I wrote that President Donald J. Trump’s celebration of
his new marble bathroom in the White House was so tone deaf at a time when
federal employees are working without pay, furloughed workers are taking out
bank loans to pay their bills, healthcare premiums are skyrocketing, and
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits are at risk, that it seemed
likely to make the history books as a symbol of this administration.
But that image got overtaken just hours later by pictures
from a Great Gatsby–themed party Trump threw at Mar-a-Lago last
night hours before SNAP benefits ended. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925
novel The Great Gatsby skewered the immoral and meaningless
lives of the very wealthy during the Jazz Age who spent their time throwing
extravagant parties and laying waste to the lives of the people around them.
Although two federal judges yesterday found
that the administration’s refusal to use reserves Congress provided to fund
SNAP in an emergency was likely illegal and one ordered the government to use
that money, the administration did not immediately do as the judge ordered.
Trump posted on social media that “[o]ur Government lawyers do not think we have the legal authority to pay SNAP,” so he has “instructed our lawyers to ask the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible.”
Blaming the Democrats for the shutdown, Trump added
that “even if we get immediate guidance, it will unfortunately be delayed while
States get the money out.” His post provided the phone number for Senate
minority leader Chuck Schumer’s office, telling people: “If you use SNAP benefits,
call the Senate Democrats, and tell them to reopen the Government, NOW!”
“They were careless people,” Fitzgerald wrote, “they
smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or
their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together and let
other people clean up the mess they had made.”
This afternoon, Ellen Nakashima and Noah Robertson of
the Washington Post reported that the administration is
claiming it does not have to consult Congress to continue its attacks on
Venezuela. The 1973 War Powers Act says it does.
In 1973, after President Richard M. Nixon ordered secret
bombings of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, Congress passed the War Powers
Resolution to reassert its power over foreign wars. “It is the purpose of this
joint resolution to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of
the United States and insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress
and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces
into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities
is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such
forces in hostilities or in such situations,” it read.
The law requires a president to notify Congress in
writing within 48 hours of the start of hostilities, including the legal
grounds for those hostilities, the circumstances that caused them, and an
estimate of their scope and duration. The law requires the president to get the
approval of Congress for any hostilities lasting more than 60 days.
On September 4, 2025, Trump notified Congress of a
strike against a vessel in the Caribbean that he said, “was assessed to be
affiliated with a designated terrorist organization and to be engaged in
illicit drug trafficking activities.” The letter added: “I am providing this
report as part of my efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent
with the War Powers Resolution.”
Monday will mark 60 days from that announcement, but
the administration does not appear to be planning to ask for Congress’s
approval. It has been reluctant to share information about the strikes, first
excluding senior Senate Democrats from a Senate briefing, then offering House
members a briefing that did not include lawyers and failed to answer basic
questions. The top two leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger
Wicker (R-MS) and Jack Reed (D-RI), have both said the administration has not produced
documents, attack orders, and a list of targets required by law.
Representative Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY), the top Democrat
on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Nakashima and Robertson: “The
administration is, I believe, doing an illegal act and anything that it can to
avoid Congress.”
T. Elliot Gaiser, who leads the Office of Legal Counsel
under Trump, told a group of lawmakers this week that the administration is
taking the position that the strikes on unnamed people in small boats do not
meet the definition of hostilities because they are not putting U.S. military
personnel in harm’s way. It says the strikes, which have killed more than 60
people, have been conducted primarily by drones launched off naval vessels.
Brian Finucane, who was the War Powers Resolution lawyer
at the State Department under President Barack Obama and during Trump’s first
term, explained: “What they’re saying is anytime the president uses drones or
any standoff weapon against someone who cannot shoot back, it’s not
hostilities. It’s a wild claim of executive authority.”
If the administration proceeds without acknowledging
the Monday deadline for congressional approval, Finucane said, “it is
usurping Congress’s authority over the use of military force.”
—Heather Cox Richardson
Notes:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/31/politics/snap-benefits-november-judge-ruling
https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/news/war-powers-resolution-1973
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/all-the-u-s-military-strikes-against-alleged-drug-boats
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/11/01/trump-venezuela-war-drugs-law/
Bluesky:
onestpress.onestnetwork.com/post/3m4ldvvz7322u
meidastouch.com/post/3m4jy6x5iks2y
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