OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Directing the President Pursuant to Section 5(C) of the War Powers Resolution to Remove United States Armed Forces From Unauthorized Hostilities in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Floor Speech

Date: March 4, 2026
Location: Washington, DC

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, yes, use all lawful and constitutional means. I heard one of our colleagues across the aisle just say: Well, yes, Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 does give Congress the exclusive, plenary, comprehensive power to declare war and not the President, and we could be debating it, but the President has already taken us to war, so it is too late. It would undermine the cause for us to debate it.

What a humiliating, self-defeating argument for a Member of the Article I branch of Congress to make. Don't my colleagues understand that destroys our power to declare war if any President can plunge us into a war and thereby defeat our exclusive, plenary power over it?

The Framers weren't fooling around when they did that. They knew that the kings were constantly plunging their people into wars of deception, conceit, plunder, imperial avarice, and fantasy. The kings were constantly doing that. They didn't want to leave it up to one person to decide whether to send a whole country to war and to put our sons and daughters at risk.

That is an awesome and solemn responsibility that must be vested in the Representatives of the people, all the people, which is why both the House and the Senate are involved in it.

Whether my colleagues think this war is the most brilliant and strategic breakthrough and moral cause since World War II, or they think it is an absolute strategic blunder built on lies like the last wars in Iraq or the war in Afghanistan, which cost thousands of lives and more than $1 trillion, wherever my colleagues are on that policy question, can we not agree as Members of the Article I branch that it is up to us? We have to vote on it. We have to debate on it.

I am hearing very interesting and good arguments all over this spectrum on this. That is why it is reposed in the Representatives of the people to decide it. It is not Donald Trump, not JD Vance, not Tulsi Gabbard, or anybody else in the executive branch. It is our decision. Everybody should vote ``yes'' on this resolution.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT


Source
arrow_upward