Trump Deliberately Keeps Congressional Democrats in the Dark Before Military Strikes on Iran

Jun 22, 2025

There is controversy over whether the recent airstrikes on Iran exceed the president’s constitutional authority. On the one hand, Congress has not authorized war on Iran. On the other hand, presidential war powers have been interpreted to authorize limited action that falls short of war “in the constitutional sense.”

In the past, presidents have bridged this gap by consulting with congressional leaders of both parties before taking any military action. Yet in the case of the Iran strikes, CNN reports that Donald Trump conferred only with Republicans while leaving most Democratic leaders in the dark:

The top two Republicans in Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, were both notified of the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities ahead of time, according to multiple GOP sources.
People familiar with the matter initially told CNN that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries received notifications shortly before the public announcement—and after the attack itself.
But after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt disputed that account, a source conceded that Schumer had been called around 6 p.m.—a little less than an hour before the strikes began—with little detail. He was told of imminent military action without naming the country in which the action was to take place, the source said. …
Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees, were not told until after the strikes had occurred, sources said.

Even a limited airstrike can lead to a need for more military action, so it should not be undertaken without broad support in Congress. Yet despite Republicans’ very narrow majority in Congress, Trump seems determined to govern with only the support of his own party.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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