On September 10, 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives took a decisive step toward reining in the president’s authority to wage war, passing legislation to repeal two longstanding authorizations for use of military force (AUMFs) from 1991 and 2002. These authorizations, originally designed for the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars, have enabled successive presidents to launch military operations without explicit and current congressional approval, fueling a decades-long debate about the balance of power between Congress and the executive branch.
The vote, which passed 261-167, was part of the broader fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, a sweeping policy bill that directs Pentagon priorities each year. Rep. Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York and the lead sponsor of the amendment, declared from the House floor, “It is time to, once and for all, end the forever wars,” according to NJ Spotlight News. The sentiment echoed across party lines, with a notable coalition of Democrats and a segment of isolationist Republicans supporting the measure, while the majority of GOP leadership remained opposed.
This legislative push comes at a moment when the question of presidential war powers has become more urgent. Just days earlier, on September 2, President Donald Trump ordered a U.S. military drone strike on a boat in the Caribbean, believed by his administration to be smuggling drugs. The attack, which killed 11 people, immediately drew scrutiny regarding its legal basis. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters, “Every boatload of any form of drug that poisons the American people is an imminent threat, and at the DoD, our job is to defeat imminent threats,” as reported by Task & Purpose.
Yet, the Trump administration’s justification for the strike has been called into question. The administration claimed the vessel was a drug trafficking boat posing an imminent threat to the United States, but evidence supporting this assertion has been scant. According to The Intercept and The New York Times, the Pentagon could not positively identify the boat as Venezuelan, nor confirm that its crew were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, a group the administration has designated as terrorists. In fact, The New York Times reported that the boat had altered its course and appeared to turn around before the attack, further undermining the claim of imminent harm to the U.S.
Senator Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNN after a Pentagon briefing, “There is no evidence—none—that this strike was conducted in self-defense. That matters, because under both domestic and international law, the U.S. military simply does not have the authority to use lethal force against a civilian vessel unless acting in self-defense.”
In response to the strike, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) introduced a war powers resolution in the House on September 11, 2025, aiming to restrain President Trump from conducting further attacks in the Caribbean. Omar, joined by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) and whip Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.), argued that the president’s actions were neither self-defense nor authorized by Congress. “There was no legal justification for the Trump administration’s military escalation in the Caribbean... It was not self-defense or authorized by Congress. That is why I am introducing a resolution to terminate hostilities against Venezuela, and against the transnational criminal organizations that the administration has designated as terrorists this year,” Omar stated, as reported by The Intercept.
The legal debate hinges on the interpretation of congressional war powers versus the president’s role as commander-in-chief. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the “sole authority to declare war,” but in practice, presidents have repeatedly acted without formal declarations, citing authorizations like the 2001 AUMF passed after the September 11 attacks. That authorization, originally intended to target the perpetrators of 9/11, has since been used to justify a wide range of military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and beyond.
Legal scholars have criticized the Trump administration’s rationale for the Caribbean strike. Scott R. Anderson, a senior fellow at Columbia Law School’s National Security Law Program, wrote for Lawfare that “there is no colorable statutory authority for military action against Tren de Aragua and other similarly situated groups.” He noted that the 2001 AUMF extends only to those responsible for 9/11 and their associates, and “no one—not even in the Trump administration—has accused Tren de Aragua of being that.” Marty Lederman, a former deputy assistant attorney general, added in Just Security that “what’s more alarming, and of greater long-term concern, is that U.S. military personnel crossed a fundamental line... that (except in rare and extreme circumstances not present here) the military must not use lethal force against civilians, even if they are alleged, or even known, to be violating the law.”
The House’s move to repeal the 1991 and 2002 AUMFs is not without precedent. In 2023, the Senate voted 66-30 to rescind the 2002 authorization, with bipartisan support, but the House did not take up the legislation, causing it to stall. This year’s effort, led again by Meeks and supported by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), reflects a growing bipartisan consensus that Congress must reclaim its constitutional role. “We don’t need to have Congress effectively modern-day declaring war and leaving it in place for a quarter of a freaking century, or in this case, 34 years,” Roy told Politico. “We can do better.”
Still, even if the House and Senate ultimately agree to repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations, presidents may continue to rely on other justifications for military action. David Janovsky, acting director of the Constitution Project at the Project on Government Oversight, told Task & Purpose that the 2001 AUMF would likely be the next battleground. “If the goal is to get Congress really back in the mix and how the United States uses its military in counterterrorism scenarios, the 2001 AUMF would have to be the next part of that conversation,” Janovsky said.
The debate over war powers is hardly a new one. The last formal declaration of war by Congress was in 1942, during World War II. Since then, U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq has been authorized through AUMFs rather than explicit declarations. Law professors Michael Ramsey and Stephen Vladeck, writing for the National Constitution Center, observed that “in modern times, however, presidents have used military force without formal declarations or express consent from Congress on multiple occasions.”
For now, the fate of the repeal amendment remains uncertain. The final version of the National Defense Authorization Act will be negotiated by members of both the House and Senate, and it is unclear if the repeal will survive the legislative process. Past attempts have faltered at this stage. Yet, the current momentum—driven by both public skepticism of endless wars and bipartisan concern over unchecked executive power—suggests that the tide may be turning.
As lawmakers on Capitol Hill grapple with the legacy of “forever wars” and the future of American military engagement, the central question remains: who gets to decide when, where, and why the United States goes to war? The answer, for now, is still very much in flux.
