The State Department also told all nonemergency employees to leave Iraq amid escalating tensions in the region.

Schumer added on Wednesday afternoon that "the American people deserve to know what's going on here."

"The hearings that are done in secret do not inform the American people of what's going on, and they are entitled to know. Because the lessons of history teach us that when thing are done in secret, behind closed doors, mistakes can be made and momentum built for a course of action that the nation ultimately regrets," Schumer said.

He added that "if the president and Republicans in Congress are planning to take the United States into a conflict, even a war in the Middle East, the American people deserve to know that and they deserve to know why."