As the war on Iran nears its 60-day deadline, Congress and Trump face choices about next steps

Washington – The president Trump is facing an important deadline in war with Iran on Friday under a decades-old law that limits the use of force without Congressional authorization.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 sets a timeline for when lawmakers must be notified of disagreements and when the president is required to withdraw U.S. forces from a conflict without congressional approval.

Under the law, the president is expected to give formal notice to Congress within 48 hours of launching U.S. forces into combat, officially starting a 60-day clock for the president to stop using force unless Congress declares war or authorizes the use of military force.

Ahead of the deadline, Trump administration officials were in active discussions with members of Congress about reauthorizing the war agency, a White House official told CBS News on Thursday.

“President Trump has been outspoken about the Hill since before Operation Epic Fury began, and administration officials have provided more than 30 briefings to members of Congress to keep them updated on the war,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement on the matter.

60 day window

The war in Iran began on Feb. 28. Mr. Trump formally notified congressional leaders of the hostility in a March 2 letter, starting a 60-day clock that expires Friday.

The law allows the president to extend the time for another 30 days to safely withdraw troops from the fighting, but does not give him the authority to continue the campaign of torture.

“It’s not a 30-day blank check for the president to proceed with whatever conflicts he sees fit,” said David Janovsky, who leads the Constitution Project at the Project on Government Oversight.

Friday’s deadline could create a final showdown with Republicans in Congress, who have been reluctant to break with Mr. Fighting has been on hold since the US and Iran agreed to a ceasefire on April 8 to allow for more comprehensive settlement talks.

Since the war began, Republicans in the House and Senate have blocked more than a dozen Democratic war power resolutions that would have clearly limited Mr. Trump to continue to attack Iran. Some GOP members have indicated that their position may change after the official 60-day deadline.

Republican Sondera John Curtis of Utah said he “will not support continued military action beyond the 60-day window without congressional approval.”

“The 60-day period is a sufficient window for presidents to take immediate action in response to a national threat and then refer the decision to their elected representatives as to whether martial law should be declared and continued,” he wrote in his paper earlier this month.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri told reporters that “the law needs to be followed,” adding that he hoped the fight would end by the 60-day deadline.

“I think we need an exit strategy,” he said on April 15.

Asked earlier this month when lawmakers need to look at the president’s military administration, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, said the administration needs “a plan on how to do this.”

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is writing a bill authorizing the use of military force in Iran, but has yet to introduce legislation. Whether there is enough support to pass such a measure is uncertain.

Democrats in both chambers have introduced a number of military power resolutions in recent weeks. They plan to continue forcing votes on the issue to put their Republican colleagues on the record about the war polls show are unpopular.

Hegseth, Johnson argued that the 60-day window is not a problem yet

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, expressed doubt that the 60-day window was closing this week. “We are on the road to a ceasefire right now, which means from our understanding the 60-day clock stops or stops when there is a ceasefire,” he said.

And House Speaker Mike Johnson told NBC News that Congress does not need to act because the US is “not at war.”

“I don’t think we have military bombings, shootings or anything like that. Right now, we’re trying to bring peace,” Johnson said. “I would be very reluctant to get in front of management in the middle of these sensitive discussions, so we’ll have to see how that plays out.”

Continuation of hostilities

It is not clear how the war will end. Last week, Mr. Trump has extended the deadline for ending hostilities with Iran indefinitely. Days later, he abruptly canceled plans for two of his top negotiators to travel to Islamabad, Pakistan, for the second round of peace talks. The fate of Iran’s nuclear program remains an important issue and disagreements over the Strait of Hormuz, an important oil hub, have created an energy crisis.

If the president wishes to continue the war without congressional approval, Katherine Yon Ebright, an attorney with the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, said the Office of the Legal Counsel may try to argue that the ceasefire stopped the 60-day clock and any other arguments reset the clock. But he said “that is not consistent with the text or design of the War Powers Resolution.”

“But there’s a long history of executive branch lawyers misinterpreting the War Powers Resolution to allow presidents to go to war even after that 60-day clock,” Ebright said.

In 2011, the Obama administration argued that it did not need congressional authorization to attack Libya past 60 days because the operation did not rise to the level of “hostility” under the law’s definition and because it did not involve US ground troops.

In 1999, the Clinton administration continued its bombing campaign in Kosovo within the statutory time limit, claiming that lawmakers had authorized the operation by authorizing funding.

Congress has never successfully used the War Powers Resolution to end a military campaign. Mr. Trump voted for a resolution that sought to end US military involvement in Yemen after it passed both chambers with bipartisan support in 2019. Congress did not have the votes to override the veto.

Janovsky said the War Powers Resolution has been “absolutely ineffective” since it was enacted.

“It’s very difficult to look back on the 50-year history of the War Powers Resolution and say it has effectively prevented presidential action,” he said.

The courts have been largely silent on the issue of war powers and getting a court to rule on the constitutionality of the war on Iran “would be difficult,” Ebright said.

But he said the War Powers Resolution also served as a political obstacle. For example, a number of Republicans helped improve the ratio in January to rule Mr. Trump in Venezuela. Others turned on their support after receiving assurances from the Trump administration that they would not use ground troops. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also agreed to testify before Congress as the administration works to contain the insurgency.

“What we’ve seen over the past year is the War Powers Resolution operating more in the political realm than in the legal realm,” Ebright said.