Democratic lawmakers pushed legislation in both chambers of Congress last week with the aim of limiting President Donald Trump’s war powers — something they sought in his first term and began gunning for again ahead of his second inauguration.
This campaign, spearheaded in the House by Republican Thomas Massie (Ky.) and in the Senate by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.), picked up steam in the wake of Israel’s June 12 military strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and amid suggestions by the likes of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that America’s direct involvement in the conflict was a foregone conclusion.
Although greatly strained by a continued exchange of explosives, the ceasefire between Iran and Israel that Trump announced on Monday and repaired Tuesday morning appears to have sapped much of the energy from lawmakers’ war power delimitation campaign.
After all, it appears that Trump’s controversial bombings — the kind that Democratic Reps. Ro Khanna (Calif.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Chuy Garcia (Ill.), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) don’t think the president should be able to order — did not pave America’s way into another protracted Middle Eastern entanglement but rather paved the way to an exit for all parties involved.
In other words, campaigners must now convince their peers that Trump must be deprived of the powers he just used for a back-burn that spared Israel and its neighbors from a greater conflagration.
Massie noted several hours before Trump announced the ceasefire that his war powers resolution to prohibit America’s involvement in Iran had 57 co-sponsors.
“Whether you like it or not Congress will be voting on U.S. hostilities in Iran,” tweeted Massie. “Under the War Powers Act, the President is required to withdraw from hostilities in Iran within 60 days (+30 days ext.) unless he gets a vote of Congress.”
The congressman changed his tune Monday evening, telling reporters, “I talked to the speaker on the floor just now and told him we wouldn’t push [the measure] if the ceasefire holds, so it’s really in their court,” reported Politico.
‘I still think we need to do it.’
Regardless of whether the ceasefire holds, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) made clear that the measure had no chance of survival, adding that Massie should “do right by the country and do right by the Republican team here” by dropping the measure.
Democrats, meanwhile, indicated that they still want to hold the doomed vote on the basis of hypotheticals and with the aim of virtue-signaling.
“We may … have a conflict in the future, and we need to be on record saying no offensive war in Iran without prior authorization,” Khanna told Axios.
Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern (Mass.) said, “I still think we need to do it.”
“This is a serious matter. Congress ought to debate this,” McGovern told Axios. “I complained about when Obama took action without congressional authorization; I complained when Biden did as well.”
With Massie’s initiative now virtually dead, New York Rep. Greg Meeks (D) is reportedly preparing to introduce his own war powers resolution, which looks to be an exercise in futility, given the “hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran” he seeks to end are apparently already finished.
‘I acted pursuant to my constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive.’
Over in the Senate, the delimitation campaign similarly shows signs of stalling.
Kaine has delayed scheduling a vote on his resolution until he and his colleagues receive a classified briefing Tuesday afternoon on the conflict. Even if the vote proceeds, it’s unlikely to go anywhere.
Blaze News senior politics editor Christopher Bedford noted that “most senators hate hard votes, war is a hard vote, and most of them like a belligerent foreign policy. So there’s not really any serious, broad will in the Senate to retake war powers. It would take a whole lot more than this to change that.”
Contrary to his critics’ framing, Trump insists that he had the right to order the the strikes on the Iranian nuclear sites.
“I directed this military action consistent with my responsibility to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad as well as in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests,” he noted in a Monday letter to House Speaker Johnson. “I acted pursuant to my constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive and pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct United States foreign relations.”
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