Transcript: Sen. Chris Murphy on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,”

The following is the transcript of the interview with Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on March 1, 2026.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Joining us now is Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, good morning. 

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY: Good morning. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: You have called for Congress to return to Washington and to vote on whether to try to essentially halt this military action. No War Powers Resolution has ever overcome a presidential veto. Why do you think you need to take one?

SEN. MURPHY: Well, nobody in this country is asking for war with Iran. Just like months ago, no one in this country was asking for war with Venezuela. This President is intentionally tanking our economy. He’s the most corrupt president in the history of our nation, and Americans want him to focus on the crises here at home. Instead, he is busy getting us involved in quagmires overseas that already are becoming deadly to American soldiers. This is a disaster. It is illegal, and the President is obligated under the Constitution to come to Congress and ask for an authorization of military force. He wouldn’t get that authorization if he asked for it. Congress wouldn’t vote to give him the permission to do it, but he’s obligated to come to Congress.

MARGARET BRENNAN: The administration would argue Venezuela was a limited military operation. They see- They’re not explaining to the public yet, beyond that Twitter video, exactly what the plan is here, but the President has tweeted, in a way, describing this as an open ended conflict until peace is achieved. You are using the term war. You do consider this to be a war?

SEN. MURPHY: Oh, of course, we are engaged in regular, ongoing military strikes that have, that has already killed American soldiers with the goal of regime change. If that is not war, what is? Now, the president has said that the goal is regime change, and the goal is to eliminate Iran’s missile program and their nuclear program. He is not going to succeed in either of those endeavors. His intelligence agencies have already told him that the most likely outcome is that hardline members of the IRGC replace the current leadership. So we’re not going to get a democracy. We’re going to get an even worse Iranian leadership. We already know that you can’t bomb their nuclear program out of existence. He told us last year that he had obliterated the program, and then apparently, over the course of the last year, they had gotten back to within a week. So we’re going to have Americans dying, and the end result is going to be hard line leadership continues in Iran and we don’t get rid of their nuclear program. That’s a moral and strategic disaster for the country.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, you’re summarizing the administration’s views in perhaps a more succinct way than they have, because we haven’t even heard a clear public accounting of the state of their nuclear program. Rubio said they weren’t…