Tim Kaine’s War on War Powers
Several days after President Donald Trump ordered an attack on three of Iran’s nuclear sites, and with debate still raging over how effective those strikes actually were, Democrats are finding a rare moment of unity. Not over whether Trump should have done it in the first place—most think no, some think yes, and others have stayed quiet. Instead, they’re rallying around the notion that Trump has usurped Congress’s authority to declare war.
Clearly, the party’s sudden zeal for congressional war powers didn’t assert itself during Democratic administrations—when, for example, Obama bombed Libya or Clinton bombed Bosnia. But Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, has been one of the party’s more consistent voices on the issue since being elected to the Senate in 2012. Now, he’s leading yet another effort—his fourth—to rein in the president’s ability to wage war unilaterally, this time with a resolution to “direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress.” The Senate will take up the measure later this week, and Kaine told me during an interview in his office yesterday that “the volatility of President Trump, and what he’s done, should make some people think we’ve got to be the adults in the room.”
In the meantime, of course, Trump has declared a ceasefire among the U.S., Iran, and Israel, which so far seems to be holding. But Kaine argues the vote on his measure is even more critical now, because the administration is not keeping Congress informed about the justification for the strikes, nor about their impact. Axios reported that the Trump administration plans to limit information-sharing with Congress even further, after the leak of an initial intelligence assessment that cast doubt on Trump’s claim of having “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program.
The administration has already delayed classified briefings for members. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said that, in lieu of sending knowledgeable briefers—such as Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—the administration is planning to dispatch a less experienced but more loyal lieutenant: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
In any case, Kaine feels that Trump’s reluctance to keep all of Congress informed has made his conduct even more egregious than that of previous presidents who have not sought authorization from the Hill. “While Congresses of both parties for decades, if not centuries, have often abdicated [their war-making powers], and presidents of both parties have overreached, this is a different thing,” Kaine told me.
And while Kaine has been the most outspoken opponent, he’s not the only Democrat who has been consistent that Congress needs to check the president on matters of war. Colorado Rep. Jason Crow, the Iraq and Afghanistan vet, told me that the administration still hasn’t explained what imminent threat Iran posed that would absolve the administration of having to at least notify Congress under the War Powers Act. Meanwhile, other members of Congress have said that intelligence shows Iran had a stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent, but not the 90 percent necessary for a nuclear weapon. “This president has proven he’s willing to skirt the Constitution to do whatever he wants to do with the use of our military, and it’s inappropriate,” Crow said. “He’s done it once, and he’s going to do it again. I’m pretty confident about that.”
This isn’t the first time Kaine has tangled with this president over strikes on Iran. In 2020, Trump successfully took out a top commander of the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qassem Soleimani, in a drone strike while the general was visiting Iraq, and contemplated wider-scale attacks on Iran itself. At the time, Kaine offered a similar resolution, which passed both houses, though the Senate failed to override Trump’s veto. Still, Kaine argues that bipartisan support for his measure played a role in Trump’s decision not to hit the Islamic Republic directly. “We noticed that he clearly backed off all this stuff on Iran in the last year or so of his administration,” Kaine said.
Kaine’s current resolution may not simply unite Democrats—all of whom, save for Sen. John Fetterman, are expected to support it—it’s also likely to bring a handful of Republicans on board. Indeed, seven of the eight G.O.P. senators who voted for Kaine’s 2020 resolution are still in office, including Sen. Rand Paul, who has been the staunchest defender of congressional power and is likely to support it. Others include Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, who have also proven willing to go against Trump this term. The remainder are Sens. Bill Cassidy, Mike Lee, Jerry Moran, and Todd Young.
Nonetheless, Kaine’s resolution—or the similar one introduced by House members—is expected to die in the other chamber. House Speaker Mike Johnson is a constitutional law scholar who now embraces an expansive view of presidential authority, and has argued that the War Powers Act, which sought to claw back some of Congress’s war-making authority from the president in 1973, is “unconstitutional.” The Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on the constitutional question, mostly because Congress has rarely tried to enforce its Article I, Section 8 power to declare war. “What sort of self-respecting legislative leader would say, Take power away from the legislature, Mr. President?” Kaine asked. Lots of them, apparently.
The Next-Gen Dems
If war powers are suddenly a unifying issue for Democrats, the party is certainly less clear about what to make of 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani’s victory in yesterday’s New York City Democratic mayoral primary. Following the House Dems’ election of the youngish Rep. Robert Garcia over more experienced members as ranking member of the influential House Oversight Committee, this is the second time in two days that the party has hinted that it’s starting to move past the septua- and octogenarian leaders of yesteryear.
With Mamdani’s victory, voters rejected former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a longtime establishment fixture in the state with all the baggage that entails and then some. One way of reading Mamdani’s victory is that Democratic primary voters were serious about wanting a new, charismatic, and relatable candidate—one who is relentlessly focused on cost-of-living issues.
But that’s not the only way to read it. Mamdani is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, the same group that bred Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez before unendorsing her last year. His uber-progressive proposals—rent freezes, city-owned grocery stores, free city bus transportation, and hiking taxes on the rich—have spooked some Democrats, who worry he might become the far-left face of the party to the detriment of the centrists in tough congressional districts. Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen, who flipped a swingy Long Island district last cycle, denounced Mamdani as “too extreme to lead New York.” Meanwhile, the center-left group Third Way cautioned Democrats against embracing Mamdani’s platform as a path to victory in the midterms.
Wall Street, meanwhile, is apparently freaking out about Mamdani, and Democrats with ties to wealthy elites will be questioned about their support of the Gen Z advocate. Of course, Republicans are attacking Mamdani with zeal, calling him a communist, and declaring him an antisemite for comments criticizing Israel and for his refusal to condemn the phrase “Globalize the Intifada.” Prominent MAGA figures have already gone so far as to invoke the terror of 9/11 in decrying Mamdani’s potential to become the city’s first Muslim mayor. But Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist, told me that Democrats need to “emulate the phenomenon of being an agent of change against the status quo.” Ideology doesn’t matter anymore, he noted, arguing that voters don’t trust the system, and that Democrats can’t defend the system if they want to be successful. That was the key to Mamdani’s appeal, Ferguson said—and to Trump’s, too, for what it’s worth.