Under the War Powers Act of 1973, presidents must terminate military operations after 60 days unless Congress has voted to declare war or passed legislation to authorize the use of force. The law allows for a single 30-day extension, but only if the president certifies to Congress in writing that additional time is necessary to ensure the safe withdrawal of U.S. troops. So far, Congress has not approved any authorization for the use of military force tied to Iran.
The U.S. military campaign, which began on Feb. 28, will reach the 60-day mark on April 29, but Trump has until May 1 to seek congressional approval to continue operations in Iran since he formally notified Congress of the strikes on March 2, when the 60-day clock is triggered. Many lawmakers in both parties have pointed to May 1 as both a legal inflection point and a moment of reckoning for the legislative branch: They can either end the war or give it a stamp of approval to continue indefinitely.
“It’s the law,” Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma tells TIME when asked whether Congress should authorize the war after that point. “They should.”
But virtually all Democrats and many Republicans do see that 60-day deadline as unalterable, meaning they expect Trump to formally request congressional authorization.
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Tillis adds that how he will vote depends on what the administration tells Congress about the plans going forward, which he suggested needed to be more detailed than they have been so far. “It all depends on the information that gets conveyed to us about the strategic objectives, the timing, all that stuff needs to come before us,” Tillis says. “I've even heard some of the House chairs haven't heard that information.”
Others emphasized that the timeline Trump himself originally laid out should guide the next steps. “The President said he wanted it to last weeks, not months, and he should stick to that goal,” Republican Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio tells TIME.
That tension is unfolding as Congress returns from a two-week recess, having been largely absent from the most volatile early phase of the conflict. In their absence, Trump has alternated between escalating rhetoric—at one point threatening to destroy a “whole civilization”—and tentative efforts to broker a ceasefire, including a fragile diplomatic opening through intermediaries.
The War Powers Resolution, passed over President Richard Nixon’s veto in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, was designed to prevent precisely this kind of prolonged military engagement without congressional consent. While presidents of both parties have questioned its constitutionality—and Congress has never successfully compelled a withdrawal under its provisions—the law remains a central point of reference as the deadline nears.
The request could effectively force lawmakers to decide whether to finance a military campaign they have not formally authorized—a dynamic that is already sharpening scrutiny among Republicans like Bacon, who said the White House must better explain its cost estimates even as he signaled openness to approving additional funds to replenish depleted weapons stockpiles. “They’ve got to tell us how they got their number,” he tells TIME. “$200 billion was unrealistic. That said, we got to refill our coffers. All those cruise missiles we launched, we got to replace them.”
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