From PBS NewsHour.

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., questioned CIA Director John Ratcliffe on the justification for President Donald Trump launching a war with Israel against Iran.

“This is a serious threat to us and to Israel. The question is how to handle it, and President Trump said, ’we are not the policemen of the world,’” Bennett said. “He ran on that, and now he’s turned us into the world’s policemen, into its jury, into its judge, into its executioner.”

Top U.S. intelligence officials were testifying Wednesday before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at an open hearing on worldwide threats. It’s the first of two days of hearings on Capitol Hill surrounding the intelligence community’s release of its annual assessment of threats to national security.

The Senate hearing comes a day after National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent resigned over President Donald Trump’s war in Iran. Kent, a former Green Beret and CIA official known for his past ties to right-wing extremists, said in a statement Tuesday that Iran “posed no imminent threat” to the U.S. and he could not “in good conscience” support the war.

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