The 60-day War Powers Resolution deadline on the Iran conflict expired Friday with Congress nowhere near a vote to authorize force, and most Republican lawmakers content to let President Donald Trump handle the war on his own terms. The Senate rejected a Democratic effort to halt the conflict for the sixth time on Thursday, then lawmakers packed up and left Washington for a one-week recess.

No authorization. No formal constraint. No binding resolution of any kind. The body charged by the Constitution with declaring war simply walked away from the question.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., made clear Thursday he sees no need to schedule a vote. Newsmax reported Thune told reporters he had been listening to his conference and did not see appetite for action:

"I'm listening carefully to what the members of our conference are saying, and at this point I don't see that."

That posture left Democrats fuming and a handful of Republican senators visibly uncomfortable, but it also reflected a political reality: the GOP majority trusts the commander-in-chief more than it trusts the 1973 statute Congress wrote to check him.

The administration's ceasefire argument

The Trump administration's legal position is straightforward, if contested. A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said flatly that "the hostilities that began on Saturday, Feb. 28 have terminated." The official pointed to a two-week ceasefire that began April 7, during which the U.S. military and Iran have not exchanged fire.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth reinforced that argument during a Senate hearing Thursday. "We are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means, the 60-day clock pauses or stops," Hegseth said. The administration's position is that because active bombing has ceased, the War Powers Resolution's timetable no longer applies.

Trump himself put it in writing. As the Associated Press reported, Trump told congressional leaders that "the hostilities that began on February 28, 2026, have terminated", a formal assertion designed to sidestep the deadline entirely.

House Speaker Mike Johnson backed that framing. "We're not at war. We're policing the Strait of Hormuz and trying to get to a peace," Johnson said, as the New York Post reported. The Senate War Powers Act resolution to end military action against Iran failed in a 47-50 vote.

The administration's earlier framing of the initial strikes as preemptive defense drew on decades of presidential precedent, a legal rationale that has carried weight with most Republicans throughout the conflict.

Democrats and skeptics push back

Democrats called the ceasefire argument a legal fiction. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia confronted Hegseth directly during Thursday's hearing, telling him, "I do not believe the statute would support that." The War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires the president to withdraw U.S. forces after 60 calendar days unless Congress has authorized combat, or within 90 days if the president formally requests an extension. The White House can use a 30-day extension to safely withdraw forces, but Congress must be notified.

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., pointed to the fact that the U.S. Navy is maintaining a blockade to prevent Iran's oil tankers from getting out to sea through the Strait of Hormuz, even during the ceasefire. "Ceasing to use some forces while using others does not somehow stop the clock," Schiff argued.

The skepticism was not limited to Democrats. Andrew C. McCarthy, writing in National Review, called Hegseth's claim that the ceasefire froze the War Powers Act clock "implausible." McCarthy contended there was "in reality, no cease-fire" because Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps continued a de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz. If Iran still holds the waterway and the U.S. Navy is still blockading Iranian tankers, the argument that hostilities have "terminated" rests on a narrow definition of the word.

Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, offered perhaps the bluntest assessment. He told the Associated Press: "Is the expectation that the Trump administration is going to follow the law? I do not have that expectation."

That kind of rhetoric from the opposition is familiar. But the more telling friction came from inside the Republican conference itself.

GOP cracks, small but real

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine voted with Democrats on Thursday to halt the war, the first time she had done so. Collins said in a statement that she wants to see a defined strategy for bringing the conflict to a close. "The president's authority as commander-in-chief is not without limits," Collins said, adding that the 60-day deadline is "not a suggestion, it is a requirement."

Collins's break was notable, but she was not alone in expressing discomfort. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska announced in a floor speech Thursday that she will introduce a limited authorization for the use of military force when the Senate returns from recess, if the administration has not yet presented what she called a "credible plan."

"I do not believe we should engage in open-ended military action without clear accountability. Congress has a role."

The Senate has blocked Democratic attempts to override Trump's war powers on Iran multiple times already. But Murkowski's pledge to draft her own authorization signals that the question is shifting from "should we stop the war?" to "should Congress have any say at all?"

Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, said he would not support continued funding for the war until Congress votes to authorize it. "It is time for decision-making from both the administration and from Congress, and that can happen in league with one another, not in conflict," Curtis said. Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Josh Hawley of Missouri have also said in recent weeks they would eventually like to see a vote.

Meanwhile, Just The News noted that despite these rumblings, Congress is not actually moving to challenge or formally constrain Trump's handling of the conflict. Republican leaders continue to defer to the administration's position that the ceasefire ended major hostilities, making formal authorization unnecessary for now.

The constitutional tension

The War Powers Resolution has been a source of friction between Congress and the executive branch since Richard Nixon's era. Presidents of both parties have tested its limits. Democrats who now demand Trump seek authorization showed far less urgency when their own presidents stretched executive war-making authority, a pattern that has been well documented in the case of the Obama administration's Libya strikes.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., leaned into the executive-power argument. He said he would vote for an authorization of war if Trump asked for it, but questioned whether the War Powers Resolution is even constitutional. "Our founders created a really strong executive, like it or not like it," Cramer said.

Thune, for his part, suggested the White House step up outreach to lawmakers with briefings and hearings rather than formal votes. "Obviously, getting readouts from our military leadership on a somewhat regular basis I think will be helpful in terms of shaping the views of our members about how comfortable they are with everything that's happening there, and the direction headed forward," Thune said.

That framing, comfort through briefings, not binding votes, captures where the Republican majority stands. Most GOP senators support Trump's wartime leadership or are willing to give him more time. The administration has shown no interest in seeking congressional approval at all. And public frustration over the conflict and its impact on gas prices continues to mount.

The House has already rejected its own War Powers challenge, with four Democrats even breaking ranks to vote against it. The executive branch, for all practical purposes, is operating without a congressional check on the Iran conflict.

What comes next

When the Senate returns from its one-week recess, Murkowski's proposed authorization will test whether the small band of uneasy Republicans can force the question. Curtis's pledge to withhold war funding adds a second pressure point. But neither effort has Thune's backing, and without the majority leader scheduling floor time, any bill faces long odds.

The ceasefire, meanwhile, remains fragile. Iran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. Navy maintains its blockade. Both sides have stopped shooting, but neither has stopped maneuvering. Whether that constitutes "terminated hostilities" under a law written in 1973 is a question no court is likely to resolve, and Congress has chosen not to answer it.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Congress just told the country it would rather not use it. That is a choice, and the people living with the consequences of this conflict deserve to know their elected representatives made it deliberately, not by accident.