Newsman: Some of the US lawmakers are charging that the president Trump did not have the authority to call for the attack. President Trump’s order of airstrikes has attracted criticism from both sides of the political aisle.
“Our framers did not believe in the old way that a king could order a nation to war,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, said in an interview on Fox News Sunday. “Instead, the framers gave the power to Congress so we would have a debate in front of all the American public whose sons’ and daughters’ lives could potentially be at risk.”
One Republican in Congress, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie said Trump’s attack is unconstitutional.
The lawmaker shared Trump’s post on social media with the message, “This is not Constitutional.”
U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) speaks to reporters as he leaves a House Republican caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol on June 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. Massie opposed President Trump’s June 21 airstrikes on Iran.
Massie had previously introduced a bill to prevent Trump from going to war with Iran without congressional authorization, which drew cosponsors that included progressive Democrats such as Rep. Ro Khanna of California.
The GOP lawmaker was one of two members of Trump’s political party who voted against his tax bill in the House of Representatives last month. Trump called him a “grandstander” ahead of the vote and said he should be “voted out of office.”
GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an ally of Trump’s, publicly pushed for the United States to stay out of the war, a half hour before Trump announced the attack.
“Every time America is on the verge of greatness, we get involved in another foreign war,” she said in a post on X.
Greene has been one of the most outspoken opponent’s within MAGA of American military involvement in the conflict that exploded on June 13 when Israel attacked Iranian nuclear sites.
“There would not be bombs falling on the people of Israel if Netanyahu had not dropped bombs on the people of Iran first,” she said on June 21. “Israel is a nuclear armed nation. This is not our fight. Peace is the answer.”
The Constitution puts the power to declare war in Congress’ hands, and the War Powers Resolution of 1973 mandates that the president notifies Congress within 48 hours of military action. The law also limits the deployment of armed forces beyond 90 days, in the absence of a formal declaration of war.
Tim Kaine has introduced a resolution in the Senate seeking to block Trump’s actions in Iran. In the House, Reps. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, have filed a similar measure based on the War Powers Act.
