The President seemed to suggest that the legislative deadline to approve war no longer applies as Democrats push back.<\/p>\n
Donald Trump stated in a letter sent to congressional leaders on Friday that hostilities with Iran have \u201cterminated,\u201d suggesting that the 60-day deadline to seek approval from the legislative branch no longer applied.<\/p>\n
Friday marked 60 days since the U.S. president notified members of Congress that the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran on February 28. Under the War Powers Act of 1973<\/strong>, the president can deploy troops to respond to an \u201cimminent threat\u201d but must receive congressional approval within 60 days to continue military operations.<\/p>\n In the letter, dated May 1, Trump said he initiated Operation Epic Fury against Iran and notified Congress on February 28 \u201cconsistent with my responsibility to protect Americans and United States interests at home and abroad, and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn April 7, 2026, I ordered a 2-week ceasefire,\u201d the letter, addressed to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, the president pro tempore of the Senate, continues. \u201cThe ceasefire has since been extended. There has been no exchange of fire between United States Forces and Iran since April 7, 2026. The hostilities that began on February 28, 2026, have terminated.\u201d<\/p>\n The letter effectively waves off the May 1 legal deadline, which was already expected to lapse without intervention from Republican lawmakers, most of whom have been reluctant to challenge the president\u2019s unilateral use of force.<\/p>\n As he departed the White House on Friday, Trump told reporters that he had no intention of seeking congressional approval for the military campaign because \u201cit\u2019s never been sought before\u201d and suggested the War Powers Act was \u201ctotally unconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNobody\u2019s ever asked for it before. It\u2019s never been used before. Why should we be different?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s letter underscores an interpretation of the War Powers Act that is fiercely contested by legal scholars and Democrats, who have argued for weeks that the president\u2019s war in Iran tramples the separation of powers between the three branches of government.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s bullshit,\u201d the Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, said on X. \u201cThis is an illegal war and every day Republicans remain complicit and allow it to continue is another day lives are endangered, chaos erupts, and prices increase, all while Americans foot the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Trump\u2019s declaration \u201cdoesn\u2019t reflect the reality that tens of thousands of U.S. service members in the region are still in harm\u2019s way, that the administration continually threatens to escalate hostilities or that the Strait of Hormuz remains closed and prices are skyrocketing at home.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Trump entered this war without a strategy and without legal authorization and today\u2019s announcement doesn\u2019t change either fact,\u201d Shaheen wrote.<\/p>\n On Friday, the ACLU sent a letter to the White House, expressing \u201cprofound concern\u201d that the president was \u201ccarrying out an illegal war.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEven a quick reading of the short and clearly written War Powers Resolution makes clear that there is no pause button \u2013 and certainly no reset button \u2013 under the statute,\u201d the ACLU letter states.<\/p>\n The letter comes one day after Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, put forward a similar argument in his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. In an exchange with the Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who has forced a vote on several ultimately unsuccessful war powers resolutions on the Iran war, Hegseth claimed that \u201cthe 60-day clock pauses or stops in a ceasefire.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI do not believe the statute would support that,\u201d Kaine said, adding that Trump\u2019s prosecution of the war raised \u201cserious constitutional concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n On Thursday, Senate Republicans again blocked a war powers resolution brought by Democrats aimed at ending the conflict in Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if you accept the premise that Trump\u2019s war in Iran was responding to an imminent threat, which I certainly don\u2019t, under the War Powers Act he has no authority to continue this war past 60 days,\u201d Adam Schiff, a California Democratic Senator who brought the latest war powers resolution, said in a statement after the failed vote on Thursday.<\/p>\n Though Trump has previously claimed that the war would be over \u201cvery soon,\u201d his letter made clear that the operation was very much ongoing.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite the success of United States operations against the Iranian regime and continued efforts to secure a lasting peace, the threat posed by Iran to the United States and our Armed Forces remains significant,\u201d Trump stated in the letter, adding that the Pentagon would continue to \u201cupdate its force posture\u201d across the region \u201cas necessary and appropriate, to address Iranian and Iranian proxy forces\u2019 threats.\u201d<\/p>\n #Trump #Iran #WarPowersAct #CongressionalApproval #USPolitics #ForeignPolicy #Ceasefire #ConstitutionalLaw #Democrats #Republican<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The President seemed to suggest that the legislative deadline to approve war no longer applies as Democrats push back. Donald Trump stated in a letter sent to congressional leaders on Friday that hostilities with Iran have \u201cterminated,\u201d suggesting that the 60-day deadline to seek approval from the legislative branch no longer applied. Friday marked 60 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iran-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}