Congress and the Purse

Facts current as of November 8, 2026.

Late on Monday, November 2, American forces struck Qeshm Island, the largest island in Iran. An official, whom Fox News did not name, called it "defensive," a response to Iran "firing at a U.S. aircraft." President Donald Trump called it "just a minor attack. It wasn't war."

The war it was, or was not, part of began on February 28. That was more than eight months ago.

The word matters. The Constitution gives "war" a legal weight that "minor attack" does not carry. And here is the part that gets lost in the daily noise: nobody with the final word has answered who gets to decide.

How the war has run

It has not run in a straight line, and a fair account has to say so.

The war began February 28. By the president's own letter, the last exchange of fire for a stretch ran April 7, and a ceasefire followed. On June 18 the president signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran at the Palace of Versailles, with French President Emmanuel Macron present. Blaze Media reported that the White House said it would end the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. It was a first step, not a final peace.

It did not hold. In a letter dated July 10, the president told Senator Grassley that military action "commenced on July 7," CBS News reported. He called the strikes "limited, measured, planned, and executed in a manner designed to minimize civilian casualties," and said they followed Iranian attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz that violated the memorandum. On July 12 the U.S. Central Command announced a new wave of strikes on "dozens of targets" and put the three-night total above 300, Fox News reported. Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it had closed the Strait. Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Leiter, said Iran had violated the agreement by failing to keep the Strait open. The Fox News report did not say who fired first.

That is the background for Qeshm. The war has paused and resumed. The question is what the law says about a war that does that.

The clock

The War Powers Act of 1973 says a president who sends forces into hostilities must get Congress to approve within 60 days, or begin bringing them home. Newsmax reports that the president notified Congress on March 2. The 60 days ran out on May 1.

That day the president sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley. It said there had been "no exchange of fire between the United States Forces and Iran since April 7, 2026," and that "the hostilities that began on February 28, 2026 have terminated," CBS News reported. The day before, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee, "We are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses or stops in a ceasefire." Newsmax noted that the law has no provision pausing the clock for a ceasefire. The same day, Speaker Johnson said, "I don't think we have an active, kinetic military bombing, firing, anything like that," and added, "There's nothing Congress can do to move that along any further."

The president went further. He said he would not ask Congress for permission at all. "It's unconstitutional," he said. "Because it's never been sought before." And: "It's never been used before. Why should we be different?"

The restart raised a second question. Does a new 60-day clock begin when the fighting resumes? Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, said the administration was "literally trying to steer around it by pretending you can play stop-start and restart the clock." Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, said "any assertion by the Trump administration that he gets 60 more days to act without Congress has no foundation in law." CBS did not report that the administration had claimed a new clock, and I did not find where it has said so.

What Congress has done

People say Congress has done nothing. That is not quite right.

By June 3, CBS News counted twelve war powers votes across the House and Senate. Most failed. That day the House passed one, 215 to 208, with four Republicans joining nearly every Democrat. On June 23 the Senate approved another, 50 to 48. Four Republicans crossed over: Senators Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski. NPR described that vote as symbolic. It was "not legally binding," NPR said, and it "will not be sent to the White House for a signature." CBS reports the White House disputes its validity.

The House has voted again since. It passed a new measure on July 23, 214 to 208, and another on September 15, 220 to 204, with seven Republicans in favor. The September measure is a concurrent resolution, and CBS called the vote symbolic. As of CBS's September report, the Senate had not acted on the July measure.

So Congress has voted to restrain this war. It has never voted to authorize it. The president has not asked, and says he won't.

The case that the Act is unconstitutional

Start with the people who make this argument. They are not cranks.

Presidents of both parties have sent troops without asking, and Newsmax noted it. In June 2011, President Barack Obama's administration told Congress that U.S. forces in Libya were in a "supporting role in the NATO-led bombing mission," so they were not in "hostilities" under the Act. Operations, it said, "do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces."† The Libya campaign went on. The Act has been on the books for fifty years. Courts have turned away members of Congress who sued to enforce it, and I found no case in which a court ordered a president to withdraw.

There is also a legal point with weight. In INS v. Chadha in 1983, the Supreme Court held that when Congress acts in a way that changes the legal rights of people outside the legislative branch, it must do so through both houses and present the measure to the president. The Congressional Research Service notes that the Court did not rule on the War Powers Act's own withdrawal provision, and that Congress has since built a separate procedure to force a vote on withdrawal.† I did not find the reasons the White House gave for disputing the June measure, so I will not put Chadha in its mouth. But the ground is familiar, and a fair reader should know it is there.

And listen to a Republican senator who is no cheerleader. Senator Kevin Cramer said he would vote for an authorization if the president asked. He also questioned whether the Act is constitutional at all: "Our founders created a really strong executive, like it or not like it."

Article II makes the president commander in chief. Defending American aircraft and ships is the clearest case of that power. The word "defensive" in the Qeshm story is not an accident.

The case that it is not

Now the people on the other side. They are not cranks either.

Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the power "To declare War." Congress passed the War Powers Act over President Richard Nixon's veto, so this was no clerical error. It was a decision, made by a Congress that had just lived through Vietnam. No court has struck it down.

The Article II argument is strongest when the president is answering an attack. It is weaker for a campaign that has run, on and off, for eight months. And the administration's own account pulls in two directions. The May 1 letter says the hostilities "have terminated." By July 7, in the president's own words to Congress, military action had restarted, and within days Central Command reported striking more than 300 targets. Now Fox News reports that the administration has ordered a new "Iron Gate" task force to extend the blockade of Iranian ports to the country's ground transportation. Fox's own page gave two dates for the announcement, Saturday and Sunday, and quoted no named official. The president called the Qeshm action "minor strikes" and said there is "no return to full-scale war." Whether a blockade counts as "hostilities" is a fair question. In what I read, the administration has not answered it.

Some Republicans have said the same thing out loud. Representative Zach Nunn of Iowa, a Republican, voted for the September measure and said, "With the negotiating window closed, sustained combat operations now require congressional authorization."

The purse, so far

Congress holds a tool nobody disputes. It controls the money. Even the courts have pointed there. In 2000 the D.C. Circuit threw out a suit by members of Congress over the Kosovo air campaign. The judges reasoned that Congress has its own remedies, including legislation and the power over spending.†

So what has Congress done with that power?

On June 24 the administration asked Congress for about $87.6 billion, CBS News reported. The Pentagon's share was $67 billion, including $21 billion for munitions. The same request carried $11.1 billion in farm aid and $1.4 billion for the Ebola response. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said of the request, "we'll work through it and see where the votes are," the Associated Press reported. On July 21, Secretary Hegseth told Senate appropriators the war had cost "$37.5 billion so far," CBS reported. Three sources told CBS the real figure is higher. The Congressional Budget Office estimated $2 billion to $3 billion more for each month the war continues.

Senate Democrats pushed back. Senator Patty Murray said, "I will not rubberstamp tens of billions more for this disastrous war of choice." On July 14, Fox News reported, Democrats blocked a procedural step on the annual defense bill. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said, "The NDAA cannot become a permission slip for that recklessness that we see occurring in Iran." Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican who chairs Armed Services, called the funding "essential."

House Republicans took another route. On July 22 the House adopted, 216 to 214, a budget plan to pay for the war and parts of the president's SAVE America Act through a party-line process. Representative Warren Davidson, a Republican, voted for restraint on war powers and said of the plan, "there's no plan to pay for it." As of CBS's mid-September report, the money was stalled in the Senate over the SAVE America Act, and Republicans were seeking up to $73 billion. I found no later report that it passed.

Look at the shape of this. War money has been bundled with farm aid, Ebola relief and a voting bill. Nobody has been handed a clean question: yes or no on this war. A war bundled with other priorities is easy to fund and easy to oppose, and nobody has to own it.

What each side would rather skip

Defenders of the president would rather skip this: a friendly senator would vote to authorize if asked, and a Republican House member now says combat operations "require congressional authorization." The cleanest way to settle the constitutional argument is for the president to ask. He has said he won't.

Critics would rather skip this: the restraint votes did not bind anyone. Congress picked a tool the White House calls invalid, and the most it can say for it is that it was a message. And the one tool nobody disputes has produced no clear vote either way, from either party.

Both sides would rather skip this: the fight over the War Powers Act was never really about a statute. It was about whether anyone in Washington wants to own this war on the record.

What the election changed

On November 3 the voters spoke, and the war was in the room. As of Saturday night, CBS projects Democrats will hold at least 54 Senate seats, with Alaska and Mississippi still too close to call, and a House majority. Exit polling reported by Blaze Media found 34 percent of voters called the Iran conflict "crucial" to their vote and 40 percent called it a "major factor." The report did not name the other outlets behind the poll or give margins of error, so treat the numbers as a guide, not a measurement. The president told Fox News "part of it was Iran." Vice President JD Vance wrote, "the reason we lost is the war," CBS reported. Senate Democratic Leader Schumer has floated using the funding power and, in CBS's account of election night, vowed that "whenever Trump defies the will of the American people or the law, we will launch investigations, take him to court, and entangle him in legislative razor wire."

In September, CBS reported, the president predicted "the war will end immediately after the election." The election is over.

Elections have consequences, and they run both ways. The new Congress is seated on January 3. Until then, Republicans hold both chambers. Come January, the party that spent a year saying "bring this to a vote" will hold the votes. Whoever holds the majority carries the burden of the purse, and the arguments sound different when you carry it. We will hold both sides to the same standard. If it was right to demand a vote from the majority in March, it is right to cast one as the majority in February.

Where I stand

I lean center-right, and I take the president's constitutional argument seriously. A commander in chief must be able to answer an attack without calling a committee meeting. That is worth keeping.

But "defensive" cannot carry a war that has run, with pauses, for more than eight months. Congress holds the war power and the purse. It has voted to restrain this war but never to authorize it. Do one or the other, or stop paying for it.

Stop paying for what? I do not mean the troops already deployed. Nobody should leave a sailor in the Gulf of Oman without pay or supplies because Washington could not make up its mind. The purse can say no to the next step, a wider campaign, a new front, a ground force, without stranding anyone already in place. And before any new step, a wise president and a wise Congress will look for a consensus. They will not always find it. They should look.

Close

Some day the shoe will be on the other foot. A different president, a different party, a different country. The rule we settle on now is the rule we will live under then. Let's settle it with a vote, on the record, in the open.