Trump's Unauthorized War

"A president does not have the constitutional authority to send the country to war on his own. Trump is, as he writes in his letter, the commander in chief of the U.S. military, but the Constitution explicitly grants Congress the power to declare war. That design choice represented a radical break from the monarchies of Europe, where kings and queens had the ability to decide when to mobilize their countries to war."

"Trump's willingness to single-handedly drag the country into conflict reflects his approach to executive authority more broadly: He takes already extreme conceptions of expansive presidential power and stretches them even further, remaking the presidency into something more like the monarchies reviled by America's Founders."

"The dynamic between the president and Congress over Iran reflects the problem that has plagued the American political system since Trump's 2025 inauguration. Trump has pushed and exceeded the limits of executive power. Congress, though weakened, could respond if it wanted to. But under the control of a GOP subservient to the president, the legislature refuses to take up its constitutional responsibilities."

The Trump administration conducted bombing strikes against Iran without providing clear legal justification beyond the President's constitutional role as Commander in Chief. Democrats in Congress have criticized the military action as illegal and unconstitutional. The situation highlights a broader constitutional crisis where Trump has expanded executive power beyond traditional limits, while the Republican-controlled Congress has abdicated its constitutional responsibility to declare war. The Constitution explicitly grants Congress, not the President, the power to declare war—a deliberate departure from European monarchies where rulers held unilateral war authority. Despite this constitutional framework, Congress has remained largely absent from the decision-making process.

Read at The Atlantic