{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.kelly.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-kelly-highlights-how-trumps-reckless-foreign-policy-decisions-are-making-americans-less-safe/", "ICYMI:\u00a0Kelly\u00a0Highlights How Trump\u2019s Reckless Foreign Policy Decisions are Making Americans Less Safe", "2026-08-18", "2026", "2026-08", "Democrat", "Senate", "AZ", "Mark Kelly", "K000377", "www.kelly.senate.gov", "markkelly", "https://www.kelly.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "\u201cThe American people are paying the price of his mistakes. And so are servicemembers that are in the region.\u201d\n\nIn case you missed it, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly joined CNN\u2019s Anderson Cooper to warn about what he described as President Trump\u2019s cascading foreign policy failures\u2014from his reckless war in Iran and the deteriorating conditions aboard the USS Lincoln, to threats of a military action against Oman and an order to significantly reduce U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises.\n\nKelly made clear that each of these ill-advised decisions shows Trump is a president who doesn\u2019t know what he\u2019s doing and is putting Americans at home and abroad at risk.\n\nSen. Kelly talks to Anderson Cooper.\n\nWatch to the full interview here. See key excerpts below:\n\nOn TrumpthreateningOman\u2026\n\n\u201cOman has been a security partner of ours and are critical in any kind of negotiation we\u2019re going to have with the Iranians. So, if Donald Trump thinks he\u2019s going to find a way out of this\u2014and I certainly hope that he does\u2014I think Oman is a critical negotiator with Iran, so it doesn\u2019t make a ton of sense. It looks like he\u2019s trying to just make more enemies. And that\u2019s not a strategy.\u201d\n\nOn Trump\u2019s fundamental misunderstanding of military strategy\u2026\n\n\u201cThe problem is that, because he thinks he\u2019s great at military strategy, he said at the beginning that this was going to take two or three days. \u2018We\u2019re going to bomb for two or three days, and then there\u2019s going to be a regime change.\u2019\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s always guys like Donald Trump that think air power and dropping bombs on things is the solution to a problem. I fought in the first Gulf War. Air power is part of a bigger strategy in any military effort. It\u2019s not the whole strategy. And he failed to see that. And he\u2019s made a lot of mistakes along the way.\u201d\n\nOnthe consequences of unqualified leadership\u2026\n\n\u201cThe American people are paying the price of his mistakes. And so are servicemembers that are in the region. Whether you\u2019re on the USS Abraham Lincoln or any other ships in in either the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Oman or the Red Sea. You\u2019re starting to feel the effects of a president who, in my opinion, has no idea what he\u2019s doing. And he put an unqualified person in the office of Secretary of Defense in Pete Hegseth, and that\u2019s why we are now starting to see larger problems, mental health issues, supply issues.\u201d\n\nOn the national security threat posed by Trump\u2019s relationship with Kim Jong Un\u2026\n\n\u201cKim Jong Un is getting certainly what he wanted\u2026We can defend the Korean Peninsula against the North Koreans. His participation in Russia\u2019s illegal war against the Ukrainians is giving them experience. The Russians are also transferring military technology to the North Koreans. We will become less effective over time in a partnership with the South Koreans. The North Koreans will become stronger because of their partnership with Russia.\n\n\u201cDonald Trump doesn\u2019t seem to get that or possibly he has such a close personal relationship with him that supersedes the national security interests of the United States. That\u2019s my biggest concern. He just has this odd relationship with dictators around the world, whether it\u2019s Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Orb\u00e1n, or, he\u2019s gone now, but Duterte in the Philippines. This fascination with strongmen and dictators in a way that\u2019s unhealthy for us as a country and I do think it puts our national security risk.\u201d", 1, "2026-08-19T05:29:02Z", "2026-08-19T05:30:24Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.kelly.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-kelly-highlights-how-trumps-reckless-foreign-policy-decisions-are-making-americans-less-safe/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 3.081125905737281, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}