Trump Says He Will Not Ask Congress for War Power

President Trump has no appetite for, and will not seek, war authority from Congress, despite the fact that Republicans control both chambers and overwhelmingly support the strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Asked if he would ever request authorization for war with Iran, the president told RealClearPolitics, “No, I do not believe so.”

Trump and the War Powers Act

The defiant assessment from the executive comes as Democrats, along with a small faction of Republicans, intend to invoke the War Powers Act, a Vietnam-era resolution that limits the ability of presidents to deploy troops without congressional authority.

Only Congress, not the president, they insist, can declare war.

During a brief Monday evening interview with RCP, the president seemed relatively unconcerned with the possibility of a congressional rebuke, a handful of Republican defections, and reports that the stockpile of US missile interceptors may be running low. He stressed, instead, the ongoing “big victory” coalition forces are pulling off against a now-decapitated Tehran.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor Monday to call on Congress to reconvene and vote. “Donald Trump has just launched America into a full-scale conflict against one of our most fervent adversaries without a plan, without an endgame, and without authorization from Congress,” he said, “or even a debate in full view of the American people.”

Democrats argue that the strikes are not only unconstitutional but also dangerous. “The American people want us to focus on making their life better, making their life more affordable, not getting involved in another endless war in the Middle East that is going to end in failure,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN Monday.

An old debate

These objections are nothing new. Schumer previously tried to advance a resolution that would bar the Trump administration from engaging in hostilities inside Venezuela without Congressional authorization. The vote failed after Vice President JD Vance broke a 50-50 deadlock to dismiss the bill. The White House now faces renewed opposition from its right flank: Rep. Thomas Massie plans to partner with Democrats to introduce a war powers resolution to block future action in Iran.

The Kentucky Republican has become a perennial thorn in the side of the White House and inspired a Trump-backed primary challenger.

“Well, Thomas Massie is now losing his election by 35 points. I wouldn’t rely too much on him or any of them,” Trump replied when asked about that effort before reiterating that “no,” he would not seek congressional authority. “We’re having a big victory, and we’re taking the nuclear weapon concept away from Iran. They would have had one, and if they had one, the world would be in deep trouble,” the president said of the air strikes that have crippled the regime so far. So, I don’t believe so.”

Trump has embraced a more muscular view of executive authority since returning to the Oval Office and demonstrated little patience for the legislature in the process. He did not seek permission to strike alleged drug boats. He just sunk them.

No need for a formal declaration of war

“I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war,” Trump told RealClearPolitics last October when asked about strikes against alleged cartel boats in the Caribbean off the coasts of Colombia and Venezuela. “I think we are going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We are going to kill them, you know? They are going to be, like, dead.”

Members of his administration described that operation as “a war” at the time. Trump has described his attack on Iran, a much larger operation, in similar terms, noting that casualties are often an unfortunate inevitability of conflict and explaining that “often happens in war.”

Administration officials are now descending on Capitol Hill to make their case for the military operation after the fact. They take a dim view of efforts to check Trump’s power.

“We’ve complied with the law 100%, and we’re going to continue to comply with it,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters after briefing lawmakers on the status of the war. “We did notify members of Congress. We just can’t notify 535 people. That’s not possible. But we did the Gang of Eight twice. I briefed them last week, and then I called them the night before the operation.”

Rubio shrugged off the possibility of a congressional rebuke.

If they want to take a war powers vote, they can do that. They’ve done that. They’ve done that a bunch of times. No presidential administration has ever accepted the War Powers Act as constitutional, not Republican presidents, not democratic presidents. That said, we have followed the notification at 48 hours, and we’re here today.

An attrition race

Though the war is still new, a challenge is emerging. Washington and Tehran are in a tight race to see what runs out first: Iranian attack drones or American air-defense interceptors. Trump has said that the operation could last weeks, a timeline that experts warn could deplete stockpiles of munitions for US Patriot and THAAD missile defense systems. A prolonged war could require a resupply and a congressional appropriation to buy them.

The president seemed unconcerned with this possibility late Monday evening.

“No, we have a lot of a tremendous amount of backlog for our medium and higher, higher than medium, much higher than medium, weapons,” Trump said when asked about the weapons supply. “We have unlimited – literally unlimited.”

“They don’t have it,” he then said of the anti-air munitions. “You know Iran has no air defense whatsoever, you know that right? You will see that shortly.”

 “We have a lot,” the president concluded. “We are stockpiled very well.”

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.