Trump faces War Powers deadline as Congress weighs Iran war authorization

President Trump is running out of time. On Friday, a 1973 law called the War Powers Resolution will force a reckoning: either the fighting in Iran ends, or Congress must formally authorize it to continue. The clock started ticking on March 2, when Trump notified lawmakers that American forces had entered hostilities. Sixty days from that letter, the law says, the president must withdraw those forces unless Congress has declared war or voted to let him keep fighting. That deadline arrives this week.

The Iran conflict itself began on February 28. For more than two months, the administration has conducted military operations without explicit congressional approval, relying instead on the president's constitutional authority as commander in chief. White House officials say they have kept lawmakers informed—Anna Kelly, the White House spokeswoman, noted that administration officials held more than 30 bipartisan briefings to brief members of Congress on military developments. But briefings are not the same as authorization, and the War Powers Resolution exists precisely because Congress wanted to reclaim some control over when America goes to war.

The law's mechanics are straightforward but contested. A president can wage war for 60 days without Congress. If he wants to continue beyond that window, he can ask for a 30-day extension to safely withdraw forces—but that extension does not permit him to keep fighting. It is a runway for exit, not a license to escalate. David Janovsky, who directs the Constitution Project at the Project on Government Oversight, put it plainly: "It's not a 30-day blank check for the president to continue whatever hostilities he sees fit." Yet the administration is already laying groundwork to argue otherwise.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that the 60-day clock may have stopped. The United States and Iran agreed to a ceasefire on April 8 to allow peace negotiations. Hegseth suggested that a ceasefire pauses or halts the statutory timer. House Speaker Mike Johnson went further, telling NBC News that Congress does not need to act because the country is "not at war." He said the administration is "trying to broker a peace" and that he would be reluctant to interfere with sensitive negotiations. But Katherine Yon Ebright, an attorney at the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program, said this interpretation has no basis in the law's text or design. "There is a long history of executive branch lawyers willfully misinterpreting the War Powers Resolution to allow presidents to conduct hostilities even past that 60-day clock," she said. The Obama administration made similar arguments about Libya in 2011, claiming air strikes did not constitute "hostilities." The Clinton administration continued bombing Kosovo past the deadline by arguing Congress had implicitly authorized it through funding votes.

Congress itself is fractured. Democrats have introduced multiple war powers resolutions demanding that Trump seek authorization or withdraw. Republicans have blocked them all—more than half a dozen measures have died in the GOP-controlled chambers. But some Republican senators are signaling they may change course after Friday. Senator John Curtis of Utah wrote that 60 days is "a fully sufficient window for presidents to take emergency measures" before the decision must go to Congress. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri said "the statute does need to be followed" and called for an exit strategy. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the administration needs "a plan for how to wind this down." Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is drafting a formal authorization for military force in Iran but has not yet introduced it, and whether it could pass remains unclear.

The war itself remains unresolved. Trump extended the ceasefire indefinitely last week, but then abruptly canceled plans for his top negotiators to travel to Pakistan for a second round of talks. Iran's nuclear program and control of the Strait of Hormuz—a critical oil chokepoint now at the center of an energy crisis—remain unresolved. No one knows how this ends, or whether the administration will simply declare the ceasefire a pause in the 60-day clock and keep the option of renewed strikes alive indefinitely.

The War Powers Resolution has never successfully stopped a military campaign. Congress tried in 2019 to end American involvement in Yemen; Trump vetoed the measure and Congress lacked the votes to override him. Courts have largely stayed out of war powers disputes, and getting a judge to rule on the constitutionality of the Iran war would be, as Ebright said, a "tough sell." The law's real power, she suggested, operates in the political realm, not the legal one. A handful of Republicans helped constrain Trump on Venezuela in January after receiving assurances about troop deployment and after Secretary of State Marco Rubio agreed to testify to Congress. But whether that political pressure will hold on Iran—and whether the administration's creative interpretation of the ceasefire will stick—remains the question Friday will begin to answer.