House Speaker Mike Johnson warned that it would be “dangerous” to limit the president’s authority while the U.S. military is already in conflict.
“We are not at war," said Johnson, R-La., a close ally of Trump, contradicting others. He said the operation is limited in scope and duration, and the "mission is nearly accomplished.”
Republicans, who narrowly control the House and Senate, largely see the conflict with Iran not as the start of a new war, but the end of a government that has long menaced the West.
Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, publicly thanked Trump for taking action against Iran, saying the president is using his own constitutional authority to defend the U.S. against the “imminent threat” the country posed.
Mast, an Army veteran who worked as a bomb disposal expert in Afghanistan, said the war powers resolution was effectively asking “that the president do nothing.”
