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Intro When Donald Trump bombed Iran, did he commit an unconstitutional abuse of power? I'm Jim Drastic. I'm Tiffany Drastic. And I'm Nick Kudson. And today on the Dangerous Ones, we are asking the expert on presidential war powers about the constitutionality of Trump's Iran strike. Look, this is a complicated issue. Seriously. And uh we want everybody out there to be armed with the truth on this so that when you're out with your friends or you're talking to your MAGA uncle and Iran comes up because it will you have the facts. This is a big issue right now. Uh so that's why we are so excited to welcome Dr. Casey Dominguez to the show. Y Dr. Dominguez is a professor and the sitting chair of political science at the University of San Diego. Her book, Commanderin-Chief: Parttisanship, Nationalism, and the Reconstruction of Congressional War Powers, came out just last year. She's literally the expert on this, and we're so excited to get her take. Dr. Dominguez, welcome. Thank you so much. So, let's just start with the big question up front. Was Trump's bombing of Iran an unconstitutional abuse of power? Yes. Yes. Okay, good. We're not crazy. Oh, good. I mean, it certainly seems that Why is this illegal way. It certain It doesn't feel like a president should just be able to bomb whoever he wants, you know, without any accountability. Um, so now, please, if you would expand, uh, and explain sort of precisely why this was an illegal action. So, I could go on and on at great length about this, but I'll give you the short version, and you let me know where you want me to elaborate. Perfect. Um but article 1 section 8 gives Congress the power to declare war and also do a whole bunch of other things. Hiring mercenaries, making rules about captures, um you know making rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces like it it's a lot. Um the the war powers of the United States are given to Congress. The president is given the authority. The president is given the title. It is a title, commander-in-chief, which means that um people in the military have to follow his orders and can't countermand them. Um but the way that that was originally understood was that it was just a title. It was a it was the it's a title that you would give that Congress in fact gave to George Washington, but they could have given it to other people, right? and and you can give the title commander-in-chief in fact was you is used often to denote somebody who's you know the admiral of a fleet is the commander-in-chief of that fleet. Um and so it's not a political it doesn't grant any political power. Um the decision to engage in hostilities and if we care what the framers of our constitution thought and let's let's go ahead and talk about it like we do. um they thought that hostilities were any kind of offensive action. Um and so there's a lot of weasel words when we talk about constitutional war powers. There's well what's an emergency and what's hostilities and what's you know what what what is war itself, right? And so a lot of those words get thrown around um carelessly in important political debates unfortunately. But there's no question that um the president of the United States does not have constitutional authority to initiate hostile action against another country without some kind of legal justification in American law. There is no such legal justification. Congress in fact passed a law in 2020 um that said that there is no legal justification for attacking Iran uh on a bipartisan basis. They p passed that bill after Trump assassinated ordered the assassination of Solommani, also an Iranian military leader, and they they were trying to restrain him and and hold him in um from escalating into a conflict with Iran. And they they wrote a bill that said, "You can't do this. We're not Congress does not say that there's there's no legal authorization for this whatsoever." Um and of course, he vetoed it and they didn't override the veto. So, you know, what is the legal status of that? It it says that there is no legal basis for President Trump to engage in any kind of hostilities against Iran. And in fact, he's not really claiming that he has any legal basis. He doesn't care. He's not trying to sell it like it's legal. Um and so you know one thing that uh supporters will often say or that or that cynics will say is well presidents have done this kind of thing before. Uh and that gets into uh a lot more historical detail because in fact most of the times that presidents have initiated the use of force um there they have claimed some legal justification to it and that those legal justifications have gotten flimsier and flimsier over time but they do claim that the Congress has somehow authorized them to do this. Um and there is no such justification for Trump in this situation. And so c Can Trump do this can can so just claiming it uh does that mean he can do it if he just says I I'm saying that this is you know I have a reason for going in can he just do that? Has have presidents done that in the past saying I've got a reason I'm going in or does does Congress have to actually give him the okay? Congress has to give him the okay. There's no real legal question about it. Um now this is a question that we're asking in a lot of areas right now. Right. Donald Trump says, "I have the power to, you know, ship people overseas to imprisons and um I have the power to, you know, take away all the grants given to universities and and I have the power to shut down USAD, a congressionally authorized agency, and I have the power to spend money in ways that Congress didn't authorize." So, he's making all kinds of claims that go against the laws in the Constitution. And this should be considered a really important one that he is also making that is also wrong. It makes me go like God, we have reached with Donald Trump. I swear so many of these moments where you're like the law or whatever feels like it went up to here, but we didn't expect to have a president to keep stepping over that line, you know. Uh, and so it just because we didn't we didn't have to we all we just thought, oh, no one would ever do that and now we have to go someone's actually thinking about doing it, so we should probably Yeah. mitigate that in some way. Yeah. And I know you had a a question. I do. So the power seems to be getting concentrated in the executive branch instead of with Congress being, you know, equal uh uh branches of government. What do we do about that as a country? How do we keep that from from How do we keep Congress from getting weaker? I think we don't ignore situations like this and we don't let um politicians that represent us uh get away with ignoring these situations either, right? They Congress has a role here, but they have to step up and use it. And Tim Kaine has been a leader in the Senate on trying to get Congress to use its constitutional war powers responsibly. Um, and people who are doing that ought to be supported and people that are not doing it ought to be pressured to say, "No, you put it on the list. This is not something that that you can just let him get away with because this is something Congress Congress really can't lose this power completely." Um, and you know, put on the list with with the other powers like the spending power that Congress also can't lose. But I'm telling you, if if the American people in Congress don't stand up and say, "No, wait. You can't cross this line," then then the line's going to keep moving. Y, that's a fantastic point, too, because that's why us going out into the streets. Yes. And uh having a popular uprising is one of the most important things we can do right now, considering he's in power, uh you know, and and whatnot. Is that's what Rep Pokean said. He said, "You guys got to keep showing up. You got to keep getting in the streets. You have to start getting loud. It's just it's it's hot protest summer, you guys. Yeah, we we got to we got to push back. Um do you know of any legal means that uh the Democrats have or uh or elsewhere to challenge this other than to just get in the the press and say you're not supposed to do that, right? Well, you know, as with everything else, the Democrats don't control the agenda setting power of Congress. they can't bring a bill to the floor in the House or the Senate without per without the agreement of Republicans. Um, and so that that does limit what they can do, but there but they can be working to get their Republican colleagues to also agree that this is a line that should not be crossed. And it's, you know, our partisan polarization doesn't work real well with a constitutional system where Congress is supposed to defend itself. But that's been true for a really long time. Our framers didn't understand that political parties were important parts of democracy. um and they would have designed a different constitution if they had really understood that because this the whole checks and balances thing is always subject to um partisanship. But you know, people have to members of Congress have a responsibility here and they need to be reminded of it by their by their constituents. And it it it almost feels like we're kind of stymied here because I think based on what you're saying, this is a a potentially impeachable offense. Um, and but there's like we have like impeachment fatigue as a as a as as a country that like like oh again, you know, like am I correct in that? Well, I'd like I I always ask my students to imagine what would have happened if presidents had been imp if James K. Pulk had been impeached and removed from office for illegally starting the Mexican War or if uh George W. Bush had been impeached and removed from office for lying to the American people about the intelligence supporting the Iraq war, it would serve as a deterrent to future presidents um to at least for a while uh to not do that stuff anymore. And if if impeachment is not used for illegal use of force, like there's plenty there's plenty that he's doing that's impeachable. Um but the question is yes. I'm in favor of impeachment. I I I I I I think it's a tool that needs to be used. The Republicans are obviously not going to use it. But the Democrats need to go knocking on those doors and ask their Republican colleagues, "Hey, you know, does this seem like something that you would support?" If it wasn't him, would you be supporting it? Cuz I bet the answer is yes. Yeah. Yeah. Right. right? If it was our guy, you know, and it may turn out when it's all said and done, who knows how this is all going to play out, but it may turn out that Iran backs down and and Israel backs down and it almost seems like, oh, Trump came in and he was the big president and he dropped some bombs and then that kind of solved the problem. Yeah. The the political outcome does not justify the illegal action in retrospect. And it doesn't change that it's illegal, unconstitutional, and impeachable. Yeah, still true. Well, thank you so much for joining us again. Go out, get Dr. Casey Dominguez's book, Commanderin-Chief: Partisanship, Nationalism, and the Reconstruction of Congressional War Powers. Fantastic. We thank you so much for coming on and we would ask that when we run into these issues, cuz I don't know the law here, so that it it just helps us out so much. Thank you. Thank you, Casey. You're welcome.

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