Trump's Iran strikes follow long pattern of presidents sidestepping Congress

President Donald Trump’s decision to order military strikes on Iran without first seeking congressional approval was met with immediate, yet familiar, criticism from lawmakers across the political spectrum.

Presidents have for decades taken actions similar to Trump's and attracted backlash for skirting Congress’s authority. The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war but presidents the power to control the military and foreign policy.

Gene Healy, a senior vice president with the libertarian Cato Institute, told Fox News Digital that in terms of "crossing a constitutional Rubicon, this is territory that presidents have been dancing over since at least Harry Truman."

"In each case, it’s at odds with the original design of constitutional war powers, which is that one single person should not have the power to embroil the United States in foreign wars," Healy said.

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Gene Healy, a senior vice president with the libertarian Cato Institute, told Fox News Digital that President Donald Trump's strikes on Iran were at odds with the original design of constitutional war powers. (Fox News)

His think tank also rebuked former President Barack Obama in 2011 after Obama unilaterally authorized airstrikes in Libya as part of a NATO-led effort to enforce a no-fly zone in the country and protect civilians there.

"The president is derelict in his duty to obey the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution. And Congress is derelict in its duty to assert its constitutional authority," another member of the thinktank wrote at the time.

Congress passed the War Powers Act in 1973 to install guardrails for presidents who seek to authorize military action, but critics have said the resolution has lacked potency and that the legislative branch needs to reassert its authority by passing a tougher policy or making good on government funding threats.

Bob Bauer, who served as Obama’s White House counsel, recently spoke with former federal prosecutor Jack Goldsmith in an interview on Substack about what they viewed as the ever-expanding war powers of the president and the ever-shrinking war powers of Congress.

Bauer said that generally, presidents have consulted with their White House counsel and other agencies to make sure they have acquired enough support behind-the-scenes ahead of any anticipated military action.

"It’s just generally understood that this is a choice the president can make," Bauer said, adding, "This is not a tenable situation over the long run, and we’re facing the consequences again now."

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From left to right, Vice President JD Vance, President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during an address to the nation. (Pool)

Trump garnered informal support for his actions from crucial members of Congress, including the Senate and House Republican leaders, but lawmakers at the farthest ends of the political spectrum lashed out at him.

"The President’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wrote on X, calling for Trump’s impeachment.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., blasted Trump's actions as unconstitutional, saying Congress must pass a resolution giving the president permission to carry out a military act. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., did not outright address Congress’ role in declaring war, but signaled on Monday on X that she opposed Trump’s attack on Iran because, in her view, it defied his Make America Great Again ethos.

The president’s actions were a "complete bait and switch to please the neocons, warmongers, military industrial complex contracts, and neocon tv personalities," Greene said.

The Office of Legal Counsel, which is part of the Department of Justice, justified Obama's attack on Libya in 2011 in a 14-page opinion, spelling out its position that the then-president did not flout the Constitution or the law by bypassing Congress.

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Former President Barack Obama unilaterally authorized airstrikes in Libya as part of a NATO-led effort to enforce a no-fly zone in the country and protect civilians there in 2011. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The Trump administration's justification for attacking Iranian nuclear facilities echoed sentiments from the Obama-era memo.

Both administrations cited a broad threat to "national interests" rather than a direct threat to the United States or a dire need for self-defense. Neither president's military actions included "regime change" as a goal, though Trump has since floated that language. 

Former President George H.W. Bush did not have explicit authorization from Congress to deploy thousands of troops to Somalia as part of a United Nations mission in 1992, nor did former President Bill Clinton when he sent troops to Bosnia in 1995 and intervened in the Kosovo conflict in 1999 by authorizing airstrikes against Serbian forces.

The Office of Legal Counsel typically advises the executive branch on the legality of its actions, and the memo on the Libya strikes cited a string of other examples that signal presidents have long tiptoed around seeking out congressional authorization, which would require a vote in the House and Senate.

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The memo stated that "one possible" limit under the Constitution to a president circumventing Congress to use military force would be when the planned action "constitutes a ‘war’ within the meaning of the Declaration of War Clause."

"But the historical practice of presidential military action without congressional approval precludes any suggestion that Congress’s authority to declare war covers every military engagement, however limited, that the President initiates," the memo read.