Following the airstrikes on Iran ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump this weekend, prominent Democratic Party leaders, as well as some Republicans, called on the GOP to bring the matter to a Senate vote.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement: “We must enforce the War Powers Act and I’m urging [Senate Majority] Leader [John] Thune to put it on the Senate floor immediately.”
While Republican leaders and many rank-and-file members stood by Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s major nuclear enrichment facilities, at least two GOP lawmakers joined Democrats in suggesting it was unconstitutional to bomb Iran without approval from Congress.
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) wrote on X, “While President Trump’s decision may prove just, it’s hard to conceive a rationale that’s Constitutional. I look forward to his remarks tonight.” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) tweeted: “This is not Constitutional.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is aligned ideologically with the left flank of the Democratic Party, said during a speech in Tulsa, Okla., that Trump’s actions were “grossly unconstitutional.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) blasted on X both the action that Trump ordered and what she described as its absence of constitutional legitimacy. “The President’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers,” she wrote.
David Friedman, former ambassador to Israel during Trump’s first term in office, replied to Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet, writing on X: “The president just saved millions of lives by eliminating the threat of a nuclear attack by a radical Islamist regime. He acted fully in accordance with law. The fact that you see this so negatively disqualifies you from serious leadership.”
The U.S. Constitution puts the power to declare war in Congress’s hands; Congress has not declared war on any nation since 1942.
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of military action. The law also limits the deployment of armed forces beyond 90 days in the absence of a formal declaration of war.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at a press conference on Sunday said of Congress: “They were notified after the planes were safely out. But we complied with the notification requirements of the War Powers Act.”
Trump said strikes in Iran would continue unless Iran commits to abandoning its nuclear program and shuts it down.
Flanked by Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the U.S. president warned in a short statement that any future attacks on Iran would be “far worse and a lot easier.”
The U.S. had “many targets left” and is ready to pursue them with “speed, precision and skill,” Trump said.