MAGA congressman gets more than he bargained for from Jake Tapper: 'Guess I'm confused?'

CNN anchor Jake Tapper pushed Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE) to answer his questions, with the longtime journalist pressing the Trump administration's claims over its objectives in the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.

As President Donald Trump announced an extended ceasefire as the current deadline was set to end, Flood told Tapper during a live broadcast on Tuesday that congressional leaders had been receiving classified briefings surrounding the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

But Tapper didn't stop his line of questioning — multiple times — saying he wanted Flood to answer direct questions about the Iranian regime, its nuclear capabilities and what the plan was for America's military operations.

"I guess I'm just confused because President Trump has been saying for weeks that that that he won the war, the U.S. won the war, and [Pete] Hegseth and others have said that the Iranian Navy is at the bottom of the sea and they don't have the capability of doing the missile construction that they did, the ballistic missiles and the nuclear material is underground," Tapper said. "I'm just I'm trying to understand what the metric is other than opening the Strait of Hormuz for this to be over for. You say nobody wants to cut and run. OK. But what still needs to be done?"

Flood had a quick response.

"Making sure that there is no more nuclear weapons that comes out of Iran," Flood said.

Tapper wasn't satisfied with that.

"But what's the metric for that? I mean, because it sounds as though they're pretty close to having achieved that," Tapper said. "If the missiles are destroyed the way President Trump and Pete Hegseth say they are."

But Flood said that wasn't good enough.

"Nuclear pretty close isn't achieved — and by the way, a lot of this is handled in a classified setting with actual metrics and actual updates," Flood explained.

"And that is not something that can be shared on CNN or any other network right now," he added. "You know, we are into this now. We have a mission to rid ourselves of, of a nuclear prepared Iran. The people of America have checks and balances and that there's going to be a request for supplemental. There are certain limitations on how long the president can engage in this way. There's going to have to be an opportunity for the White House to share with Congress where they're at. And I know that the guys behind me that are 100% for not only the cattle industry, but national security and safety from a terrorism sponsor. We want it all. We want all of the above. And I think we can have it, but it doesn't happen on a 24-hour news cycle. It happens over time. And it happens when our military leaders can go to bed at night knowing that we don't have to worry about a dirty bomb or a nuclear bomb landing somewhere in Israel or in the United States."