WASHINGTON ― House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) doesn’t think the House should vote on a resolution aimed at curtailing President Donald Trump’s powers to wage war against Iran without approval from Congress.
“I don’t think this is an appropriate time for a war powers resolution, and I don’t think it’s necessary,” Johnson told reporters at the Capitol on Monday.
Democrats have characterized the strike on Iran as yet another Trump power grab, since the Constitution gives Congress the authority to declare war. Johnson pointed out presidents have been authorizing military strikes on their own for years under their constitutional authority as commanders of the armed forces.
“President Obama went on an eight-month campaign bombing Libya to take down the regime there. I never heard a Democrat balk about any of that. And suddenly now, they’re just up in arms. It’s all politics. This is not a time for politics,” Johnson said.
The 1973 War Powers Resolution law requires the president to consult with Congress when engaging U.S. forces in hostilities and allows fast-track procedures for votes on resolutions terminating U.S. involvement in armed conflicts.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) in the House, along with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) in the Senate, last week introduced resolutions that would terminate hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Democratic leaders still haven’t coalesced, however, after Trump authorized bombing raids against Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities over the weekend. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for a war powers vote while House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) declined to say Monday if he supported the Khanna-Massie measure.
“Haven’t taken a look at it,” Jeffries said in response to a question from HuffPost.
Still, Jeffries faulted Trump for failing to seek approval from Congress or even briefing lawmakers in advance of its attack on Iran. He said the House could consider a war powers resolution ― “whether that’s the one that has already been introduced or others that may subsequently be introduced” ― after hearing from administration officials in a classified briefing scheduled for Tuesday.
“Not a scintilla of evidence to date has been presented that I have seen to justify the notion that there was an imminent threat to the United States of America,” Jeffries said. “If the administration has evidence to the contrary, come up to present it.”
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of national intelligence, testified in March that as far as the intelligence community could tell, “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon,” but Trump said over the weekend Gabbard was wrong.
