Klaus Marre 04/06/26 (whowhatwhy.org)
If Republicans are too cowardly to assert their power to declare war, or to even acknowledge that this is what the conflict with Iran is, they should at least take away Donald Trump’s ability to launch a first-strike nuclear attack without congressional approval.
What happens when you give a desperate president with severe mental disorders the codes to America’s nuclear weapons, surround him with sycophants, purge some of the Pentagon’s senior leaders, and get involved in a war with no clear exit strategy in which the enemy has found a way to inflict real pain on US consumers? To be honest, we’d rather not find out.
And, yet, here we are.
Regrettably, all of the above is happening already, and there is precious little anybody can do about it. Or, to be exact, the people who could do something about it – congressional Republicans and members of the cabinet – won’t.
Obviously, they are never going to take the most drastic measures available to them, i.e., impeachment and removal in Congress or invoking the 25th Amendment in the cabinet. And we don’t blame them. You’d have to be as insane as Trump (and not care about your own personal safety or that of your loved ones) to initiate those steps.
Instead, they simply seem to be hoping that the unhinged madman who F-bombed Iran on Easter Sunday, keeps threatening to direct the US military to commit war crimes, changes daily the objectives that he claims to either have already achieved or hopes to achieve (and sometimes both), and is clearly feeling the strain from the economic chaos that he has created, will not do anything too rash and crazy.
We have some bad news for them: Rash and crazy is all you are going to get from Trump.
Fortunately, there are some tools available to congressional Republicans that will allow them to protect civilians in Iran, US allies in the region, the global economy, the wallets of Americans, and, although we increasingly doubt it, perhaps even the GOP’s Senate majority from the president.
And, best of all, those options are right there in the Constitution!!!
First and foremost, Congress could (and should) simply reassert its power to declare war. While Trump, as well as former Fox News morning show host, war crime enthusiast, and current Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, sometimes remember to call the conflict a “special military operation” or some other such term, it is pretty clear that this is a war.
It’s time for GOP lawmakers, who played along with this charade early on, to act like it.
While they are at it, they can also reclaim the power of the purse.
However, since it is likely that simply following the Constitution is a bridge too far for the spineless Republican bootlickers in Congress, there is one thing they should be doing right now: curbing Trump’s authority to launch unprovoked nuclear strikes in an illegal war.
Specifically, we are talking about passing the “Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2025,” which is a sensible piece of legislation that should get the required veto-proof majority in the House and the Senate.
Here is what it would do:
No Federal funds may be obligated or expended to conduct a first-use nuclear strike unless such strike is conducted pursuant to a war declared by Congress that expressly authorizes such strike.
Well, that seems like a no-brainer that nobody should find any fault with. While we would love to get the nuclear codes out of Trump’s hands entirely, passing this legislation would at least restrict their use in a narrow case – like when he urgently wants to end a crisis of his own making by taking the kind of irrational action that would open up an even bigger can of worms than picking an unnecessary fight with an enemy who can shut down one of the world’s most important waterways.
There must be enough sensible Republicans left in Congress to understand that this would not only be a terrible decision but also that there is a non-zero chance that the president would resort to this step as a way to pressure Iran to open up the Strait of Hormuz, or, as he calls it, “the fuckin’ Strait.”
While it might sound inconceivable that even somebody as crazy as Trump would resort to use of nuclear weapons, we wouldn’t hold our breath. There has been too much talk of destroying all of Iran and bombing the country back to the Stone Age “where it belongs” for us to simply dismiss this possibility.
Democrats should make it a priority to attach this bill to any legislation Congress considers when it returns from recess.
We just hope it won’t be too late.
- Klaus Marre Klaus Marre, a former congressional reporter, is a senior editor for US politics at WhoWhatWhy. He writes regularly here, and you can also follow him on Bluesky and Substack.
