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'It Needs to End. Now': Trump and Allies Ripped for Lying to Dodge Iran War Powers Deadline
"Republicans are out of excuses and should join Democrats and stop this war," said one congressional Democrat. "Let's put the pressure on."
May 01, 2026
Friday marks 60 days since President Donald Trump formally notified Congress of the US and Israel's illegal war on Iran—a key deadline under a relevant federal law. In a new notification obtained by Politico, the White House claimed the conflict has been "terminated," but lawmakers aren't buying that argument.
"That's bullshit," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said of the latest notification on social media. "This is an illegal war, and every day Republicans remain complicit and allow it to continue is another day lives are endangered, chaos erupts, and prices increase, all while Americans foot the bill."
Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who has fought to stop Trump's assault on Iran since before it began, told Common Dreams that "Trump knows this war is deeply unpopular with his base. He's trying to say it's over, but the reality is that thousands of US troops are still in the region, and food and gas prices are still going up at home."
The Republican president and some of his key allies had previewed the White House position in various remarks on Thursday.
"Look, the country's doing really well, and that's despite a military operation—I don't call it a war," Trump, a well-documented liar, told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. "Iran is dying to make a deal."
Since Trump began bombing Iran on February 28, legal experts and US lawmakers have alleged violations of international law and the Constitution, which empowers only Congress to declare war. However, both chambers are narrowly controlled by Republicans, nearly all of whom have refused to support Democratic war powers resolutions intended to end the conflict, most recently in the Senate on Thursday.
Defenders of Trump's so-called "Operation Epic Fury" argue that he was allowed to strike Iran under the War Powers Act of 1973, which empowers the president to deploy military forces for up to 60 days as long as he notifies Congress within 48 hours. After those two months, he is required to end hostilities or seek permission from federal lawmakers to continue them.
"He seems set against doing so," Tess Bridgeman and Oona A. Hathaway wrote Friday for Just Security. "If he refuses, he will take a war that is already doubly illegal and turn it into a triply illegal war. He will also make it clear, if it was not already, that he regards the law as no constraint on his use of the US military's lethal power."
On Thursday, as the latest Senate resolution was blocked in a 47-50 vote, Trump allies joined the president in suggesting that, as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told NBC News in the Capitol, "We are not at war."
"I don't think we have an active, kinetic military bombing, firing, or anything like that. Right now, we are trying to broker a peace," Johnson said. "I would be very reluctant to get in front of the administration in the midst of these very sensitive negotiations, so we'll have to see how that plays out."
The US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire on April 7, just hours after Trump's genocidal threat to wipe out the Middle Eastern country's "whole civilization." That truce has since been extended, but it and another deal for Israel's supposed targeting of Hezbollah in Lebanon are both "fragile, temporary, and in danger of collapse at any moment," as Amnesty International stressed in a Wednesday statement calling on the international community to push for sustainable peace in the region.
Throughout the ceasefire, Trump has maintained his naval blockade on Iran, which has responded to the war by closing the Strait of Hormuz to most ship traffic. Restrictions on the trade route have driven up fuel prices around the world, including across the United States, where new polling shows that over 60% of Americans say the president's war was a "mistake."
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth cited the ceasefire on Thursday when questioned about how the administration plans to address the 60-day deadline by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.)—a leading voice for war powers resolutions on Iran and other military aggression by the administration—during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
Hegseth said that "ultimately, I would defer to the White House and White House counsel on that. However, we are in a ceasefire right now, which, [in] our understanding, means the 60-day clock pauses, or stops, in a ceasefire."
Interjecting, Kaine responded that "I do not believe the statute would support that. I think the 60 days runs maybe tomorrow, and it's gonna pose a really important legal question for the administration. We have serious constitutional concerns and we don't want to layer those with additional statutory concerns."
Before the notification to Congress on Friday, a senior Trump administration official had affirmed that what Hegseth laid out is the White House position, telling Reuters that the US military and Iran have not exchanged fire since April 7 and, for War Powers Act purposes, "the hostilities that began on Saturday, February 28, have terminated."
Highlighting Trump's ongoing blockade of Iran, US Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) called Hegseth "flat wrong," and declared that the Pentagon chief "does not get to rewrite the law because following it is inconvenient."
Another California Democrat, Rep. Sara Jacobs, said on social media Thursday: "Trump's war on Iran was illegal from day one—Congress never authorized it. Tomorrow, the statutory 60-day clock runs out too. Republicans are out of excuses and should join Democrats and stop this war. Let's put the pressure on."
In a video released Friday, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) noted his role in the Obama administration's Iran nuclear deal—which Trump ditched during his first term—and emphasized the president's "legal obligation to withdraw troops after 60 days, or come to Congress for authorization."
Democrats have vowed to keep introducing war powers resolutions. As one went down in the Senate on Thursday, Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) introduced another in the House, following in the footsteps of other Congressional Progressive Caucus members.
"Americans don't even know why we are in this war, and neither does Congress," Balint said in a statement. "This unauthorized war is yet another example of the Trump administration's brazen and illegal attempts to consolidate power. At a time when Americans have told us everything is too expensive, it is shameful that we are wasting upwards of a billion dollars a day on this."
"We need it to end, to bring our service members back to safety, and to get Congress and this administration to focus on lowering the cost of living here at home," she added. "Today, I introduced a war powers resolution which would direct the president to stop the use of US armed forces in Iran unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war from Congress. It is essential to hold every member of Congress accountable for allowing this war to continue and put them on record for the American people to see."
Nick Penniman, founder and CEO of the political reform group Issue One, took aim at federal lawmakers on Friday, declaring that "the American people should be deeply concerned by Congress' failure today. Since the war in Iran started, our country has spent more than $25 billion bombing military and civilian targets in Iran. Fourteen Americans have been killed, and more than 200 have been wounded. More than 3,000 Iranians have died—half of them civilians, and many of them children. The stakes are profound, which is why Congress should be making such decisions, not just one man in the Oval Office."
"Yet, in defiance of the Constitution, too many in Congress bow to the President. In missing the 60-day deadline to assert constitutional authority, Congress has totally failed in its most fundamental role as the first branch of government," he continued. "The precedent set today is deeply harmful to American democracy. When the president acting alone becomes normalized, it becomes more difficult to have a government of, by, and for the people."
"The founders were very clear that Congress, not the executive, has the final say when it comes to war and peace," he concluded. "This can't go on. Congress must approve all future funding for the war with Iran. Moving forward, Congress has to reassert its power in deciding when and how our country enters war. In order to do that, Congress should update the 1973 War Powers Resolution to reassert constitutional checks and balances to protect future generations of Americans."
This article has been updated to include the White House's new notification to Congress claiming the Iran War has been "terminated" plus comment from Issue One, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Congressman Ro Khanna.
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61% of Americans See Trump's Iran War as 'Mistake', Far Outpacing Disapproval of Vietnam and Iraq: Poll
"In Iraq, it took more than three years to reach that high. In Vietnam, it took six years."
May 01, 2026
More than 6 in 10 Americans now say President Donald Trump's war in Iran was a "mistake," according to a poll out Friday from the Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos.
Within two months, the war—which has inflicted thousands of civilian deaths and caused gas prices to spike worldwide with little tangible gain—has reached levels of unpopularity that previous wars now seen as historic boondoggles took years to reach.
The Post has asked the "mistake" for other major wars. But CNN senior political reporter Aaron Blake explained: "In Iraq, it took more than three years to reach that high. In Vietnam, it took six years."
Despite a massive protest movement, voters overwhelmingly supported President George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq, with 81% believing it was the "right thing" in April 2003 and just 16% believing it was a mistake.
But the occupation turned into a long, deadly, and costly disaster, and the administration's pretexts for the war were revealed to be lies. Public opinion steadily eroded to the point where 64% viewed it as a mistake by January 2007.
Vietnam never had the overwhelming support of Iraq, but 60% of Americans still supported President Lyndon Johnson's decision to begin direct US military involvement in 1965, while just 24% said it was a mistake.
While the protest movement against the war is as present in Americans' memories today as the conflict itself, public opinion was still split until 1968 and only reached a high of 61% in May 1971, after more than 50,000 US soldiers had been killed in battle.
Trump's war in Iran is unique in history in that it never enjoyed even a moment of consensus support. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll just days after the opening salvo of what the Trump administration dubbed "Operation Epic Fury," just 27% said they approved of the strikes, which killed 555 Iranians, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other top Iranian officials.
At this point, 43% of Americans already said they disapproved of the strikes, far eclipsing Iraq and Vietnam. But 30% still said they had not yet made up their minds.
In the coming months, they would. It was revealed that an airstrike on a school, which killed at least 155 people, including 120 children, was a double-tap attack by the United States. Iran retaliated by blocking oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, which sent US gas prices hurtling above $4 per gallon. And Trump took on an increasingly erratic and at times outright genocidal posture toward Iran that made any peaceful resolution appear increasingly impossible, even with the current fragile ceasefire.
Friday's poll shows that while the war still maintains a core base of support—36% of Americans who say it was the right decision, nearly all of them Republicans—it is dwarfed by the 61% who say it was a mistake.
Majorities of respondents across all demographics show that they believe the war has increased the risks of "terrorism against Americans" (61%), "the US economy going into a recession" (60%), and "weakening relationships with US allies." (56%)
Looking beneath the surface shows an even more worrying sign for Trump: The war has almost no constituency outside of his biggest fans. Self-identified Democrats (91%) overwhelmingly say the war was a mistake. But 71% of independents—many of whom were undecided at the war's outset—now disapprove too, with just 24% in support.
Even within the GOP, there is a decisive split: 86% of those who self-identify as "MAGA Republicans" are still baying for blood. But "non-MAGA Republicans" have grown uncertain—50% still say war was the right decision, while 49% say it was a mistake.
They were particularly rattled by Trump's threat last month that "a whole civilization will die tonight" if Iran did not negotiate a deal to his liking. The threat of genocide was too much even for the majority of Republicans, 53% of whom said they viewed it negatively.
What remains to be seen is whether even Trump's most faithful backers will turn against the war as it drags on. If Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's appearance in Congress on Thursday is any guide, the country may soon find out.
On Thursday, when Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) pressed Hegseth about why he has "not sought the support of the American people" and added that "3 out of 5 Americans are against this war today," he appeared in abject denial about the war's unpopularity.
"I believe we do have the support of the American people," he said. "I would remind you and this group that we're two months in to an effort, and many congressional Democrats want to declare defeat two months in."
He specifically invoked lengthy past conflicts, repeatedly emphasizing that this one had only lasted "two months," as if to urge patience with a war Trump had previously said was intended to last only "four to five weeks."
"Iraq took how many years? Afghanistan took how many years? And they were nebulous missions that people went along with," he said.
"This is different," he said of a war that has—depending on the day—been described as one aimed at regime change in Iran, defending protesters, destroying its nuclear program, eliminating its ballistic missile supply, taking its oil, defending Israel, and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, among other objectives.
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Why I'm Answering the May Day Call to Action By Running for Congress
The workers of Uptown and The Bronx have been making the demand for a better life for over a century but Washington has ignored their demands for too long. I'm running to make sure it finally has an answer.
May 01, 2026
Uptown wakes up before the rest of New York even opens its eyes. Walk Broadway from 125th to 168th, up through Dyckman, as I have, and you'll see it: The bodega coffee grabbed on the run, the crosstown bus packed before dawn, people clocking into work while downtown is still asleep. These are the people who built our city. Not the CEOs, real estate developers, or the politicians who show up every two to four years with fliers and false promises. The movement fighting for their dignity has always lived here—on these buses and these street corners.
Every May 1, we honor them. May Day, or International Workers' Day, was created from needless state violence. In 1884, American workers went on strike to win an eight-hour workday. As the deadline approached, a protest in Chicago turned deadly, with police firing into the crowd and arresting seven workers who, after a sham trial, were executed. The bosses thought that would be the end of it. They were wrong. Workers fought for and won the right to an eight-hour workday.
Here in Harlem, Washington Heights, and Kingsbridge, May Day isn’t an abstract history lesson, it’s a mirror. This is a day to honor the transit workers, nurses, teachers, laborers, and caregivers who have always refused to accept less than they deserve and risked everything to fight for a better future for the next generation. They show us what's possible when working people come together, across generations, race, gender, and culture, and demand a dignified life.
May Day reminds us of something simple and profound: Uptown is a union town. It always has been.
I want to build power for the people on that crosstown bus before dawn who never get thanked for keeping our city running and are told to be grateful for what little they have.
New York, and Uptown especially, has become a stronghold of union power. It was in Harlem, during the Harlem Renaissance, that A. Philip Randolph founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters—the first Black-led labor union in American history. It was in Washington Heights and Spanish Harlem where Dominican and Puerto Rican immigrant women transformed the garment industry, becoming so essential to the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union that by the 1950s, the union published its paper, Justicia, entirely in Spanish. And it was in the Bronx that Ella Baker and Marvel Cooke exposed the Bronx Slave Market, where domestic workers, most of them Black women, were paid as little as 15 cents an hour and subjected to workplace harassment and abuse. Their conditions were so appalling that it sparked city-wide organizing to protect domestic workers. This is my community’s inheritance.
That tradition is still alive in our streets today. In January 2026, 70 years after 1199 Service Employees International Union's historic 46-day strike at Uptown hospitals, hundreds of unionized NY State Nurses Association (NYSNA) nurses walked off the job at NewYork-Presbyterian on 168th Street and at hospitals across our community. They stood on their picket lines from dawn to dusk, through a brutally cold January, fighting starvation wages and conditions so unsafe that patients were being put at risk. After 41 days of striking and organizing, they won. That's the Uptown way.
From the factory floor to the hospital room to the living room, Uptown is still at the center of the labor movement. I think about this legacy when people ask me why I'm running for Congress. The honest answer is: I'm not sure I had a choice.
When you grow up as the daughter of Dominican immigrants and watch your parents work multiple jobs and come home exhausted, see your neighbors get pushed out, watch politicians blame the vulnerable instead of the corporations robbing them blind, all while sending their tax dollars to drop bombs on babies, you organize and fight back. And eventually, the question stops being why run and starts being how could I not?
Congress was not built for us. It was built to manage us. It was built to keep our labor, our rent checks, and our votes flowing to people who have never had to choose between rent and groceries, all while allowing the people who are the foundation of our city to fall through the cracks. But here's what the establishment never understood about Uptown and The Bronx: We don't wait for permission.
That's the legacy I am fighting to protect in Congress. I am a proud card-carrying United Auto Workers member. I've picketed alongside NYSNA nurses on 168th Street and Mount Sinai Morningside. I've fought with Student Workers of Columbia to protect their peers from harassment by the university and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In Congress, I will fight to pass the PRO Act so every worker can organize without fear. I will push to fund public housing, cancel medical debt, and end the forever wars that drain our communities to pad the pockets of defense contractors. I want to build power for the people on that crosstown bus before dawn who never get thanked for keeping our city running and are told to be grateful for what little they have. They built New York and deserve everything it has to offer.
May Day is a call to action. The workers of Uptown and The Bronx have been making the demand for a better life for over a century but Washington has ignored their demands for too long. I'm running to make sure it finally has an answer.
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