Sen. Bernie Sanders joined MSNBC's Ali Velshi Tuesday to denounce national security adviser John Bolton in response to reports from the New York Times that he has ordered a plan to be drawn up to attack Iran.



"It is almost impossible to imagine that after the horror of the war in Iraq when we were lied to by the Bush administration and one of the leading architects was this very same, John Bolton," Sanders said.





"You will remember how we got into the Vietnam war, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, and it turns out the so-called attack in the Gulf of Tonkin did not actually take place. It was based on a series of lies," Sanders also said. "What worries me is that the architect of the effort right now to get us into a war in Iran is the guy who was the architect to getting us into the war in Iraq. That is John Bolton. I worry about provocations on the part of the United States against Iran."





ALI VELSHI, MSNBC: Joining me is 2020 presidential candidate, Vermont Senator, Bernie Sanders. You are quite worried, more worried than the Pentagon says you should be, about troops, American troops going into Iran, what's your concern?



SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I believe that if we go into Iran we will destabilize the entire region. And we will be in war for a decade after decade, which will cost us thousands of lives for our troops as well as God knows what happens in terms of how many people die in the region. It is almost impossible to imagine that after the horror of the war in Iraq, when we were lied to by the Bush administration, and one of the leading architects was this very same, John Bolton, who remains one of the few people in the world that thinks to date that the war in Iraq was a good idea. That we would once again go to war in that region.



So what I am working hard on is to continue the work that I and some conservative Republicans did -- that is to remind Congress and the president that it is the U.S. Congress under our Constitution, not the president who decides when we go to war. We're looking now to get 51 senators and a majority in the House, to say to this president, you are not going to war in Iran or any place else with Congressional authority and we're not going to give you that authority.



ALI VELSHI: But it was Congress who agreed to the Iran deal, and the goal was to try to get Iran back into the international community and economically engaged. So it would think it was valuable to stay economically with the world, than to saber rattle and misbehave in the region. What do you say to people that say, this is preventative, a worst-case scenario, in the case Iran attacks American soldiers, American troops or uses its proxies to do so?



BERNIE SANDERS: First of all, Ali, you will remember how we got into the Vietnam war, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, and it turns out the so-called attack in the Gulf of Tonkin did not actually take place. It was based on a series of lies. What worries me is that the architect of the effort right now to get us into a war in Iran is the guy who was the architect to getting us into the war in Iraq. That is John Bolton. I worry about provocations on the part of the United States against Iran. And I worry very much that this thing could flare up. I think again that a war in Iran would be an absolute disaster. Never ending war, huge amounts of money, loss of lives. What the Congress has to do is have a serious discussion about how we deal with that region. I for the life of me have never understood why it was that the United States determined that Saudi Arabia, which is a despotic murderous undemocratic regime, is our great friend. And Iran is all that's horrible.



Obviously, we have many many concerns about Iran. But let me tell you, Iraq is not one of the great humanitarian regimes on the planet. The function of the United States, the most powerful nation on Earth and our president, should be to bring Saudi Arabia into Iran into a room together and to begin serious negotiations about how we can calm the tensions in that region. Not inflame them. Not threaten to go to war.