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

Mr. Speaker, in Donald Trump's own words and the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's own words, the United States is at war with Iran.

The question is: Did Congress authorize the war as the Constitution requires?

Did the President present anything before Congress?

Did the Congress have any debate?

Did any administrative authority come before the House Foreign Affairs Committee to testify?

The answer to that is no.

The question is: Was there any imminent threat requiring the use of force?

The administration has not presented one. In fact, the word ``imminent'' does not appear even once in the administration's own war powers notification. Mr. Speaker, you can't find the word ``imminent.''

Did the Trump administration even bother making the case to the American people or to Congress? Just 8 days ago, during the State of the Union Address, the most visible platform a President has, he could have laid out the rationale for military action, as other Presidents have. Instead, Iran was just a footnote in a record-long speech.

This is a war of choice that was launched by this administration without authorization, without clearly stating objectives or a defined endgame, and without explaining how they intend to keep Americans safe.

The chaos unleashed will not be borne by the President's family. It will be borne by our men and women in uniform who will face retaliation from Iran and its proxy networks. It will be borne by innocent civilians at heightened risk of attacks from Iran's aligned terrorist cells. It will be borne by American families paying more for groceries, for electricity, and for gasoline, all for Donald Trump's war of choice.

Americans woke up on Saturday to the news that the United States is again at war in the Middle East. They don't know for how long because the President has not articulated a clearly defined endgame. Military action without a defined strategy invites escalation, mission creep, and failure. We should have learned this lesson already. Why? We should have learned it already from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam.

As Benjamin Franklin once said: When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

This War Powers Resolution is simple. This is not a vote on Authorization for Use of Military Force. This simply demands that the President of the United States come to Congress, as our Constitution demands, to seek authorization for what he, himself, has described as a war.

Just abide by the Constitution. We all bring our hands up and swear when we are sworn in and say we will abide by the Constitution. You would think that the President of the United States would do just that.

This War Powers Resolution does not prevent the United States from defending itself. It does not stop the President from responding to an imminent attack. It does not limit us from protecting our troops.

I have served in Congress for 28 years, and I have been in this Chamber as this body has done its most sacred and serious work deliberating whether to send our American servicemembers into harm's way. It is a difficult vote. It is a serious vote. Probably--not probably--without question, the hardest votes that I have ever had to take, but that is my responsibility. I took a pledge to the Constitution that I would follow it.

I was here for the vote after 9/11 to go into Afghanistan, a heavy decision. The President brought information in. We had dialogue. We had conversation. We had debate. We did something else. In the House Foreign Affairs Committee, we had hearings. We had administration officials come in.

I wasn't even the ranking member or the chair or anything else. I was just a member of the committee. I could call the administration and say: I need to speak to a Deputy Secretary or the Secretary, and they would come into my office, and we would have this dialogue to determine whether or not we were going to go into this war.

Has that happened now? For over a year, for all the times, not once, not once have we had a hearing in the House Foreign Affairs Committee. We have asked to have individuals who were negotiating. Unfortunately, some of them are not employed by the State Department, et cetera, like Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff, who all are friends of the President's, basically real estate negotiators who were just half an hour in Geneva, flipping back and forth from two major negotiations. If it was serious, I wouldn't have been in the White House, when the President was supposed to have been honoring individuals after we had lost the lives of six servicemembers, talking about curtains and how I redecorated the White House. This is too serious a decision for me and I would hope for the President of the United States also.

Getting the facts in Iraq, the Secretary of State came before and testified, went before the U.N., talked to the American people. Now, I disagreed because I didn't see the connections after I got the information on Iraq, so I voted no. I agreed on Afghanistan. However, the point here is, the President obeyed the Constitution because he came to Congress first and allowed the Members of Congress to make a determination.

What has happened year after year in my time here, I have watched Congress gradually relinquish its authority on matters of war to the executive branch. We have allowed overly broad Authorizations for the Use of Military Force to remain on the books. We have permitted Presidents of both parties to commit forces without a vote. This war with Iran is the most extreme example of that abdication.

The Framers rejected the idea of a king, meaning one person making a decision without consultation, without giving any reason to this body. It was absolutely rejected. We are not under an authoritarian government, like Russia, for example, where Vladimir Putin can go to war and he doesn't have to worry about the Duma. They are not a body that has the responsibility that we have in this Congress, so he can go on and fight a war that he has created without worrying about having to talk and being accountable to anyone.

Our Founding Fathers did not want that. They didn't want a king. That is why we were created as a body. It is long past time for us to reclaim and stand up for that authority, for I tell you, even though he may want to think he is, Donald Trump is not a king.

If he believes the war with Iran is in our national interests, then he must come to Congress and make the case. Show the facts. Show what the intelligence says. Come to Congress and allow us to ask the questions.

We have had three scenarios. The so-called Gang of Eight met once. Then they got another phone call right beforehand. Then the so-called Gang of 20 met once. That is all we have heard from the President.

I oppose this war of choice, but guess what, Mr. Speaker, each Member here must make clear with their own vote where they stand on that decision.

The President has initiated hostilities without a clear mission and without a coherent strategy and without a defined endgame.

Some Members of Congress may decide after they see everything--we may not see it together in the same way, but the evidence and the case comes here and then we take a vote. As was the occasion for me back in 2003, I voted one way, and the majority voted another way. The President had the authority. Another time, I voted the way the majority voted. But each time they came to us. That is what this debate is about and that is what we need to do.

Now, as I see this, the President has initiated hostilities without a clear mission, without a coherent strategy, and without a defined endgame. This open-ended, undefined military engagement is precisely what the War Powers Resolution was designed to restrain. We are not the Iranian Parliament. We are not a rubberstamp Congress, or at least we shouldn't be a rubberstamp Congress. However, in this scenario, we see that whatever this President wants, my colleagues on the other side will just rubberstamp it.

We should be a coequal branch of government, and our duty is not optional. It was written in the Constitution. The Framers gave Congress this authority because they believed no single person should have the power to take this Nation to war alone.

Today, we either defend the principle or we surrender it. I choose to defend the Constitution and defend the principle and do my job that I put my hand up and swore I would. Hard votes, easy votes, I will take them all because that is what I swore an oath to do.

Mr. Speaker, all I will say is that if Iran has been an imminent threat for 47 years, the word ``imminent'' then loses all meaning.

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Mr. MEEKS. Pelosi), the person who is the greatest Speaker in the history of the United States Congress, the first woman, and the distinguished Speaker Emerita.
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Mr. MEEKS. Clark), the esteemed whip of the Democratic Caucus.

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Mr. MEEKS. Waters), the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee.

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Mr. MEEKS.

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Mr. MEEKS. Jacobs), the House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member on the Africa Subcommittee.

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Mr. MEEKS. Mr. Speaker, I remind the gentleman that this is a Massie bill.
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Mr. MEEKS. Ansari).

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Mr. MEEKS. Omar).
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Mr. MEEKS. Mr. Speaker, I thought the President would follow the Constitution.

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Deluzio).
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Mr. MEEKS. Mr. Speaker, I never heard Donald Trump say it was an imminent threat.

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to be clear about what this resolution is not. It is not a vote for or against war with Iran. It is not an authorization for use of military force. It does not prevent the United States from defending itself. It does not restrict our U.S. military from protecting our troops or our assets or our interests.

Mr. Speaker, you may have heard some of those claims on the other side today. They are wrong.

What is the War Powers Resolution?

What is it?

It is simple. It simply requires hostilities to stop unless and until Congress does what the Constitution says it should do: authorize them. That is what the Constitution says. It affirms a basic principle: No President can take this action or take this Nation to war against whomever whenever that President wishes to do it without congressional authorization.

This is a war. The administration has said so themselves. We have heard many Members on the other side of the aisle say this is a war. This is a war, but it is a war of choice, not a war authorized by the United States Congress.

In the administration's own war powers notification--and if you haven't read it, we will give it to you--they do not use or mention the word ``imminent'' at all, not once. The administration has presented no imminent threat. Why? It is because it cannot.

I want to give my colleagues the definition of the word ``imminent.'' If it was so imminent, Donald Trump didn't do anything when he was the President before.

How long will this war last? We don't know. The administration doesn't seem to know. Their stated objectives are expansive and shifting every day. They seem to shift. One day I heard them say it was regime change. The next day I heard them say it is nuclear weapons. Then after that, it was ballistic missiles, and then we heard the Secretary of State say Israel was going to strike first, and so we felt we had to. Otherwise, Iran would strike first.

Mr. Speaker, this administration's case for war makes the Bush administration's weapons of mass destruction story look like a well- documented Ph.D. dissertation.

Now, to the Members of Congress who disagree with my opposition to this war: I disagree because I have listened and I have heard, and I disagree with this war. But I say to them: If you disagree with this war, it is your prerogative, but you should vote. We should have a vote.

This vote is not about whether or not you support military action. It is about whether you believe Congress should have a say. In essence, it kind of meant should we exist. The Constitution said we should exist. We were created as a country because they were running from a king who did not want a Congress, who didn't have a Congress, who could just do whatever he wanted.

That is why the first thing that the Founders said is Congress should be the only one that had the power. Leader Jeffries said--and he went back to a Republican Member of the House of Representatives, Abraham Lincoln, who said: ``The provisions of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us''--no one man.

We took an oath. We swore to uphold Article I of the Constitution. Our constituents expect us to deliberate on matters of war and peace.

Did we deliberate on it? No.

Have we had hearings in the House Foreign Affairs Committee? No.

Have we had Mr. Jared Kushner here to talk about it? He was supposed to have been negotiating. No.

Have we had Steve Witkoff here? No.

Have we had anyone other than--they came for other reasons; we were able to ask a few questions--than Secretary Rubio come? No.

Has there been not dialogue and conversation? We have the so-called Gang of Eight, and they want to say that is notification. Well, let's talk about it. We didn't ever debate anything on the floor of the House.

How many times has the Gang of Eight met? Once. Speaker Johnson would say that is sufficient. Even in that, this imminent strike was never mentioned. We heard from Mr. Himes, who is part of the Gang of Eight. The next time the Gang of Eight was heard was only a few hours before the one who wants to be king said he was going to attack. That is the only dialogue and conversation that took place before the strike.

There has been no debate on the floor, no trying to talk to the Members of Congress and, most importantly, the American people because just before the State of the Union, when the President had the whole world, we heard a whole 2-hour speech, the longest in the history of these United States of America, Iran was hardly a mention. If it was an imminent threat, I would think he would want to tell the Nation at that time that we had to do something imminently.

We have soldiers who have died, and the President starts talking about curtains and reconstruction and putting gold things up because he likes it. He told families, Gold Star families now unfortunately, that it wasn't serious enough.

This is a serious situation. Congress is a coequal branch of government. The Framers vested the war powers in this body because they believed no single person should bring this Nation to war alone, and so today we either defend our principles or surrender it. I urge my colleagues to join me in defending it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. MEEKS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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