3.3.3.2 – Limitations on Presidential Power
3.3.4 – The imperial presidency
President Trump launched joint military strikes with Israel against Iran this week, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and targeting military and government sites across the country. Trump described the operation as “massive and ongoing,” and acknowledged that its full scope and duration could not yet be determined. At least six American service members have been killed. Congress was not asked for approval before the strikes began.
The constitutional tension is stark. Article I of the Constitution grants Congress, not the president, the power to declare war. Yet Trump justified the operation under Article II commander-in-chief authority, a rationale that legal experts have widely challenged. Bipartisan war powers resolutions have been introduced in both chambers, led by Republican Representative Thomas Massie and Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, but most Republicans are expected to block them.
The operation illustrates the concept of the imperial presidency at its most direct: a president committing the nation to what even he describes as a war, without a congressional vote, a formal declaration, or a public legal justification. Whether Congress can meaningfully reassert its constitutional war-making role remains deeply uncertain.