Schumer and Jeffries Need to Step Up and Challenge Trump on War Powers

Opinion|Trump Might Take the U.S. to War. Where Are Schumer and Jeffries?

On many issues, Americans are deeply polarized. War with Iran isn’t one of them. An Economist/YouGov poll of U.S. adults taken in the days after Israel’s attack last Friday found that Democrats opposed entering the conflict by a margin of 50 points and Republicans opposed entering it by a margin of 30 points.

Given these numbers, you might think Democratic leaders would be doing everything they can to prevent President Trump from striking Iran without the approval of Congress. Sadly, they’re not. More than 20 years ago, powerful Washington Democrats acceded too timidly to a catastrophic Middle Eastern war. Now they’re at risk of doing so again.

From the moment Israel struck Iran, it was obvious the United States might be sucked in. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made it clear he wanted Washington to join Israel in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. And on the day of the first attack, when Tehran retaliated by launching missiles at the Jewish state, the United States helped shoot them down.

Despite this, the initial statements by the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, and their House leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said nothing about the need for Congress to authorize war. As the days passed and news reports suggested that Mr. Trump was edging toward entering the fray, Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, invoked the War Powers Act to require the president to gain congressional permission. Thomas Massie, a Republican, and Ro Khanna, a Democrat, proposed something similar in the House.

Neither Mr. Schumer nor Mr. Jeffries has signed on. Nor has Mr. Schumer agreed to co-sponsor another bill that Senator Bernie Sanders introduced, prohibiting funding for military force against Iran absent congressional approval (despite backing the same legislation in 2020).

In the meantime, the White House said on Thursday that Mr. Trump would decide within two weeks whether to attack Iran, possibly by ordering U.S. forces to strike Iranian nuclear sites with the 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs that Israel lacks.