Mike Johnson Thinks Trump Should Have Even More of Congress’ Warmaking Power
The U.S. is not currently at war with Iran, though that could apparently change at any moment. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump bombed Iranian nuclear enrichment sites in an attempt to forestall its ability to produce a nuclear weapon. He has insisted ever since that the U.S. is not at war.
Trump did not seek Congress’ approval, violating not just the Constitution but the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (sometimes also called the War Powers Act). One of his allies now says the latter act unnecessarily ties the president’s hand and may even be unconstitutional. But opposing limitations on the president’s power to make war is a bipartisan tradition. And if the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional, it’s because it gives the president too much power, not too little.
“Many respected constitutional experts argue that the War Powers Act is itself unconstitutional. I’m persuaded by that argument,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R–La.) said this week. “They think it’s a violation of the Article II powers of the commander in chief. I think that’s right.”
Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, while Article II, Section 2, names the president “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy.” In other words, the president is charged with fighting a war, but Congress retains the ability to start and fund it.
But over time, Congress abdicated this role: It last declared war in 1941, and yet American troops have since been deployed in numerous overseas conflicts. Some were preceded by a congressional authorization for the use of military force, but there have been no official declarations of war in more than eight decades.
Amid revelations that during the Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon secretly bombed and invaded Cambodia, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, “to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities.”
The law requires the president to “consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities.” Without a congressional declaration of war or authorization of military force, the president’s ability to act is limited to “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”
“In the absence of a declaration of war, in any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced” into a hostile or immin
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