Ohio congressman on Iran strike and AI regulations

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA) - Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about the U.S. and Israel launching a strike against Iran.

According to President Donald Trump and Iranian media, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in an attack earlier Saturday.

U.S. Central Command posted to X Sunday saying three U.S. service members were killed in Operation Epic Fury.

When asked if he was informed of a specific and imminent threat to the U.S., Rep. Turner said:

"This issue of imminent is really this fallacy of the really that comes from the Obama administration's nuclear enrichment negotiations, where, with the Obama administration, the JCPOA set up this fallacy that we were just going to set up, you know, cameras and watch Iran do this nuclear enrichment until they got all the way to a nuclear weapon, and then, they were going to kick to the next administration, whether or not there was going to be a military conflict, which is what we've come down to...So this imminent issue is one where people want to have them be with their hand almost on the button to something that has been completely assembled. In this instance, the administration has declared that they had information and imminent aspect of that Iran was a threat, both to us and to Israel, our ally, and had the opportunity to take an action to eliminate that threat. That's important."

Brennan then asked why now, and the congressman said, "Because the opportunity is there to eliminate an imminent threat that is a imminent threat to the United States and our operations and in the area and our ally."

During the interview, Brennan and Turner talked about a standoff between the Pentagon and Anthropic, an AI company whose products, according to Brennan, "used in classified systems for things like Target ID, intel assessments and battlefield simulations."

Bringing up a report from the Wall Street Journal, Brennan said Anthropic's AI was used in operations like Epic Fury, "even though Secretary Hegseth and Trump ordered it to be cut off due to this contractual dispute over the use of the model."

However, Anthropic's CEO, Dario Amodei, spoke with CBS News saying it was up to Congress to act and create clarity as to how the AI can be used.

This prompted Brennan to ask the congressman if Congress will act, to which Turner said:

"This is something that they're going to have to deal with and come to Congress for. This is obviously...n this particular circumstances I'm unaware of this particular issue, this is going to have to be something that there's going to have to be dealt with in more detail than, obviously, an interview on CBS."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Turner, click here.