One thing I was thinking about around Trump and his preference for action — which I think is undeniably true to him and, I think, in some ways to people is attractive — that there’s an upside and a downside to that. The downside of a lot of process is, of course, you just get weighed down in process, and it happens all the time. The upside of some process — I mean, this is why we have deliberative institutions like Congress — is that they do force you to deliberate. They would force you to actually build support. They would force you to question your assumptions. Is your sense of America’s interest immediately right? Is your sense of what this might require fully vetted? Have you listened to voices that might know things that you don’t? And I mean, to what we were saying earlier, the thing I felt, I think is pretty clear is Trump made a call here. There has not been a huge amount of scenario planning. They’ve not done a tremendous amount of predeliberation. What’s going to happen? They’re now reacting to, and they’re willing to be in this kind of ambiguous, reactive space. Is there not an upside to these different — certainly Congress and the American people — in terms of making sure that you actually have broad enough support for doing something like this and making sure you’ve thought through the things that might happen and you’re not left holding the bag, alone or just alone alongside Israel, if things begin to go wrong? Well, every president since 1973 has said the War Powers Resolution was unconstitutional. Every single president. No president wanted a constraint on his ability to declare war and lots of conservative legal scholars. But others will argue that, essentially, Congress has power. It has power of the purse. But it does not — I mean, this is a longstanding constitutional debate that completely predates — But past presidents have gone through Congress much more significantly than Trump did with this, Iran. I don’t think that’s arguable. I mean, I watched Bush in Iraq, like —— Again, we’re in the middle — we’re five days into a war. Bush did that before he started the war. That’s the point. Trump absolutely should not have done that before the war. It is not — I mean, I just disagree. That’s fine. But then make that case. Well, the case is that it would have given up huge operational security. I mean, the whole point of the strike was to go in before the Iranians knew what was going to happen, for operational security reasons, to set the conditions in the best way — that Washington phrase that I don’t like — set the table in the best way for military success. I think Trump made the choice he did because he didn’t want to give up that operational security, and the timing was so sensitive and so narrow. That that’s why I think he made that decision. But the reason I’m pushing on this is, both with Venezuela and with here, he’s making decisions to go very fast, before he’s built support among the American people or Congress. That is a change in the way America is acting. Whether that change is good or bad, I think we’ll take time to understand, but that seems like a real change. He’s willing to take risk, and he’s basically elevating a willingness to take risk over process. We don’t know. If in two years the situation in Venezuela is much better — Venezuelans who, the millions who’ve left their homeland go back — will people say that’s a mistake? Probably not. And in addition, he is speaking to the American people. Trump is on TV. He’s giving press conferences. And as I said, the Department of War is on — they’re on TV. They’re explaining what’s happening. They’re explaining the course of action. They’re explaining military targets, goals. It’s happening. So in general, you really don’t believe there’s a role for Congress before these conflicts. I believe the president can make a case directly to the American people. And Congress’s role is to the power of the purse. So the case for Congress is once we have gone to war, if they don’t like it, they can remove the money. Congress does not have a constitutional role in the declaration of war. Congress has a role in cutting off funds for wars, which it has threatened to do. The president doesn’t have to get permission. But yes, you can debate. You can decide that’s his choice and how he wants to do it. I mean, here I will quote the Constitution: “The Congress shall have power to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal and make rules concerning captures on land and water.” I think —— The president shall be the commander in chief of the Army, but it is Congress that has the power to declare war. So constitutionally, the Constitution says Congress has the power to declare war. But the issue is whether or not a president who deploys military force abroad needs to do so only after having Congress declare war. There are arguments by constitutional lawyers, which — I’m not, like, Robert Turner and John Yoo, who argue that the issue has to do with the term “declaration” and what was meant by “declare” versus the president’s ability to deploy U.S. forces around the world, which U.S. presidents have done, like, 200 times — depending on when you start looking, hundreds, at least dozens and dozens and dozens of times without a declaration of war. So the issue is more: Does the president have to go to Congress every time he deploys U.S. forces? And I think the debate is about what constitutes a declaration of war versus a deployment of U.S. troops, or the use of U.S. military force abroad. What, to you, is Congress’s role in war? Congress does have the right to declare war. Congress’s fundamental role in war is that it has the power of the purse, and it controls the money that you need to execute wars. And that’s really, really powerful. Having said that, Congress often does not want to cut American soldiers off from funding, so I understand that, right? It was part of the post-Vietnam debacle of cutting money off completely. And a lot of people are very critical of that and say that the outcome partly that we ended up with was because we couldn’t support the government that we had put in and all the money was cut off. So Congress in the past has used that power of the purse to affect the outcomes of war. But Congress itself can be a forum for discussion if a president so uses it. But the president is not obliged to go to Congress to ask for a declaration of war.
