The War Powers Tug-of-War: Congress vs. the President (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: The U.S. has been involved in dozens of military conflicts in the last hundred years. The war in Vietnam, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq. But Congress never officially declared war in any of these conflicts. They actually haven't since World War II, although sometimes they've given presidents the broad pre-authorization to do what the president thinks is necessary. And still, nearly every president since, Democrat and Republican, has used loopholes to bypass Congress entirely, including the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from within Venezuela.

[00:00:33] Speaker 2: The president has the authority, as all presidents do, to deploy military forces to address threats to the U.S. and to enforce U.S. law.

[00:00:41] Speaker 3: Before you send our sons and daughters to war, come to Congress.

[00:00:46] Speaker 1: It all comes down to the battle over war powers. Here's how Congress has given up some of its powers, how presidents have pushed the rules, and how this tug-of-war has changed who actually has the power to go to war. The founders didn't want a single person, a king, to have the power to start a war. So that power is split between Congress and the president. The president asks Congress for a declaration of war, since the Constitution gives the power to lawmakers to declare war, and they also control the budget. And then it gives the power to the president, as commander-in-chief, to decide how we fight. Which is how it worked through World War II. But with the Korean War, the process changed. When the U.S. first sent troops, President Truman said, we are not at war, and said the military was simply helping U.N. efforts to protect the Korean Republic. It's not war, it's a police action. So he didn't actually go to Congress, and Congress was cool with it, and even funded the Korean War, a war where more than 36,000 Americans were killed. It really set a precedent. With Vietnam, Congress didn't declare war, it instead gave the president the authority to take all necessary measures to repel an attack against U.S. forces, which many saw as a blank check for the war. Then, Nixon took it too far, secretly bombing Cambodia without telling the public or telling Congress.

[00:02:06] Speaker 2: And so I think the time has come when the Congress has got to begin to draw some limits.

[00:02:11] Speaker 1: Congress in turn passed the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which Nixon in turn tried to veto, calling it unconstitutional. Nixon was overridden. And it set up some rules that in every possible instance, the president consult with Congress before introducing forces into hostilities. And if they can't consult, they have 48 hours to submit a report about why. And then Congress has 60 days to authorize it, or else those troops, they all come home. On paper, the 1973 law should have stopped the president from acting alone. In practice, presidents, or at least the president's lawyers, have become experts at finding the fine print. Presidents actually rarely tell Congress before military action, like Bush's invasion of Panama or Clinton's military involvement in Kosovo. Many presidents really saw it as a 60-day window to do what they wanted. All they have to do is notify Congress. Or they found loopholes. Like in 2011, when President Obama joined a NATO mission in Libya deploying U.S. intelligence and air support.

[00:03:13] Speaker 4: The United States is not going to deploy ground troops into Libya. When the 60-day clock ran out, he didn't actually stop.

[00:03:20] Speaker 1: Why? His legal team argued because there were no boots on the ground, the U.S. wasn't technically in hostilities. It's a loophole that turns war into what they called a kinetic military action, effectively sidelining Congress. In 2020, President Trump ordered a drone strike on Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.

[00:03:39] Speaker 3: In recent days, he was planning new attacks on American targets, but we stopped him.

[00:03:44] Speaker 1: The administration argued it wasn't an ongoing war or hostilities, it was a targeted killing. They didn't even notify Congress within 48 hours. And the capture of Nicolas Maduro in Caracas wasn't framed as a war at all, but as a judicial extraction. At the same time, Congress gave presidents even more authority after the attacks on September 11th, with the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF, something that gave blanket power to the president to prevent acts of international terrorism. It's broad, and it's still very much active, and has been used for military actions in more than 22 different countries, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, all without further involvement from Congress. Congress does have the authority to take back more war powers. They could pass new legislation with tighter restrictions, let's call it a War Powers 2.0. They could use their power of the purse to restrict the funding or stop the funding altogether. Whether it's redefining what a hostility is, or what military action is or is not, the trend is clear. The executive branch is getting faster, while Congress stays slow. What's left is whether the country still has a system that can say no, or if the president really is the solo decider on whether to start a war.