'If You Can Keep It': What Trump Owes Congress

0:00With March Madness getting underway, coaches are pushing their players to the limits. But an investigation finds that in some instances, tough coaching can go too far. She would call us idiots, stupid, worthless, low of the low. On the Sunday story, coaches accused of emotional abuse and the players who pushed back. The Sunday story from the Up First podcast. Listen now on the NPR app.

0:31President Trump and his administration and allies have sent mixed messages about the war with Iran in the first two weeks of the operation. The Secretary of Defense called it a war. The Republican Speaker of the House said Iran is not a war. And the president has said both. Which one is it? Well, it's both. It's both. It's an excursion that will keep us out of a war. And the war is going to be, I mean, for them it's a war. For us it's turned out to be easier than we thought. Whatever the president calls the joint U.S. and Israeli campaign of missile and airstrikes that started February 28th, the cost so far in lives, 13 U.S.

1:14troops, more than 2 ,000 people in the Middle East overall, both civilians and military. Congress has voted on a resolution to limit the president's power to wage this campaign. That effort failed. Beyond that, the president has made little effort to involve Congress or build public support before launching this war. Many Republican members, though not all, appear unbothered by those facts, at least in public. I'm Todd Zwilligan for Jen White. You're listening to the 1A podcast today for our weekly politics series, If You Can Keep bit, we're asking, what does President Trump owe Congress as far as buy-in on war?

1:53And how have past presidents involved the legislative branch when deploying the military? Plus, what the president owes you, the American public, and how he's chosen to explain or avoid explaining the justifications and objectives for this war. That's after this break. Stay with us.

2:13This message comes from BetterHelp. International Women's Day is this March. Time to celebrate all women. The leaders, the caregivers, the hype friends, the how-do-you-do-it-all types. Women deserve to be reminded how much they matter, and that therapy offers a space to care for themselves. BetterHelp makes it simple by matching you with a qualified therapist based on your needs and preferences. Visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR for 10 % off.

3:05The president engaged in this war in the middle of weeks of negotiations with Iran, Liz, and threats that he would attack if Iran didn't agree to a deal over its nuclear program. What did members of Congress know before the start of this war? Were they surprised when the missiles started flying? So in this case, the Trump administration did notify the Gang of Eight about military action. What is the Gang of Eight? The Gang of Eight is the top leaders of the House and Senate bipartisan. So you can't cut out Democrats, which occasionally has happened in recent months. So in the Venezuela situation, members of Congress really felt cut out when Trump launched that operation to get out Maduro.

3:50That was a situation where they felt like they weren't getting enough information. In this case with Iran, Congress was not fully cut out in that way. I think there was a surprise that action happened because he was sort of on the fence until he made the call. But they did notify Congress. Before the attack or during? I believe so. I believe it was that same day. I don't know if it was like minutes before it had started. Okay, so House and Senate leaders, intelligence leaders, these sort of top eight people notified. Well, the week after President Trump's campaign against Iran began, the House and Senate, they did vote on war powers resolutions.

4:27Those efforts failed, as I just mentioned. Sarah Binder, almost all Republicans, a few Democrats voted against invoking the War Powers Act for this war in Iran. What would those resolutions have done? Well, the resolutions generally would be the Senate saying, for starters, the Senate saying there shall be no more use of military forces in the conflict there unless Congress is actually authorized, given authorization to the president to conduct war. In theory, Senate might have passed it. In theory, might have gone to the House. But ultimately, the president would have had to sign it into law unless the House chambers were to veto, override the veto.

5:10So there wasn't really a chance of legislation being enacted here, but it was a chance for senators in this case, Democratic senators and a handful of Republicans, to go on record here about their views about the president's conduct of the war. What's the track record of resolutions like this, Sarah Binder, in the last several decades? We're going to talk about AUMFs, authorizations of use of military force, war powers resolutions. Has Congress ceded a lot of authority to the White House in this regard? Well, the war power resolutions have not succeeded, right? None of them have succeeded. The closest was back in Trump's first term when he vetoed one, having to do with Yemen, the conflict in Yemen.

5:54So in that sense, no, they've not succeeded in technically legally reigning in the president. Congress has had, at least around the time of 9-11 and around the war with Iraq in the 1990s, more success there in writing what we sort of refer offhanded to AUMF's authorization for use of military force. That has a much stronger historical record to them. and but of course they require large bipartisan support, bicameral bipartisan support to get them done. Well, Congress passed that AUMF authorization of use of military force, as Sarah Binder mentions, authorizing the war on terror post 9-11, expanded it in 2002 to clear the way for the war in Iraq.

6:45attack those resolutions remain in effect for decades afterwards, sometimes with ambiguous results as to U.S. military action overseas. We'll talk a little bit more about why those votes actually can really, really matter to the politicians who vote on them. Liz, Republicans in Congress have largely backed President Trump on these attacks in Iran. What are you hearing from them right now about the operation, their comfort with it at this point, how it's going, and the information that they're getting from the White House? Yeah, for the most part, Republicans are backing this. I think in part just because Iran historically has been, you know, an enemy of the United States and there's a lot of history there.

7:24It's unlike Venezuela, which felt a little bit more hard for them to explain to their base. There still is a discomfort with this energy crisis that's been sparked and the fact that there doesn't appear to be a clear plan to get out of it. Some Republican senators are even saying publicly now, you know, it doesn't feel like they were prepared for the Strait of Hormuz to get closed and they don't seem to have a way to get out of that. So I think as oil prices rise, you're going to see more complaints and questions from Republicans on the strategy there. Meanwhile, the MAGA base, especially online but elsewhere, I mean, is really divided on this war.

8:05America First, some isolationism in the MAGA base, questioning the advisability of attacking Iran, certainly partnering with Israel. Why hasn't that divide bubbled up to elected officials? I think there aren't as many America First elected officials. You know, there's people who kind of put on that costume when that became popular, but a lot of Republicans were hawks originally, and the party hasn't turned over in Congress to the extent that now everyone's the true blue America first, even though they've become that way. But if you even look at J.D. Vance, I mean, he's stayed incredibly quiet, right, since this conflict started.

8:44And I think he represents that wing of the party. And they're more staying quiet than raising the alarm because I think they're hoping that it'll come to an end and then they don't want to stick their neck out and have criticized Trump in the meantime. Let's go to our voicemail inbox. Hi, my name is Arthur from Louisville, calling in regards to what I accept from Congress as this war lingers on. I hope that Congress decides to not concede any more funds for this illegal war. There's no sense in endangering American troops or American civilians' lives, for that matter. And I hope Congress uses their powers and checks and balances to reign in this real government, even though they have ceased to do so this entire presidential run.

9:28Well, Sarah Bender, there's one listener hoping Congress takes back some of its power and steps in with oversight or power of the purse here. Past presidential administrations have frequently sent troops abroad without getting express approval from Congress under the War Powers Resolution. Presidents hate the War Powers Resolution. Most of them think it's unconstitutional to begin with. When have presidents engaged with Congress before sending troops into combat or in early stages of fighting in a way that would qualify as, I don't know, informed consent for Congress? Well, I think it's helpful first to take a kind of big historical step here and then we can focus more recently on the modern times.

10:12Keep in mind that until World War II, right, over the 19th century, even into and through World War I and the beginnings of World War II, there was no large, what we now call the large standing army, right? A very large Pentagon of both military and civilian employees. There's Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, essentially established already under control of the Secretary of Defense. That's not what it was like before World War II. The president had to go for Congress for authorization to ramp up really quickly to get a military force together. But that's long gone. Right. And now we're in a world where, as we know, right, numbers and numbers of Pentagon employees and so forth so that the military is there at the beck and call of the president.

11:07So being the commander in chief, he's ready to go. He does it, but he can go to war in theory without going to Congress first to ask permission or sources. We have to go to a quick break. But before we do, one of you emailed the Dems and remaining few true conservatives in the Republican Party should insist that any supplemental funding for Trump's Iran war be paid for by shifting funds from the massive amount of money that ICE and Border Patrol received in the big, beautiful bill. Well, more on that supplemental funding bill and what presidents communicate to the public when going to war. Stay with us.

11:48With March Madness getting underway, coaches are pushing their players to the limits. But an investigation finds that in some instances, tough coaching can go too far. She would call us idiots, stupid, worthless, low of the low. On the Sunday story, coaches accused of emotional abuse and the players who pushed back. The Sunday story from the Up First podcast. Listen now on the NPR app. Let's get back to our conversation now. Now we're talking about what the president owes Congress and you, the American public, as he forges ahead with his war in Iran. And we're asking how this moment compares to what we've seen throughout history.

12:28Heather from Cleveland writes in to say, where is our government getting the money to fund this war and who profits? So as Heather from Cleveland suggests, Congress has a lot of power here if they choose to use it. We talk about war powers, authorizations, but it also controls spending. It also has the power of oversight. Now, the Trump administration has already signaled that it will soon come to Congress to demand a massive amount of money to fund the Iran operation, which it calls Operation Epic Fury. Pentagon officials said last Thursday the first full week of this war cost a minimum of about$11 billion in munitions alone.

13:08That is definitely lowballing it. Now the administration says their initial ask, Liz Goodwin, could be$50 billion. For starters, what will members of Congress be weighing when they consider this vote and take this vote? Yeah, so they are going to come to Congress and ask for a bunch more money. I think the administration is lucky in this instance because they can do this with only Republican votes. They could do this via reconciliation where they can skip the filibuster in the Senate. So they would only need 50 votes in the Senate to get this through. So really, their only concern now would be as if, you know, there was some big split in the party and there started to be resistance to funding this war, which we're not seeing those signs yet.

13:54I still think, you know, Republican members have concerns that we talked about earlier about the energy crisis. But it's hard for me to imagine that the funding would be in jeopardy. So you can you can do this with just 50 votes in the Senate. The House majority is very, very narrow. Would there be a guarantee that all House Republicans would go along with this looking forward to the midterms? There's never a guarantee with House Republicans is what we found this past year. I do think, though, that there's still a handful of Democrats who didn't vote for the War Powers resolution in the House, right?

14:29So you could even get a Democrat crossing the aisle to vote for funding. Pentagon funding is usually bipartisan. is in. It's something that Democrats, a lot of Democrats don't like to oppose. Sarah Binder, there's a history here of these votes on wars becoming extremely meaningful after the fact. You get the sense sometimes that they're rubber stamps. But I'll take you back to 2002. We already mentioned the authorization to use a military force for Iraq. Hillary Clinton voted yes. And then she had to defend that position years later in a primary against Barack Obama. And it was one of the factors among many that led to him beating her.

15:08She didn't become president, you could argue, because of that vote. I remember John Kerry way back in 2004 being branded a flip-flopper because he said, I voted against the war. I voted for the war before I voted against it. These votes have a way of coming back on politicians and really mattering. Well, for sure. And as we often say about members and votes is that the rewards are for the positions you take, not so much for the outcomes that result. So any of these votes, right, even though, even like a War Powers resolution vote, even if they don't have immediate teeth or long-term teeth, the positions that lawmakers are taking.

15:52And for precisely the reasons that you point out with these sort of quote-unquote celebrated examples where a vote comes back to bite you. So I think that, of course, it's going to vary quite a bit. The circumstances of 9-11 and the groundswell of congressional and public support for what the administration was doing right in the throes of it, quite a bit different than this conflict with Iran, right? And the question of public support, let alone bipartisan support, like none of that is here in this case. So the cost of voting against the administration here for a Democrat, certainly quite low, maybe a tougher vote for some of those Republicans.

16:43Well, we're getting a lot of questions from listeners and a lot of concern about where the money goes, especially given Donald Trump and the Trump's family's financial ties directly in the Middle East. Sandra says, I'm still trying to figure out why Trump started this war. In his initial statement, he said he was doing it to free the Iranian people. I don't think he cares at all about the people of Iran. How much of the Trump family's business interests are tied up with Iran? Will they profit from the war? And we got this from a member of our 1A text club. Does the fact that the war is expensive play into this at all, meaning going to war is a big payday for many billionaire Trump supporters and the military industrial complex.

17:22Liz, these questions are all going to a general concern, and I wonder if members of Congress consider it a liability. Donald Trump and his family have direct financial ties in the Middle East, but also many of his supporters in what this listener calls the military industrial complex, and people have suspicions that$50 billion, if that's what the number is, of a supplemental is going into those pockets as well. It is a large number. I think what the administration has said is that these missile interceptors, the STAAD technology is incredibly expensive. We gave a lot of those to Ukraine, these Patriot defender things.

18:02This isn't my area of expertise, but we ended up offloading a ton of very expensive weaponry to Ukraine. And the Pentagon has said we are now running low on them. They cost so much money to produce each one. They also take a long time to produce. So that's where... It has to be a little bit misleading, though, to blame this on aid to Ukraine when so many of those THAADs, patriots and other interceptors, have been fired in the Gulf because of the sheer volume of Iranian drones that are flying across the water. Oh, for sure. Yes. I think the Pentagon just said that our supplies were already low before this conflict started.

18:41This was something that General Cain was warning Trump before he made the decision to start the war. We're not in a good position to be in this war, which the Post reported on. So I think that's why they're saying the price tag is so high because the weaponry is so expensive. Well, another key area of congressional power is oversight. Power of the purse, power to declare war, also oversight. The administration has provided closed-door classified briefings to some lawmakers. There have been no public hearings explaining or justifying this war. Meanwhile, some Democrats in Congress, like Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, are calling for investigations into how the military has carried out this operation, especially the missile strike on the first day of operations that hit that girl school in southern Iran, killing more than 165 people, the majority of them children.

19:35military investigators have concluded that the U.S. was indeed responsible for that strike. And so now you have especially Democrats demanding investigation and public hearings. But there haven't been any public oversight hearings, televised or otherwise, at all. Isn't that unusual, Liz? Are they going to get them? I'm not sure if they're going to get them because it would take Republican members wanting them, demanding them, holding them. I think there has been a little bit of pushback from the Hill to the Trump administration on that school strike because initially President Trump was denying that the U.S.

20:09was responsible for that. And Republican senators, including John Kennedy from Louisiana, were saying, listen, you know, we did this and it was a mistake and it's horrible. So there's been a bit of, you know, distance between Trump and Republicans in the Senate, but not enough to show like, you know, we want oversight on this. We're actually going to do something here. It's really just a little bit of rhetoric at this point. I mean, how is it possible? I covered Congress for many years. How is it possible that a war starts? Reports come out clearly indicating that the administration was surprised, for instance, by Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz.

20:49The president on one hand says there aren't any targets left to hit. We're wrapping it up. Then says he's not ready to wrap it up. then gets on Truth Social asking for help, demanding help from warships from other countries, which is not a sign that he's ready to wrap up the war or is being advised to. How is it possible that members of Congress with the power of oversight aren't demanding answers to their questions and in public? Well, I mean, as Rand Paul just said recently when he was the only Republican who voted for the War Powers Resolution in the Senate, that he thinks the Founding Fathers never envisioned a Congress with such little ambition.

21:27He thinks this Congress has sort of withered away in its assertion of its powers to such an extent that it doesn't even really resemble the Congress that was initially envisioned by the founding fathers. So I think there has been just a steady erosion of their muscles of oversight, of their muscles of power of the purse, of trade powers, of war powers, that one goes back, you know, decades, as Sarah was saying. And we're now reached this point of crisis where the Congress is just pretty prone. It's sort of lifeless. Supine, even. Sarah Binder, if this war doesn't end tomorrow and drags on for days or weeks or months, and given the posture of this Congress that Liz Goodwin just described, what are you watching for from this Congress?

22:15What do you think is next? What'll be important? Well, I think one thing to keep eyes on is the pain as Americans experience it. And that is first in terms of rising, if there are rising casualties. Second of all, price of gas, right? It seems hard to put those on the same plane there. But price of gas, how do people experience it here? and general sense that the war is not in Americans' interest. And so in that, the onus returns, the burden is on the president to make a consistent public case for why it's important for the U.S. in his view to keep prosecuting the war. Absent building of public support, it's just going to keep degrading.

23:07and that will eventually, it may not crack Republicans, but it will make it harder and harder for Congress just to say nothing. That's Sarah Bender, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Liz Goodwin, Congress reporter for the Washington Post. Thank you both so much. Thank you. Here's a message we got from James in Parkersburg, West Virginia. What I feel the president owes the American public right now is the truth, even if it's ugly. We need to know the truth. We need to know the facts. And we don't need the politicians just lying to us all the time. Well, Peter says Trump doesn't owe the American people any explanation because we put him in the position of not having to answer to anybody.

23:53It's time for independents to register for a party so they can vote in primaries. Then at the ballot box, vote every single incumbent out, Democrats and Republicans. That's the only way we're going to take back our country and save democracy. Peter, thank you for that response. Well, let's get to the question. What explanation does the president owe you, the American public, while America is at war? Phil Stewart is here, chief national security correspondent for Reuters. Phil, welcome back. Thanks for having me. And joining us from Columbus, Ohio, is Dakota Rudisill. He's a law professor at The Ohio State University, previously served as a senior staff member in the U.S.

24:33Senate and worked on intelligence matters in the Obama administration, including at the office of the Director of National Intelligence. Dakota, welcome to 1A. Great to be here. Well, in his press conference at the Pentagon on Friday, one of the many he's held since the war began. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced questions about the ongoing near blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the Middle East's oil moves. Here's his response. Something we're dealing with, we have been dealing with it, and don't need to worry about it. We're on plan to defeat, destroy, disable all of their meaningful military capabilities at a pace the world has never seen before.

25:17Don't need to worry about it, says the Secretary of Defense. Phil, take us into the briefing room for these press events by the Secretary of Defense and also Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Cain. What do we learn from those briefings about the war's objectives and the military's plans to achieve them? When have they been clear? When have they not been clear? You know, it's a fascinating question. I've been to these briefings, and it seems as if Secretary Hegseth and General Cain are speaking from two entirely different scripts, as if their speechwriters haven't even spoken to each other before the event begins.

25:55Because you'll hear the kind of political rhetoric we just heard from the Secretary of Defense, and then we'll hear something much more measured, more limited from General Cain about how they're proceeding to take out any number of targets related to the missile capabilities or to their drone industry or what have you. And so, you know, on the one hand, you have these very lofty political goals that are being enunciated by Secretary Hegseth and then very kind of methodical, almost wonky discourse from General Cain. And what about on the matter of U.S. casualties? How transparent has the Pentagon been in comparison to other conflicts you've covered?

26:36You know, last week, you know, I broke a story about casualties. And at the point when I wrote it, the only numbers they had given out were there were eight U.S. personnel who had been seriously wounded. And I found out the number was, you know, around 150. And I can't even imagine. That's been a week. So we don't know what the number is right now. And if you ask, they won't tell you. And so the transparency is not there. Dakota Rudisil, how does the president's handling of the messaging and explanations of this war to the public, to Congress, to everyone, compare? I mean, we compare it to the Bush administration.

27:15We compare it to Iraq. How has this been different? Well, the messaging by this administration from the president on down has been dramatically different than we've seen in any prior conflict that we'll be familiar with or that we've had in U.S. history. What I think is especially stunning is that in the messaging over and over, we see a focus on really what is the tactical level, things getting blown up. You know, even we've seen, you know, videos coming out from the White House that look like first person shooter video games. You know, the secretary of defense emphasizes how much stuff we're blowing up.