| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
Of American citizenship. | |
| And at 9.30 p.m. Eastern authors Jacqueline Schneider and Julia McDonald share their book, The Hand Behind Unmanned, discussing America's automated arsenal, including torpedoes, drones, and other remotely controlled technologies. | ||
| Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including Buckeye Broadband. | ||
| Buckeye Broadband supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. | ||
| Joining us now, Philip Wallach from American Enterprise Institute. | ||
| He is their senior fellow there, also the author of the book, Why Congress. | ||
| Philip Wallach, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great to be here with you. | |
| Let me extend that why Congress and its oversight of actions like we saw in Iran. | ||
| What's the role Congress has? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think, obviously, it's been more than 75 years since Congress declared a formal war. | |
| And Congress has been comfortable giving the president the lead in these kinds of limited actions. | ||
| What the War Powers Act of 1973, which many of the callers have talked about, guarantees is that president has to notify Congress right away. | ||
| If it is going to become a protracted engagement, he will have to get Congress's affirmative approval to continue it. | ||
| So I think the truth is that Congress has allowed the president to take limited actions of short duration and just sort of give Congress the ability to hold him to account on those, not really to say yes or no before they happen. | ||
| When it comes to what we saw with the specific strikes in Iran, does it fall under a congressional approval? | ||
| Does it fall under the president's powers that he already has? | ||
| Where do you see it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the president himself claims the authority just sort of from Article II of the Constitution to conduct the nation's diplomacy to make sure our interests are respected. | |
| I think this unique relationship or hostile relationship between Iran and the United States has to be taken into account. | ||
| This isn't just some country. | ||
| This is a country that over the decades has cost Americans many lives and calls us the great Satan. | ||
| And if they had a nuclear weapon, that would really be a game changer. | ||
| So I think taking all that into account, the president says that just his abilities as the commander-in-chief give him this authority. | ||
| And that's more or less in line with what a lot of presidents have claimed in somewhat similar situations. | ||
| You talk a little bit about the history of it. | ||
| This week, we're seeing two separate tracks when it comes to efforts in Congress to limit efforts in Iran. | ||
| The Senate making its effort this week, the House. | ||
| What do you think specifically about these decisions by Congress or these efforts by congressmen to limit the president's power? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think they're sort of position-taking as much as anything else, right? | |
| The members of Congress want to say this was the president's choice. | ||
| He has the responsibility. | ||
| If things go wrong in the future, it's on him, right? | ||
| I don't really think many of our legislators who are pushing these efforts think it's going to change something very important, but they want to be clear. | ||
| This was the president's choice. | ||
| It was not run through them. | ||
| The president did not consult legislators in any real significant way before he made this decision. | ||
| In an era of better legislative-executive relations, you might have expected a sort of substantive consultation before the decision was made. | ||
| Seems that that did not really happen. | ||
| So they're showing the American people this wasn't us. | ||
| On the Senate side, do you think this is an effort, as some would think, to maybe just get the legislators on record as far as what they think? | ||
| Think about it more than the effort to curtail the show itself. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Exactly. | |
| So Democrats, again, want to make sure people understand this wasn't their party making this decision, and maybe they want to put some of the Republicans who are always mourning of forever wars sort of in a little bit of a tough situation to say whether they support this action. | ||
| Phil Wallach is our guest. | ||
| And if you want to ask him questions about these efforts in Congress to limit the president's power when it comes to military action, especially in light of recent days with Iran, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and independence, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text us your thoughts or comments and do that at 202-748-8003. | ||
| The two terms that congressmen have been using in relation is it an act of war and then precision military strikes. | ||
| How do you parse those, particularly to the larger idea of limiting the president's power in these efforts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think it has to do with sort of how we envision things going forward. | |
| I think President Trump has been pretty clear that he hopes that this is it. | ||
| He hopes that we've struck our blow against the nuclear program, that it's disabled, and that that's where it can end. | ||
| And Iran had a little bit of its retaliation sort of because it felt it had to, but now we've come to a ceasefire. | ||
| So I think he saw it as a one-time thing, accomplish our mission and be done. | ||
| I do think that the possibility of it becoming a more protracted conflict is always there, but I don't think that's how he'd like to frame it. | ||
| When it comes to members of Congress themselves, a bit of history first and foremost. | ||
| How have other presidents circumvented the use of this power and the efforts to curtail that power? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| So, you know, we had the war powers resolution back in 1973 over President Nixon's veto in the first place because Congress was so upset about the ways that he prolonged the Vietnam War and expanded the bombing into Cambodia without really bringing Congress into that decision. | ||
| So ever since then, we've had presidents, though, who've found their moments for military action. | ||
| Most recently, we think of President Obama's actions in Libya, some actions in Syria. | ||
| And these things have not come through Congress first. | ||
| We see the notice after the fact, pursuant with the War Powers Resolution, but we really haven't seen, going back to President Clinton, we had the whole Bosnia intervention. | ||
| So we've seen a pretty fairly steady pattern where presidents of both parties are willing to take these kinds of actions. | ||
| During the, it was after September 11th, we saw something pass in Congress called the authorization for use of military force. | ||
| What did that do and how does that fit into the larger picture of Congress's role? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, yeah, Congress doesn't want to completely withdraw from the picture and when it thinks that there's a possibility of protracted conflict, it wants to set the terms. | |
| So After September 11th, it created an authorization that was meant to guide presidents in allowing them to take on the terrorists responsible for that action wherever they might go. | ||
| You know, when it came to the Iraq War, they put another separate authorization of use of military force in place to give President Bush the power to wage that conflict. | ||
| So they haven't done formal declarations of war any longer, but they have tried to structure the executive branch's decision-making by putting these laws into place. | ||
| Now, unfortunately, they're very open-ended, right? | ||
| So, this one from right after September 11th has turned out to give presidents huge scope to do an awful lot of things where they say, oh, well, this all gets back to somebody who was helping al-Qaeda in some way or other, so that gives us the power to act. | ||
| Why not an end date on those kinds of things? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why not indeed, yes? | |
| I think our Congress has a generalized problem with putting emergency powers in place that sort of never go away. | ||
| That's not limited to the military context at all, but it does seem like it would be healthy for them once every few years or at least every decade or so to revisit whether they want to give their support to these kinds of efforts. | ||
| And just to clarify, is the AUMF still enacted? | ||
| It sure is, yes. | ||
| We've had talks about repealing various AUMFs, and mostly we just haven't done it. | ||
| Phil Wallach is with us. | ||
| He's with American Enterprise Institute, the author of the book Why Congress. | ||
| And if you want to ask him questions, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Janice is in North Carolina, line for independence for Phil Wallach. | ||
| Janice, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Mr. Wallach, I have a comment and a question. | ||
| A lot of people have been talking about the rights of the president to conduct war, and they've been talking about the rights of Congress to declare war. | ||
| And what I want to do is get your opinion on, I've already heard you say authority, and that is the correct word to be used in this situation. | ||
| And I appreciate that. | ||
| And I was wondering if you could make further comments about that, because there is a large difference between rights and authority. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thanks for the question, Janice. | ||
| I think we do an awful lot of rights talk in American politics and thinking about everyone's rights and whether they're being violated or not. | ||
| Generally, that language is confusing when we start to apply it to the powers of the different branches of governments. | ||
| The different branches have powers set out in the Constitution, and they have various responsibilities and duties set out in the constitutional framework. | ||
| They don't really have rights, and it's mostly rather confusing to talk about their rights. | ||
| So the president, by virtue of being the commander-in-chief, clearly has the power to direct the military and to protect American security as a part of that. | ||
| So that is a vast power, given the responsibilities as a global leader that America has. | ||
| Presidents have found within that power A warrant to do an awful lot of different kinds of things taking military actions around the globe. | ||
| So I'll leave it at that. | ||
| When you see Congress then trying to make these efforts like we're seeing this week, how does that push back or how does that fit within the separation of powers idea between the Congress and the President? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, again, Congress is not irrelevant to this situation. | |
| Congress is the one responsible for funding the military, for deciding what the shape and size of it ought to be through its yearly appropriations and through its yearly national defense authorizations. | ||
| So Congress is a serious, important player in these matters. | ||
| But in terms of actually making the decisions our military should do X on this date, they're not the frontline leaders. | ||
| They're having to react to what happens from the executive branch. | ||
| And that's always been the case back to the beginning of American history to some extent, but certainly in the modern age, even more so. | ||
| So I think Congress keeps itself in the picture in various ways. | ||
| These war powers debates allow it to hold the president to account. | ||
| But I don't think we should fool ourselves into thinking that Congress is really an equal frontline decision maker on military matters. | ||
| A couple of scenarios. | ||
| Let's say that one of these war powers resolutions passes the House. | ||
| Does it automatically, does the Senate have to pass a similar type of legislation or how does that work? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, not just that, but the President has to go along with it. | |
| So, you know, the way the War Powers Act is set up, it gives the President this window of 60 days to operate without needing any congressional approval. | ||
| So from what we know today, there's really no indication that the President's actions are going to cause him to need to go outside of that window. | ||
| He doesn't really need anything from Congress. | ||
| This action is already completed. | ||
| And even if it needed to have an immediate sequel in the coming weeks, it wouldn't need explicit congressional approval. | ||
| So I don't mean to be too dismissive because I think it matters how Congress weighs in on this issue. | ||
| And if Congress were to sharply rebuke the President, I think politically that would matter a great deal. | ||
| But to some extent, this is commentary after the fact. | ||
| Sharply rebuke, how does that work? | ||
|
unidentified
|
If we were to see 51 senators vote to say, you know, we believe the president has no further action to take in Iran without congressional approval, I think that would be taken as a rebuke of the action that already happened and a sort of sense that the Congress doesn't trust the administration on this issue. | |
| So I think the White House is fighting against that outcome. | ||
| They don't want to see that happen. | ||
| And it's an important debate to shape actions going forward. | ||
| Again, though, it doesn't really change what's already happened. | ||
| A viewer from Illinois asked via text this morning, does Mr. Wallach, you, feel the War Powers Act could be modified to allow for more immediate action by Congress? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, ever since the war power passed, there's been some skepticism of it, going back all the way into the 1980s. | |
| Question of whether the way it's structured is constitutionally appropriate, whether it's effective. | ||
| So there's been many decades worth of reform ideas about the War Powers Act. | ||
| They haven't come to anything. | ||
| The Republicans in 1995 tried to repeal it. | ||
| Fell just short on that front. | ||
| So I think that this is sort of part of the furniture of American government at this point. | ||
| We're kind of used to it, and we've kind of found ways to live with it and have it structure congressional executive branch relations. | ||
| I think if you wanted to give Congress a much more central frontline role in these decisions, you would need to change something. | ||
| I'm not sure that Congress actually wants that responsibility. | ||
| For all they may second-guess the president, to actually say we as a collective body need to be the ones trying to make these decisions in real time. | ||
| I think our congressional leaders are skeptical that they really can live up to that for good reason. | ||
| We really need a single decision maker able to respond in real time quickly to rapidly changing situations. | ||
| Another situation happening this week, and members of Congress in the House and the Senate expect to get a briefing from the White House. | ||
| How much disclosure does the White House have to give Congress when it comes to the actions that they took on Iran? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think if you talk to former members of Congress, they say that briefings from the executive branch tend to be very disappointing, right? | |
| They're classified briefings. | ||
| You have the sense that you, as members of Congress, ought to be given all this real classified information that gives you insights that the regular person doesn't have. | ||
| And yet, a lot of the time you feel like you're just being told what's already in the newspapers. | ||
| So I think there's not a formal requirement here that Congress gets certain amounts of information. | ||
| It's really about maintaining good relations between the branches, right? | ||
| And so when you see Senator Schumer talking about how he's angry that such a briefing hasn't happened already, I think in large part that's just saying we don't want you to slight us, we don't want you to act like we don't matter. | ||
| We want you to keep us in the loop. | ||
| And to the extent that we are seeing extraordinarily bad relations between the two parties right now, to say the least, I think we're all pretty tense around this and congressional Democrats who are in the minority want to make sure that they're not completely being left out in the cold. | ||
| American Enterprise Institute's Philip Wallach for this conversation when it comes to Congress's role in military action. | ||
| Ed in New Jersey, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yes, Ed O'Donnell, the United Nations Charter in Article 24 says it is the responsibility of the UN Security Council to establish world peace. | ||
| And the United States needs a firebrand orator like Daniel Webster as UN ambassador who is promoting absolute pacifism. | ||
| That's the only solution, is absolute pacifism. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I disagree. | |
| You know, if sort of just a rhetorical commitment to pacifism were all it took to keep the world safe and at peace, I think we'd be in a much better situation. | ||
| Unfortunately, I don't think that's what the lessons of history teach. | ||
| And, you know, I think there's a lot of skepticism in this current administration, but going back well before it of the United Nations' ability to guarantee peace, I think sort of energetic muscular foreign policy has been a much more certain guarantor of relative peace. | ||
| Republican line from Florida. | ||
| Nelson, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How's everyone? | ||
| Mr. Wallach, I believe that part of the problem with Congress is, first of all, it's too big. | ||
| There's 535 members between the two houses, plus God knows how many assistants that they have hired in order to try to carry out the contradictory efforts that they make. | ||
| Second of all, if Congress had known what was going on when the United States struck Iran a few days ago, there would have been a thousand leaks, which would have put the armed forces involved in great danger. | ||
| I'm afraid that Congress, the future of Congress, is difficult to assess. | ||
| They're constantly bickering with one another. | ||
| And as important as the representation is to the American people, I do not see the Congress of the United States becoming relevant in regards to the general daily application of government to this country. | ||
| Your thoughts on that, and thank you, sir. | ||
| Thanks for the comment, Nelson. | ||
| I think a lot of people share your feelings that Congress is too big and has too much bickering within itself to really be counted on to steer government. | ||
| I think you shouldn't underestimate it, though. | ||
| As much as I've just told you earlier in the segment that Congress is not the frontline decision maker on these kinds of national security matters, Congress is shaping the governance that regular people feel every day, all the time. | ||
| And, you know, even in this age when its productivity is sort of challenged and we're having a lot of difficulty forging bipartisan compromises, I think still we need Congress to act. | ||
| Things will go very badly if we just assume Congress only can bicker, right? | ||
| We have to pass spending laws every year. | ||
| We have to authorize our military. | ||
| We have to raise the debt limit or else we will default on our national debt. | ||
| You know, Congress is doing some interesting things. | ||
| It's trying to figure out a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and stablecoins, trying to figure out how our nation should deal with artificial intelligence. | ||
| So I don't think you want to assume that just because Congress is a big body that is prone to bickering in many ways that it's irrelevant, we have to find ways to work through those differences that we really do have, to figure out how we can accommodate each other, what we can do together that we can all live with. | ||
| And that's the role of Congress. | ||
| I don't think the president can do all that. | ||
| The presidency has advantages, especially in this national security sphere of secrecy and dispatch, as Alexander Hamilton put it. | ||
| But it's not able to really take into account the whole diversity of this complicated country and work through those differences. | ||
| So I think Congress and the President each have their place. | ||
| You can see our guest work at the website AEI.org. | ||
| Philip Wallach is a senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute, the author of the book, Why Congress. | ||
| Philip Wallach, thanks for your time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum, inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. and across the country. | ||
| And coming up Friday morning, Texas Republican Congressman Keith Self, a member of the Freedom Caucus and the Foreign Affairs Committee, discusses U.S. military action against Iran and votes soon on the president's one big beautiful bill. | ||
| And then Hawaii Democratic Congresswoman Jill Takuda, a member of the Armed Services Committee and the Progressive Caucus, will also talk about U.S. military action against Iran and her opposition to the president's tax and spending legislation. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
| Join the conversation live at 7 Eastern Friday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| Live Friday on the C-SPAN Networks. | ||
| At 9 a.m. on C-SPAN, the House returns to consider a resolution condemning the Los Angeles protests earlier this month against federal immigration enforcement. | ||
| On C-SPAN 2 at 9 a.m. Eastern, the Faith and Freedom Coalition hosts its annual Road to the Majority Conference. | ||
| Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins and Treasury Secretary Scott Besant are scheduled to speak. | ||
| The U.S. Senate returns live at 3 p.m. Eastern and will debate an Iran war powers resolution from Virginia Senator Tim Kaine that seeks to bar President Trump from taking additional military action in Iran without congressional approval. | ||
| A vote on that is set for 6 p.m. Eastern. | ||
| Members could also begin work on the GOP Tax and Spending Cuts Reconciliation Bill, which extends the 2017 tax cuts and funds President Trump's defense and border security priorities. |