Will Congress ever stand up to the president on war powers?
Shout! Let us loudly praise two congressmen from opposite ends of the American political divide.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) introduced a resolution to prohibit the president from using military force against Iran without congressional approval. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) introduced a companion resolution in the Senate, which was blocked, largely on party lines, on Friday.
The three are standing tall, but they are also standing alone.
Not a single House Republican joined Massie in defending the Constitution. Khanna brought along a few Democrats, including progressive star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), to defend the nation's founding document, its cornerstone, which says that only Congress has the authority to start a war.
'The Constitution,' Massie shouted to covered ears in the cowering Congress, 'does not permit the executive branch to unilaterally commit an act of war against a sovereign nation that hasn't attacked the United States. Congress has the sole power to declare war against Iran. The ongoing war between Israel and Iran is not our war. Even if it were, Congress must decide such matters, according to our Constitution.'
And here is Khanna with a similarly lonely shout in the night, voicing the same truth to his caucus of congressional Democrats: 'The American people do not want to be dragged into another disastrous conflict in the Middle East. I'm proud to lead this bipartisan War Powers Resolution with Rep. Massie to reassert that any military action against Iran must be authorized by Congress.'
Khanna and Massie are having an even harder time being heard after Trump's bombing of Iran generated little damage to U.S. forces. The absence of immediate fallout gave cover to a sea of members of Congress with eyes closed and mouths shut. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — a constitutional lawyer by training — won't even bring the resolution to a vote. He is degrading the standing of the legislature as an equal branch of government that is able to counter oversteps by the executive branch or judiciary.
The same goes for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who had once been seen — by myself and others — as someone with respect for his branch's constitutional standing as an independent force in government, designed with regional and party diversity, to best reflect the will of the American people.
Johnson and Thune look to be ducking their responsibility on starting wars out of fear of being bullied by the president. That is a rational fear. Trump is the dominant figure in the GOP. He is calling for Massie to be primaried over his opposition to the 'big, beautiful bill,' and a Kentucky MAGA PAC is reportedly forming to fulfill the president's wish and take out Massie.
Trump attacked Massie on social media: 'Massie is weak, ineffective, and votes 'NO' on virtually everything put before him … MAGA should drop this pathetic LOSER, Tom Massie, like the plague! The good news is that we will have a wonderful American Patriot running against him in the Republican Primary, and I'll be out in Kentucky campaigning really hard.'
Some of the Trump loyalists now condemning Massie once had long knives out for congressional critics of the Bush administration's 2002 decision to go to war in Iraq. They called them 'unpatriotic.'
But the Constitution makes clear in Article I that Congress — not the president — holds the power to declare war. Yet the U.S. has not fought a congressionally declared war since World War II. Presidents have relied on politically convenient 'authorizations' and 'resolutions' as legal fig leaves ever since.
To be fair, no president has recognized the legitimacy of the War Powers Act since it was passed in 1973. The Supreme Court has not spoken. And Trump has shown a particularly brazen disregard for all constitutional limits, so it's no surprise that he'd blow past this one, too.
What is surprising — and shameful — is how long members of both parties in Congress have tolerated this erosion of their own authority.
President George W. Bush and a Republican Congress took the nation to war in Iraq with false claims about weapons of mass destruction. The cost? Thousands of American lives, tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi deaths and trillions of dollars wasted — some outright stolen.
It also left the public with good reason to doubt a president taking military action without congressional debate.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a vocal Trump supporter, posted, 'It feels like a complete bait and switch to please the neocons, warmongers, military industrial complex contracts, and neocon TV personalities that MAGA hates and who were 'NEVER TRUMPERS!''
Last Thursday, 75 American organizations involved with foreign policy and human rights issued a letter calling for a congressional vote on going to war. Even some of Trump's most devoted cheerleaders are not buying the case for unilateral action.
Former cable talk show host Tucker Carlson and former Trump White House aide Steve Bannon have voiced strong opposition to intervention in Iran.
H.L. Mencken, the renowned newspaperman, famously wrote, 'All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.'
When it comes to backing the start of a war, most everyone in Washington for the last 50 years has been a fraud. Only a principled few — like Massie, Khanna and Kaine — have earned the right to deny it.
Juan Williams is senior political analyst for Fox News Channel and a prize-winning civil rights historian. He is the author of the new book 'New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement.'
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