While the House voted in favor of a resolution limiting his military actions in Iran on Thursday night, President Trump took to Twitter to tip his cap to his former national security adviser, John Bolton, for coming out against Congress having the authority to check the president's powers. Retweeting an earlier message from Bolton about the 1973 War Powers Resolution, Trump wrote, “Smart analysis, I fully agree!” His tweet came in response to Bolton's argument that the 1973 resolution requiring the president to notify Congress of any military action was “unconstitutional.” “It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Constitution allocated foreign affairs authority between the President and Congress,” Bolton wrote in a tweet. “The Resolution should be repealed.”
Bolton, who left the White House in September amid a cloud of controversy after he disputed Trump's claim that he'd been fired, offered his “analysis” on Congress limiting presidential war powers just hours before the House voted 224-194 on Thursday evening to limit Trump's military actions in Iran. Three Republican representatives—Thomas Massie (KY), Matt Gaetz (FL) and Francis Rooney (FL)—voted in favor of the measure, and eight Democrats voted against it. At least one Senate Republican expressed support for the resolution, meant to serve as a check on the president's power to enter into a war without the consent of Congress, after lawmakers received an intelligence briefing about the U.S. offensive against Iran and the country's retaliation on Wednesday. “I walked into that briefing undecided,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) told reporters Wednesday. “That briefing is what changed my mind... I'm now going to support it,” he said of the resolution at the time.
