The President\u2019s argument echoed what Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Trump also suggested on Friday that he believes the requirement to withdraw US forces within 60 days is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost people consider it totally unconstitutional,\u201d Trump told reporters. \u201cAlso, we had a ceasefire, so that gives you additional time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrats immediately pushed back. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) described Trump\u2019s argument in a post on X as \u201cbulls***\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump declaring the war with Iran \u2018terminated\u2019 doesn\u2019t reflect the reality that tens of thousands of US 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 Senator Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump entered this war without a strategy and without legal authorisation and today\u2019s announcement doesn\u2019t change either fact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump is not the first President to argue that he is not bound by the 60-day deadline. President Barack Obama bombed Libya for more than 60 days without seeking authorisation from Congress, and President Bill Clinton did the same in Kosovo. (Clinton\u2019s administration argued that Congress implicitly authorised the strikes by passing legislation to fund them within 60 days.)<\/p>\n
The War Powers Resolution gives presidents an additional 30 days to remove US forces if they certify that it is an \u201cunavoidable military necessity\u201d, but the administration does not appear to have sought such an extension.<\/p>\n
Some Senate Republicans have said in recent weeks that they view the 60-day mark as an important deadline.<\/p>\n
Senator John Curtis (R-Utah) said he would not support more funding for military operations against Iran unless Congress declared war. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Congress would need to authorise the war if it exceeded 60 days.<\/p>\n
Collins joined Democrats and Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) in voting on Thursday to advance a war powers resolution directing Trump to withdraw US forces. The Senate rejected the resolution \u2013 the sixth on which Democrats have forced a vote \u2013 on a 47-50 vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Constitution gives Congress an essential role in decisions of war and peace, and the War Powers Act establishes a clear 60-day deadline for Congress to either authorise or end US involvement in foreign hostilities,\u201d Collins said in a statement on her vote. \u201cThat deadline is not a suggestion; it is a requirement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The President\u2019s argument echoed what Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday in testimony before the Senate Armed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[806,210189,23552,6150,8310,210188,45688,2178,5760,4999,65838,305,692,42,4508,169809,16609,185,205803,6712,40571,647,43,26859,2572,20488,46400,312,95585,1361,40,38,41,39,2179,53923,102],"class_list":["post-408476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-as","tag-authorise","tag-claimed","tag-conflict","tag-congress","tag-congressional","tag-deadline","tag-donald","tag-force","tag-friday","tag-halt","tag-have","tag-he","tag-headlines","tag-hits","tag-hostilities","tag-iran","tag-is","tag-lawmakers","tag-legal","tag-letter","tag-military","tag-news","tag-operations","tag-president","tag-reached","tag-requires","tag-says","tag-terminated","tag-that","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trump","tag-unless","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}