Congress bows to Trump on War

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]Is it time for Congress to weigh in on the war in Iran, especially now that we're past the 60-day threshold?

[00:00:05]>> I don't think we have any active kinetic uh military bombing, firing, anything like that. Right now, we're trying to broker a peace, and it would be I would be very reluctant to get in front of the administration in the midst of these very sensitive negotiations. So, we'll have to see how that plays out.

[00:00:19]>> But the Constitution specifically states >> 60 days.

[00:00:23]>> But the president has called it a war.

[00:00:25]You're saying we're not at war right now? I'm saying that we do not have uh milit kinetic military action at the moment. We're policing the straight of hormuz and trying to get to a peace. The the president and the administration are moving as aggressively as possible.

[00:00:37]There's nothing Congress can do to move that along any further. Um so we'll see how it plays out. That's my position.

[00:00:42]You guys >> So Mike Johnson, one of the greatest goalpost movers in history, is just flatout rejecting constitutional requirements in order to appease his master in Donald Trump. So here's the deal. Today is the last day that constitutionally Trump is supposed to be prosecuting a war in Iran. Tomorrow, Congress should have to vote on continuing this war via an authorization for use of military force or a declaration of war. The Trump administration and Mike Johnson know that they won't get that. So, they're refraraming the argument as this is not a war. That is patently absurd. Congress is the body specifically empowered in article one of the constitution to make war. Later on in history, Congress and the president created a a terrible loophole with the War Powers Resolution, granting the president the power to make war for 60 days without congressional approval. Well, today is day 60.

[00:01:36]Tomorrow the war should end or Congress should be involved. The president doesn't get to drop 180,000 pounds of ordinance on another sovereign nation and not call it a war. Under basic law of war doctrine, a blockade is an act of war. And the Supreme Court has actually stated, quote, "One belligerent engaged in an actual war has a right to blockade the ports of the other." In other words, a blockade is a belligerent war power.

[00:02:01]It belongs to war. It is not a peacetime operation. But Mike Johnson, that sniveling Trump sickopant, is trying to make the law meaningless. What he's essentially saying is every administration could just cycle between conducting strikes, then pausing for peace talks, waiting a bit, renaming the operation, and then striking again.

[00:02:20]Because that is exactly what Trump did.

[00:02:22]We struck Iran last year for Midnight Hammer, an act of war. Moved to negotiations, negotiations failed. So, we struck again under Epic Fury, and now we're back into negotiations. Is this the cycle we're just going to be going through in order to avoid the Constitution? In order to avoid the war powers resolution? And you notice what Johnson does here because he always does it. The interviewer says the president himself calls this a war. Johnson does not really answer that. He retreats into the phrase kinetic military action. But the fact is war is not limited to the instant a bomb leaves an aircraft and then ends the instant after it explodes.

[00:02:59]War includes the campaign itself, the blockade, the military coercion, the rules of engagement, the risk to US forces and the threat of escalation, as well as the use of force or the threat to that force to compel another sovereign state into doing what the attacker wants. Johnson also says, "We are policing the straight of Hormuz."

[00:03:20]That's doing a lot of heavy lifting here. That phrase is designed to make what is actually a military blockade sound like just some sort of traffic control problem. It's a traffic control point. This despite the fact that the Trump administration has consistently used the term blockade and throughout all of history, a blockade was considered an act of war. If US forces are controlling access to Iranian shipping, restricting movements in or out of Iranian ports, interdicting vessels, shooting at them, and forcing maritime exclusion, that is not just policing. That is a belligerent maritime act, aka a wartime act. It's the exact thing Congress is supposed to authorize.

[00:04:02]But Johnson and MAGA consistently put Trump ahead of the Constitution. Johnson says he does not want to get in front of the administration during sensitive negotiations. That is Congress surrendering here. He is surrendering.

[00:04:13]That is not what the Constitution says.

[00:04:16]Congress is not supposed to be a spectator to the president's war. That was never the design. Congress was not supposed to just wait quietly while the executive branch decides whether it wants to keep fighting or pause fighting or escalate or rebrand the conflict as policing. Congress has the power to authorize war. fund war, restrict war, and end unauthorized hostilities.

[00:04:39]Period. End of story. That responsibility does not disappear because there's some sort of pseudo negotiations while Trump is tweeting that Iran is going to pay as he is surrounded by his AI explosions. And probably the worst statement that Johnson made is there is nothing Congress can do to move that along any further. That is completely false.

[00:05:00]You're the [ __ ] speaker of the house and you know better. Congress can pass an authorization for use of military force if it believes the mission is necessary. Congress can define the enemy, the objective, the geographic scope, the duration, and the limit.

[00:05:13]Congress can require additional reporting. They can prohibit offensive operations past the blockade. They can prevent the blockade. Congress can bar funds from being used for all of this without authorization. They can hold hearings and they can force members in Congress to take a public position on this war, but they're cowards because they don't want to be on record either going against Trump or voting for an extraordinarily unpopular war. When Johnson says Congress can do nothing, what he really means is Congress does not want to own anything. They're just freeloaders at this point that we are paying for. That is the entire problem.

[00:05:50]If this mission is necessary, authorize it. Define it. Define the limits. Define what success looks like. And if you refuse to authorize it, then the administration should be required to wind down unauthorized hostilities and any blockade or blockade like enforcement operation while limiting US forces to genuine defensive actions in the region. But apparently Johnson thinks 180,000 pounds of ammunition and a blockade aren't enough to trigger Congress. Well then what the hell is? We had boots on ground briefly in Iran to rescue a pilot and thank God we did. But that is the very definition of Congress having the decision-making power to put troops in harm's way. Those troops were in harm's way. Clearly, Congress is our direct representation for a reason because it is our sons and daughters and brothers and fathers and mothers going to harm's way.

[00:06:40]Trump is not a king that should be able to just deploy our troops whenever he sees fit with Congress being cowards in the background. But like I said a couple of times, Johnson doesn't care. MAGA doesn't care. They will step on the Constitution. They will [ __ ] on the law so long as their pseudo King Trump says it's okay. Under Mike Johnson and Donald Trump's leadership, I don't even know why we have a Constitution at this point because they don't read it whatsoever.