The debate over the commander-in-chief’s powers versus the U.S. Congress’s has increased following President Trump’s Operation: Midnight Hammer airstrikes on Iran. On Monday, CBS Mornings Plus invited Colorado’s Democratic Congressman Jason Crow to push Congress to claw back their authority to authorize military strikes, but was this motivated by who the sitting President was?
On Saturday, the U.S. Air Force was sent out to drop bunker bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear facility at Fordow and was successful. Mostly Democratic members of Congress were pushing that this decision from the President was “unconstitutional,” according to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), as cited by CBS during the segment:
Not only is this news that I’ve just heard the second alarming that all of you have just heard, but it is so grossly unconstitutional. All of you know. That the only entity that can take this country to war is the U.S. Congress. The President does not have the right!
CBS anchor Vladimir Duthiers acknowledged that Congress was the branch to declare war, but also recognized that presidents in the past have used their commander-in-chief powers “by invoking the authority granted to them in the Constitution.”
Crow decried how Trump made the decision to strike Iran without input from Congress:
The Congress has been cut out of the situation. We don’t know whether there’s any plans. We don’t know whether there’s any indication for boots on the ground. We don’t know whether the President wants regime change, wants to topple the Iranian government. I mean, he’s indicated that he’s thinking about theat. These are all things that Congress needs to be a part of. Congress would need to authorize, because it’s the American people that have to do the fighting that would have to do the bleeding, that would have to fund this, these wars or these military interventions.
What both Sanders and Crow failed to mention when they brought up cracking down on Trump’s powers was that presidents have had their moments of executing military action without Congress, like former President Obama in 2011 with Libya. Without approval from Congress, Obama ordered military intervention for eight months before the administration tried to argue that their case did not fall under the War Powers Resolution.
In an attempt to pluck at fears of one of the purported outcomes of the strikes, Duthiers invoked the War in Iraq, teeing up Crow to suggest a redux could be coming:
DUTHIERS: Congressmen, so as you pointed out, you were deployed in both Afghanistan and Iraq. For Americans waking up this morning and seeing this and hearing about it on Saturday, they are going to imagine that we might find ourselves in a situation like Iraq. And I think, can you explain to the American people why that potentially is not going to happen? Because on one hand, you've got the President of the United States saying that he would like the Iranians to come back to the negotiating table. On the other, the Iranians went before the United Nations and said they have the right to respond militarily to these strikes. Boots on the ground seem farfetched, but we thought that back in before the start of the Iraq War.
CROW: Well, you're really getting to the core of the problem here. And that is I can't make assurances to the American people because the administration has told Congress nothing about this.
It is worth noting that in 2021, Joe Biden ordered airstrikes against Iran-connected targets in Iraq and Syria without congressional approval. This pearl clutching from CBS over the constitutionality of the strikes didn’t occur back then.
Click here for transcript.
CBS Mornings Plus
6/23/25
9:21 a.m. EasternVLADIMIR DUTHIERS: By the way, when President Trump posted this weekend that the United States had bombed Iran, it was the first time many members of Congress learned of it as well. Take a listen to Senator Bernie Sanders’ response immediately after learning about the attack while speaking at a rally on Saturday.
[TRANSITION TO CLIP]
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Not only is this news that I've just heard this second alarming that all of you have just heard, but it is so grossly unconstitutional. All of you know. That the only entity that can take this country to war is the U.S. Congress. The President does not have the right!
[BACK TO LIVE]
DUTHIERS: So while yes. It is technically true that under the Constitution of the United States, only Congress can declare war. In practice, Presidents on both sides of the political aisle have sidestepped this requirement by invoking the authority granted to them in the Constitution. As Commander in Chief of the armed forces, or they've relied on a broader interpretation of the War Powers Act, the law that provides a framework for engaging in conflict without a formal declaration of war to involve the U.S. in conflict when there is no congressional approval.
So as we look at the potential for escalating conflict with Iran, what role will Congress play? That is the question that everybody is asking. And with us to discuss just that is Democratic Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado. Congressman, good to see you
REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Good morning.
DUTHIERS: So, CBS News has learned that top Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence, as well as the Armed Services Committees, are drafting a War Powers Act resolution in the wake of the president's attack on Iran. Can you tell us more about that?
CROW: Sure. Well, this has been one of my biggest priorities in Congress. I served as an Army Ranger and paratrooper before coming to Congress. I did three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. So I was a part of that 20 year war or series of wars that we spent trillions of dollars on, thousands of American lives, lots of U.S. credibility down the drain, and we all saw how that turned out.
So, what needs to happen is Congress needs to retake that constitutional authority that you just talked about, where only the Congress can declare war. And the reason for that is we are the people who are most accountable to the American people. We go home every weekend. We spend time in our town halls and high school gymnasiums, answering questions. That is where the war power should reside in. There is a bipartisan effort now to actually reclaim that.
ADRIANA DIAZ: Congressman, many Presidents on both sides of the aisle have skirted that congressional approval for a declaration of war, to have these kind of focused strikes overseas that sometimes lead to a broader conflict. Where should the line be? Where between where, what, where, what the commander, can the President can do as commander-in-chief versus what Congress needs to approve?
CROW: Yeah, the basis of the problem here is after 9/11, Congress created what's called an Authorization for Use of Military Force. That AUMF is what we call them in Congress was very broad. It was essentially a blank check that allowed Democrat and Republican congresses, Democrat and Republican presidencies. This is not just a partisan issue. Numerous congresses and numerous presidencies of both political stripes have actually not fixed this problem. And Presidents have used this almost blanket authority to conduct dozens of military operations over decades.
So it's time to rein that back in. Let's end that AUMF. Let's terminate it. Let's create a new one that's narrow, that's focused, that allows the President to defend the United States, if there's an imminent risk. That's the standard. There has to be an imminent risk against U.S. persons, U.S. facilities. But absent an imminent risk, you have to come to Congress. Congress has to debate it. We have to go to the American people. We have to get support. And if we don't have support, then we shouldn't be doing it.
DUTHIERS: Congressmen, so as you pointed out, you were deployed in both Afghanistan and Iraq. For Americans waking up this morning and seeing this and hearing about it on Saturday, they are going to imagine that we might find ourselves in a situation like Iraq. And I think, can you explain to the American people why that potentially is not going to happen? Because on one hand, you've got the President of the United States saying that he would like the Iranians to come back to the negotiating table. On the other, the Iranians went before the United Nations and said they have the right to respond militarily to these strikes. Boots on the ground seem far-fetched, but we thought that back in before the start of the Iraq War.
CROW: Well, you're really getting to the core of the problem here. And that is I can't make assurances to the American people because the administration has told Congress nothing about this. Right? We hear what's being reported on Truth Social by the President and what's being reported on the news. Right?
The Congress has been cut out of the situation. We don't know whether there's any plans. We don't know whether there's any indication for boots on the ground. We don't know whether the President wants regime change, wants to topple the Iranian government. I mean, he's indicated that he's thinking about that. These are all things that Congress needs to be a part of. Congress would need to authorize, because it's the American people that have to do the fighting that would have to do the bleeding, that would have to fund this, these wars or these military interventions. And that is what the founders of the constitution said.
The most consequential decision, the decision to send our country to war, has to be made by the United States Congress and a full, open manner after debate. And if there isn't support for it by the American people, we just should not be doing it. And had we had that debate, had we done that over the last 20 years, I think that our endeavors in Iraq and Afghanistan probably would have wrapped up much sooner and would have been far less painful.
DIAZ: Congressman Jason Crow, with a unique perspective having served overseas. Thank you so much.
