Trump tells Congress "hostilities" with Iran have "terminated" as authorization deadline arrives

Added: 2026-05-08

[00:00:00]And switching gears here, President Trump told Congress in a letter today that hostilities with Iran have {quote} terminated. This comes today as today marks the 60-day deadline established by the War Powers Act for the president to carry out military actions without congressional approval. CBS News national security analyst Aaron McFarland Eric Aaron McLean joins me now. Aaron, thank you. It's great to see you. Sorry for that little tongue tied today. Um I want to talk about this letter that the president has sent Congress. Uh pretty simple, but it's saying that hostilities have been terminated. So, is it that simple? Uh it's not that simple. At a substantive military level, I think the problem with that assertion is the blockade.

[00:00:41]Blockades are acts of war. This blockade specifically has already seen the United States Navy fire on at least one Iranian ship. Several others have been forcibly boarded. So, it's pretty tenuous as a statement of fact to say that hostilities have just ended. But then there's this political level. The US Congress doesn't really pass authorizations for the use of military force anymore. Uh we haven't done so since shortly after 9/11 and then the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. And this AUMF, as they're called, would have to pass the Senate where it's subject to a filibuster. And to overcome a filibuster, you need 60 votes, which means you need democratic votes in addition to ideally most of your Republican votes.

[00:01:16]I'll leave it to you, Caitlin, to judge the odds of that happening, but I don't think they're high. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I don't think this is a vote that a lot of these lawmakers, Republican lawmakers, want to take at this point. So, this seems to give them an out. I mean, it also comes as the president has said that he doesn't like the deal that Iran has put forward. We don't know what the details are of this deal. We haven't seen it yet. But I'm wondering if you could kind of, you know, take a guess as to what he may not like about it.

[00:01:41]>> Yeah, so the the details aren't clear, but it does seem to be that the the conversation is still centered around the dueling blockades. Our blockade of Iranian ports, their closure of the Strait of Hormuz. And it appears that in this most recent deal, whereas before they wanted us to lift the blockade more or less as a first movement of good faith and then they would consider reopening the strait. It seems like maybe now they're considering more simultaneiting those two things. But what that leaves out is everything else.

[00:02:05]In particular of interest to this administration right now, the nuclear issue. So, they're basically saying, "You stop the blockade, we'll talk about how we'll open the strait." Not totally clear what the details there would be.

[00:02:14]And then later, later we'll deal with all these issues which were your original war aims. It's not totally surprising that President Trump is reacting neg- negatively to that. And the two sides seem like they're still pretty far apart. I mean, on the Strait of Hormuz, the Treasury Department has said that ships passing through should not pay Iran. Um I mean, is that feasible? And what kind of impact would that have?

[00:02:35]>> Well, there's there's a geopolitical core geopolitical issue here, which is to allow the Iranians to essentially impose their sovereign control over an international strait uh would be catastrophic for frankly for world order, not to be too dramatic. But if that becomes the state of play in these kinds of choke points, you're looking at a whole new kind of world. And then as a legal question for these carriers, if you are transacting funds with the Islamic Republic, you are transacting you're doing business with a sanctioned entity. So, you're at substantial legal risk if you play by their game. Of course, if you don't play by their game right now, you might get shot at by them. So, the carriers are really in a bind. The closure of the strait is a real problem for the world and for the Trump administration. And at some point if this game of economic chicken continues, I wonder if the Trump administration won't start asking itself, is it time for us to force this thing open? Right. And I mean, I'm also thinking of yes, the declaration that this is terminated. I mean, if you just look back at the stated goals going into this, um you know, what what has been met at this point?

[00:03:36]>> Right. So, if we think about those original war aims, you had the navy. I think the Iranian navy is is probably the closest to a war aim that was accomplished. But that doesn't address the so-called mosquito fleet, the small fast boats that could be used to continue to keep the strait closed as as in fact they are. You have the Iranian missile program and its defense industrial base degraded but not eliminated, still there. Then you have terror proxies. I haven't heard any discussion of terror proxies as part of these negotiations. Maybe it'll be part of a deal, but I haven't heard any part of it right now. And then of course, there's the nuclear program, which remains front of mind for President Trump. And the president has also said that um all of this action it would take Iran 20 years to rebuild. Um is is that true?

[00:04:14]What's your assessment?

[00:04:15]>> Well, it is it is important to keep in mind for as much as we are concerned and I think the world is rightly concerned about what the consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are going to be in the weeks and months to come. The Iran the Iranian economy has been absolutely hammered by this. It wasn't in great shape before. They were just to site one example, water shortages in Tehran before this conflict began. So, the the the essentially the the shutting down of normal business in the country as a consequence of this war, the ongoing blockade, it's pretty perilous for Iran right now. Let alone the threat of another wave of strikes going after economic targets should hostilities resume, which the president didn't rule out again today in his remarks. So, the Iranians are in pretty bad shape.

[00:04:53]Um well, we will pay attention to what comes next in this deal, but this is a significant letter to Congress they think the political implications are something that a lot of these lawmakers wanted to get this letter today for their own political sake. Aaron McLean, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.