California Democrat Ro Khanna fired back at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, posting a pointed rebuke on X after Netanyahu publicly declared in a national television interview that the Iran war remains unfinished — asserting that the decision to end the conflict belongs to the American people, not a foreign government.
Khanna’s post came in direct response to Netanyahu’s appearance on CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” which aired Sunday, May 10, in which the Israeli prime minister argued that the war has not concluded because enriched uranium has not yet been removed from Iran, enrichment sites have not been fully dismantled, and Iranian proxies and ballistic missile capabilities remain intact. The statement reignited debate in Washington over who holds authority over U.S. war policy — and just how much longer American troops and taxpayers will bear the costs of a conflict now in its tenth week.
Khanna’s Full Post
Posted at 2:59 p.m. on May 11, Khanna’s statement was unambiguous:
“Israel does not get to tell America that the ‘war is not over.’ The American people decide that. This war has cost us lives and raised the price of food and gas for Americans. End it now.”
The post was brief, but its framing carried weight: a sitting U.S. congressman, serving as Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, publicly contesting the authority of a foreign head of government to define the scope and duration of an American military operation.
What Netanyahu Actually Said
Netanyahu’s “60 Minutes” interview, conducted by CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett, represented one of the Israeli prime minister’s most expansive public statements on the war since hostilities began on February 28. Netanyahu told CBS that the U.S. and Israel strikes on Iran accomplished a great deal, but that the conflict would not be resolved until Iran’s nuclear program was dealt with.
“I think it accomplished a great deal, but it’s not over, because there’s still nuclear material, enriched uranium that has to be taken out of Iran,” Netanyahu said on the broadcast. “There are still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled. There are still proxies that Iran supports. There are ballistic missiles that they still want to produce.”
Netanyahu did not initially specify whether he referred only to Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched, near-weapons-grade uranium — believed to be buried underground in Isfahan — or its full supply of enriched uranium. When pressed by Garrett on how he envisions the removal of that material, Netanyahu’s answer was direct: “You go in, and you take it out.”
On the question of military options, the prime minister declined to elaborate. “I’m not going to talk about military means, but what President Trump has said to me, I want to go in there, and I think it can be done physically. That’s not the problem,” he said. “If you have an agreement, and you go in, and you take it out, why not? That’s the best way.”
Netanyahu also told 60 Minutes that Israel is looking to rethink its financial dependence on the United States, saying “Absolutely” when asked whether it was time for Israel to reexamine and possibly reset its financial relationship with Washington — a notable signal of potential divergence between the two governments’ strategic outlooks even as they remain jointly engaged in the conflict.
The Administration’s Position
The Netanyahu interview landed against an already complicated backdrop. President Trump on Sunday said he had reviewed Iran’s response to a U.S. peace proposal and called it “totally unacceptable.” Iranian officials have rejected the condition that they must end uranium enrichment entirely, but have proposed diluting some of their highly enriched uranium. Leaders in Tehran have also offered to transfer enriched uranium to a third country, to be returned if negotiations fail or the U.S. exits any agreement.
Trump addressed the state of the campaign separately on Sunday, saying the U.S. had struck approximately 70 percent of its intended targets in Iran. “We have certain targets that we wanted to hit, and we’ve done probably 70% of them, but we have other targets that we could conceivably hit. But even if we didn’t do that, you know, that would just be final touches,” Trump said. Trump reserved the possibility of resumed strikes while simultaneously indicating that negotiations remained open.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, also appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, said the initial military objectives of the strikes on Iran had largely been achieved, but cautioned that “the ending of the Iranian nuclear programme is a different matter, and that’s what still needs to be achieved.” Wright said the nuclear issue could be settled by negotiation, but did not rule out other means.
Khanna’s Record on the War
Sunday’s post was consistent with a position Khanna has held since before the first strike was launched. In February, Khanna co-sponsored a bipartisan War Powers Resolution with Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, arguing that Trump could not launch strikes on Iran without congressional authorization and threatening to force a floor vote on the resolution. When strikes began, Khanna called them unconstitutional and demanded Congress return to Washington immediately to vote on the War Powers Resolution. “Stopping Iran from having a nuclear bomb is a top priority, but dragging the U.S. into another Middle East war is not the solution,” Khanna said at the time.
In a March statement as Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on the CCP, Khanna argued that the Iran war was stretching American armed forces thin at the expense of Pacific deterrence, costing taxpayers nearly $1 billion per day and burning through critical munitions. “We cannot expect to deter aggression when our military is pouring resources needed for stability in Asia into yet another endless Middle Eastern war,” he said.
The Costs Khanna Has Cited
When Khanna writes that the war “has cost us lives and raised the price of food and gas,” the numbers behind that claim are substantial. According to data, the United States has suffered 15 soldiers killed and 538 military personnel wounded since hostilities began on February 28.
On the economic side, Khanna has been among the most vocal members of Congress in pressing the administration on what the conflict is actually costing American households. In a heated congressional hearing, Khanna cited estimates that the war could cost the U.S. economy approximately $631 billion, or roughly $5,000 per household, and pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to acknowledge the financial burden on ordinary Americans. Hegseth dismissed the question as a “gotcha,” responding by asking what Khanna would pay to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb.
The Broader Constitutional Question
At the center of Khanna’s Sunday post is a question that has run beneath the surface of the entire conflict: who decides when America’s wars end? The War Powers Resolution of 1973 gives Congress the authority to direct the removal of U.S. forces from unauthorized hostilities — a mechanism Khanna and Massie have sought to invoke since before the first strike. The Massie-Khanna War Powers Resolution specifically sought to prevent and block war with Iran by requiring congressional authorization, with the resolution framing Congress as holding the “sole power to declare war.”
Khanna’s framing on Sunday extended that argument into new territory: it was not only the executive branch that lacked unilateral authority to define American war aims, but a foreign government as well. The implicit message was that Netanyahu’s declaration — delivered on American television, in a joint conflict funded substantially by U.S. taxpayers and prosecuted in significant part by U.S. forces — did not carry the authority its framing suggested.
Whether that argument gains traction in Congress or in the broader public debate over the war’s trajectory remains to be seen. A ceasefire between the United States and Iran, brokered by Pakistan, took effect on April 8, but has been violated by both sides since its declaration, and peace talks in Islamabad ultimately failed, leading to a U.S. naval blockade of Iran. With negotiations stalled, Iran’s peace response rejected by Trump as “totally unacceptable,” and Netanyahu publicly insisting the mission is unfinished, the end of the conflict — and the question of who gets to say so — remains very much open.