heart of it, it’s not just the legality of one strike — but the horror of America repeating the worst mistakes of the post-9/11 era: wars without exit plans, driven by wish-casting and intelligence invented from whole cloth.

And now U.S. bases are under attack, the Strait of Hormuz is under threat, and Trump is at least tacitly calling for regime change. The geopolitical implications are vast — China and Russia must be overjoyed by all this. But what may be even more corrosive is the internal chaos — Marines deployed to American cities, masked goons snagging people off the streets. It’s hard to tell the difference between us and the authoritarian regimes we’ve spent a century arguing against.

And then there’s the budget. Oy. It’s a massive redistribution of wealth upwards, paid for by cutting deeply into healthcare, education, and public lands — policies that, ironically, may hurt Trump’s own rural base the most. Public lands face sell-offs; rural hospitals risk closing under Medicaid cuts; and folks who need insulin are about to be out of luck.

Jason Crow, a former Army Ranger turned congressman, joined Lincoln Square Executive Editor Susan J. Demas to talk through this mess and look toward solutions. Having led troops in Iraq based on what he now calls "distorted intelligence and lies," he’s takes the dangers of unchecked presidential power and the human cost of mindless military actions personally. His frustration isn’t abstract — it’s rooted in memory, in battlefield loss, and in a fierce belief that war should only follow open debate and public consent.

As he watches yet another administration bypass Congress and mobilize troops without accountability, he isn’t just issuing political critiques — he’s warning, from hard-earned experience, that democracy unravels not with dramatic declarations, but with silence, shortcuts, and the quiet normalization of impunity.

There’s a lot of meat in this short interview. We hope to get him back soon. We need more Democrats like him.

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