'If You Can Keep It': What Trump Owes Congress

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Alian's travel insurance. Ready to turn last year's travel dreams into this year's jet-setting reality? And all trips annual plan is ready when you are all year long. Learn more at Alian's travel insurance.com. President Trump and his administration and allies have sent mixed messages about the war with Iran in the first two weeks of the operation. The Secretary of Defense called it a war. The Republican Speaker of the House said Iran is not a war, and the president has said both. Which one is it? Well, it's both. It's both. It's an excursion that will keep us out of a war, and the war is going to be... I mean, for them it's a war. For us, it's, uh... It turned out to be easier than we thought. Whatever the president calls the joint U.S. and Israeli campaign of missile and airstrikes that started February 28th, the cost so far in lives 13 U.S. troops, more than 2,000 people in the Middle East overall, both civilians and military. Congress has voted on a resolution to limit the president's power to wage this campaign. That effort failed. Beyond that, the president has made little effort to involve Congress. or build public support before launching this war. Many Republican members, though not all, appear unbothered by those facts, at least in public. I'm Todd's Willick in for Jen White. You're listening to the 1A podcast today for our weekly politics series. If you can keep it, we're asking, what does President Trump owe Congress as far as buy-in on war? And how have past presidents involved the legislative branch when deploying the military? Plus, what the president owes you. the American public, and how he's chosen to explain or avoid explaining the justifications and objectives for this war. That's after this break. Stay with us.

This message comes from BetterHelp. People talk about mental health more openly now, but asking for help can still feel hard. BetterHelp's 26 state of stigma report surveyed 2,000 Americans and found that 85% believe getting support is wise, yet 74% say society discourages people from doing so. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash NPR. This message comes from Granger. This is the story of the one. As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility, he knows keeping the line up and running is a top priority. That's why he chooses Granger, because when a drive belt gets damaged, Granger makes it easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he needs, and next day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork. Call 1-800 Granger, click Granger.com or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. Welcome back. Let's get into our conversation and meet our guests. Joining me in studio now is Liz Goodwin. She's Congress Reporter for the Washington Post. Welcome back, Liz. Thanks for having me. Great to have you here. Also joining us from Washington, D.C., Sarah Binder, she's a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a professor of political science at the George Washington University. Sarah, welcome back to you. Great. Thanks for having me. The president engaged in this war in the middle. of weeks of negotiations with Iran, Liz, and threats that he would attack if Iran didn't agree to a deal over its nuclear program. What did members of Congress know before the start of this war? Were they surprised when the missile started flying? So in this case, the Trump administration did notify the gang of eight about military action. What is the gang of eight? The gang of eight is the top leaders of the House and Senate bipartisan. So you can't cut out Democrats, which occasionally has happened in recent months. So in the Venezuela situation, members of Congress really felt cut out when Trump launched that operation to get out Maduro. That was a situation where they felt like they weren't getting enough information. case with Iran, Congress was not fully cut out in that way. I think there was a surprise that action happened because he was sort of on the fence until he made the call, but they did notify Congress. Before? The attack were during? I believe so. I believe it was that same day. I don't know if it was like minutes before or it had started. Okay, so House and Senate leaders, intelligence leaders, these sort of top eight people notified. Well, the week after President Trump's campaign against Iran began, the House and Senate, they did vote on war powers resolutions. Those efforts failed, as I just mentioned. Sarah Binder, almost all Republicans, a few Democrats voted against invoking.

the War Powers Act for this war in Iran, what would those resolutions have done? Well, the resolutions generally would be the Senate saying, for starters, the Senate saying there shall be no more use of military forces in the conflict there unless Congress has actually authorized, given authorization to the president to conduct war. In theory, Senate might have passed it. In theory, might have gone to the House. But ultimately, the president would have had to sign it into law. unless the House chambers were to override the veto. So... There wasn't really a chance of legislation being enacted here, but it was a chance for senators in this case, Democratic senators and a handful of Republicans, to go on record here about their views about the president's conduct of the war. What's the track record of resolutions like this, Sarah Bender, in the last several decades? We're going to talk about AUMF's authorizations of use of military force. war powers resolutions. Has Congress ceded a lot of authority to the White House in this regard? Well, the war power resolutions have not succeeded, right? None of them have succeeded. The closest was back in Trump's first term when he vetoed one, having to do with Yemen, the conflict in Yemen. So in that sense, no, they've not succeeded in technically legally reigning in the president. Congress has had at least around the time of 9-11 and around the war with Iraq in the 1990s, more success there in writing what we sort of refer offhanded to AUMF's authorization for use of military force. That has a much stronger historical record to them, but of course they require large bipartisan support, bicameral, bipartisan support to get them done. Congress passed that AUMF authorization of use of military force, as Sarah Binder mentions. Authorizing the War on Terror post-9-11 expanded it in 2002 to clear the way for the war in Iraq. Those resolutions remain in effect for decades afterwards, sometimes with ambiguous results as to U.S. military action overseas. We'll talk a little bit more about why those votes actually can really, really matter to the politicians who vote on them. Liz, Republicans in Congress have largely backed President Trump on these attacks in Iran. What are you hearing from them right now about the operation, their comfort with it at this point, how it's going, and the information that they're getting from the White House? Yeah, for the most part, Republicans are backing this. I think in part just because Iran historically has been, you know, an enemy.

of the United States and there's a lot of history there. It's unlike Venezuela, which felt a little bit more hard for them to explain to their base. There still is a discomfort with this energy crisis that's been sparked and the fact that there doesn't appear to be. a clear plan to get out of it. Some Republican senators are even saying publicly now, you know, it doesn't feel like they were prepared for the straight of Ramos to get closed and they don't seem to have a way to get out of that. So I think as oil prices rise, you're going to see more complaints and questions from Republicans on the strategy there. Meanwhile, the MAGA base, especially online, but elsewhere, I mean, is big. really divided on this war. America first, some isolationism in the MAGA base, questioning the advisability of attacking Iran, certainly partnering with Israel. Why hasn't that divide bubbled up to elected officials? I think there aren't as many America first elected officials. You know, there's people who kind of put on that. costume when that became popular. But a lot of Republicans were hawks originally. And the party hasn't turned over in Congress to the extent that now everyone's a true blue America first, even though they've become that way. But if you even look at JD Vance, I mean, he's stayed incredibly quiet, right, since this conflict started. And I think he represents that wing of the party. And they're more staying quiet than raising the alarm because I think they're hoping that it'll come to an end and then they don't want to stick their... neck out and have criticized Trump in the meantime. Let's go to our voicemail inbox. Hi. My name is Arthur from Louisville calling in regards to what I expect from Congress is this war lingers on. I hope that Congress suffice to not concede any war funds for this illegal war. There's no sense in endangering American troops or American civilian allies for that matter. And I hope Congress is there. powers and checks and balances to rein in this real government, even though they have ceased to do so this entire presidential run. Well, Sarah Bender, there's one listener hoping Congress takes back some of its power and steps in with oversight or power of the purse here. Past presidential administrations have frequently sent troops abroad without getting express approval from Congress under the war powers resolution. Presidents hate the war powers resolution. Most of them think it's unconstitutional to begin with. When have presidents engaged with Congress before sending troops into combat or in early stages of fighting in a way that would... qualify as, I don't know, informed consent for Congress. Well, I think it's helpful first to take a kind of a big historical step here and then we can focus more recently on the modern times.

Keep in mind that until World War II, right, over the 19th century, even into and through World War I and begins of World War II, there was no large, what we now call the large standing army, right? A very large Pentagon, of both military and civilian employees, right? There's Army, Navy, Navy, Air Force, Marines, like... essentially established already under control of the Secretary of Defense, right? That's not what it was like before World War II. The president had to go for Congress for authorization to ramp up really quickly to get a military force together. But that's long gone, right? And now we're in a world where, as we know, right? numbers and numbers of Pentagon employees and so forth, so that the military is there at the beck and call of the president. So being the commander in chief, he's ready to go. He does it, but he can go to war. In theory, without going to Congress first to ask permission or sources. We have to go to a quick break, but before we do, one of you emailed the Dems and remaining few true conservatives in the Republican Party should insist that any supplemental funding for Trump's Iran war be paid for by shifting funds from the massive amount of money that ICE and Border Patrol received in the big, beautiful bill. Well, more on that supplemental funding bill and what presidents communicate to the public when going to war. Stay with us.

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You know, Republican members have concerns that we talked about earlier about the energy crisis, but it's hard for me to imagine that the funding would be in jeopardy. So you can do this with just 50 votes in the Senate. The House majority is very, very narrow. Would there be a guarantee that all House Republicans would go along with this? Looking forward to the midterms. There's never a guarantee with House Republicans is what we found this past year. I do think, though, there's still a handful of Democrats who didn't vote for the War Powers Resolution in the House, right? So you could even get a Democrat crossing the aisle to vote for funding. Pentagon funding is usually bipartisan. It's something that Democrats, a lot of Democrats don't like to oppose. Sarah Binder, there's a history here of these votes on wars. becoming extremely meaningful after the fact. You get the sense sometimes that they're rubber stamps. But I'll take you back to 2002. We already mentioned the authorization of use of military force for Iraq. Hillary Clinton voted yes. And then she had to defend that position years later in a primary against Barack Obama. And it was one of the factors among many. that led to him beating her. She didn't become president, you could argue, because of that vote. I remember John Kerry way back in 2004 being branded a flip-flopper because he said, I voted against the war, I voted for the war, before I voted against it. These votes have a way of coming back on politicians and really mattering. Well, for sure. And as we often say about members and votes, is that the rewards are for the positions you take, not so much for the outcomes that result. So any of these votes, right, even though, even like a War Powers resolution vote, even if they don't have immediate teeth or long-term teeth, the positions that... lawmakers are taking. And for precisely the reasons that you point out with these sort of quote-to-quote celebrated examples where a vote comes back to bite you. So I think that's that of course is going to vary quite a bit. The the circumstances of 9-11 and the groundswell of congressional and public support for what the administration was doing right in the throes of it, quite a bit different than this conflict with Iran, right? And the question of public support, let alone bipartisan support. Like, none of that is here in this case. So the cost of voting against the administration here for a Democrat, certainly. quite low, maybe a tougher vote for some of those Republicans. But we're getting a lot of questions from listeners and a lot of concern about where the money goes, especially given...

I'm not sure if they're going to get them because it would take Republican members wanting them, demanding them, holding them. I think there has been a little bit of pushback from the Hill to the Trump administration on that school strike because initially President Trump was denying that the U.S. was responsible for that. And Republican senators, including John Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from Louisiana, were saying, listen, you know, we did this and it was a mistake and it's horrible. So there's been a bit of, you know, distance between Trump and... And Republicans in the Senate, but not enough to show like, you know, we want oversight on this. We're actually going to do something here. It's really just a little bit of rhetoric at this point. I mean, how is it possible? I covered Congress for many years. How is it possible that a war starts? Reports come out clearly indicating that the administration was surprised, for instance, by Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz. The president, on one hand, says there aren't any targets left to hit. We're wrapping it up. Then says he's not ready to wrap it up. Then gets on truth social asking for help, demanding help from warships from other countries, which is not a sign that he's ready to wrap up the war or is being advised to. How is it possible? that members of Congress with the power of oversight aren't demanding answers to their questions and in public? Well, I mean, as Rand Paul just said recently when he was the only Republican who voted for the war powers resolution in the Senate, that he thinks the founding fathers never envisioned a Congress with such little ambition. He thinks this Congress has sort of withered away in its... assertion of its powers to such an extent that it doesn't even really resemble the Congress that was initially envisioned by the founding fathers. So I think there has been just a steady erosion of their muscles of oversight, of their muscles of power of the purse, of trade powers, of war powers. That one goes back decades, as Sarah was saying, and we're now reached this point of crisis where the Congress is just pretty... prone it's sort of lifeless supine even sarah bender um if this war doesn't end tomorrow and drags on for days or weeks or months and given the posture of this congress that liz goodwin just described um what are you watching for from this congress what do you think is next what'll be important Well, I think one thing to keep eyes on is the pain as Americans experience it. And that is first in terms of rising, if they're rising casualties, second of all, price of gas, right? It seems hard to put those on the same plane there, but price of gas, how do people experience it here? And general... sense that the war is not in American's interest. And so in that the onus returns, the burden is on the president to make a consistent public case for why it's important for the U.S. in his view to keep prosecuting the war. Absent building of public support is just going to keep degrading.

And that will eventually, may not crack Republicans, but it will make it harder and harder for Congress just to say nothing. That's Sarah Bender Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Liz Goodwin, Congress Reporter for the Washington Post. Thank you both so much. Thank you. Here's a message we got from James in Parkersburg, West Virginia. What I feel the president owes the American public right now is the truth. even if it's ugly, we need to know the truth, we need to know the facts, and we don't need the politicians just lying to us all the time. Well, Peter says Trump doesn't owe the American people any explanation because we put him in the position of not having to answer to anybody. It's time for independence to register for a party so they can vote in primaries. Then at the ballot box, vote every single incumbent out. Democrats. and Republicans. That's the only way we're going to take back our country and save democracy. Peter, thank you for that response. Well, let's get to the question. What explanation does the president owe you the American public while America is at war? Phil Stewart is here, Chief National Security correspondent for Reuters. Phil, welcome back. Thanks for having me. And joining us from Columbus, Ohio is Dakota Rudasil. He's a law professor at the Ohio State University previously served as a senior staff member in the U.S. Senate and worked on intelligence matters in the Obama administration, including at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Dakota, welcome to 1A. Great to be here. Well, in his press conference at the Pentagon on Friday, one of the many, he's... held since the war began. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced questions about the ongoing near blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, though which much of the, through which much of the Middle East's oil moves. Here's his response. Something we're dealing with. We have been dealing with it and don't need to worry about it. We're on plan to defeat, destroy, disable all of their meaningful military capabilities at a pace the world has never seen before. Don't need to worry about it, says the Secretary of Defense. Phil, take us into the briefing room for these press events by the Secretary of Defense and also Chairman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Kane. What do we learn from those briefings about the war's objectives and the military's plans to achieve them? When have they been clear? When have they not been clear? You know, it's a fascinating question. I've been to these briefings, and it seems as if Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Kane are speaking from two entirely different scripts, you know, as if their speechwriters haven't even spoken to each other before the event begins, because you'll hear the kind of political rhetoric we just heard from the Secretary of Defense, and then we'll hear something much more measured, more limited from General Kane about how they're proceeding to take out. you know, any number of targets related to the missile capabilities or to their drone industry or what have you. And so, you know, on the one hand, you have these very lofty political goals that are being enunciated by Secretary Pete Hegseth and then very kind of methodical, almost wonky discourse from General Kane. And what about on the matter of U.S. casualties, how transparent has the Pentagon been in comparison to other conflicts you've covered?

You know, last week, you know, I broke a story about casualties. And at the point when I wrote it, the only numbers they had given out, there were eight U.S. personnel who had been seriously wounded. And I found out the number was, you know, around 150. And I can't even imagine that's been a week. So we don't know what the number is right now. And if you ask, they won't tell you. And so the transparency is not there. Dakota Rudasel, how does the president's handling of the messaging and explanations of this war to the public, to Congress, to everyone, compare, I mean, we compare it to the Bush administration, we compare it to Iraq. How has this been different? Well, the messaging by this administration for the president on down has been dramatically different than we've seen in any prior conflict that we'll be familiar with or that we've had in U.S. history. What I think is especially stunning is that in the messaging over and over, we see a focus on really what is the tactical level, things getting blown up. You know, even we've seen videos coming out from the White House. that look like first-person shooter video games, you know, the Secretary of Defense emphasizes how much stuff we're blowing up. But at the strategic level of what are our goals? What are our objectives? We keep hearing contrary things from the president, from the Secretary of State, from the Secretary of Defense. Phil Stewart, at the same time, we've seen the White House putting out jokey videos on a lot of social media platforms, celebrating war, cartoons, NFL football hits, chest pounding, a lot of gloating about the war. That's new. Yeah. You know, for U.S. military families, which, you know, I've covered for years, you know, war is definitely not a joke. It's not a game. You know, the casualty have real impact on families across America and will for years. You know, so injuries coming home from this war are real for those people. Still to come, building public support for war and why it matters. We'll be right back.

This message comes from Vanta. Risk and regulations are ramping up, and customers now expect proof of security just to do business. Vanta automates your compliance process and brings compliance, risk, and customer trust together on one AI-powered platform. So whether you're prepping for a SOC 2 or running an enterprise GRC program, VANTA keeps you secure and keeps your deals moving. That's not just faster compliance, it's more time for growth. Get started at Vancea.com. Let's get back to our conversation about President Trump's communication around the war in Iran. Phil, you've covered a lot of wars from Washington and from elsewhere, too. How much visibility do we, through the media, especially the public, have on Operation Epic Fury and what's actually happening with strikes in Iran and around the Middle East, especially compared to how U.S. media is followed? past military engagements in the region. How much do we actually know here? You know, it's a great question. Normally, when you're launching a major campaign, and especially one with such high risks for the United States and for its allies overseas, you would have major operational briefings and you'd have regular kind of updates about where things are at. And what we've seen is a much more limited attempt to do something like that. You know, none of the kind of nitty-gritty details. We don't know, for example, how many, even things they've hit. They say targets, but that can be interpreted in many different ways. They'll give you a number of thousands of targets. You know, how much of Iran's Navy remains intact? How many casualties? We don't have a regular update on that. You know, there's any number of very, very, very basic questions that are outstanding at the beginning and end of every day. The Pentagon, as we know, we've covered extensively on the show, has tried to severely limit press access to what they do, certainly from the building. Now, I know that the Pentagon Press Corps, the legitimate press corps, I'll call it, has been allowed back in the building for these wartime briefings after leaving last October. How has the attempt to limit press coverage affected your ability and reporter's ability to faithfully cover this war? You know, it's hard to know what you don't know, having not been in the building, but I can tell you as someone who's a resident there for over 15, 16 years, actually, that... You know, being able to even just get the vibe inside the U.S. military's headquarters has long been something that really helped reporters understand the twists and turns of conflict. And, you know, last week there was a major hearing in Washington, and if you'll permit me, you know, the judge at that hearing had kind of questioned the government's arguments about keeping press out. And he noted that, I'm going to read this. He said, in my lifetime, we've been through the Vietnam War. The Republic was lied.

to a lot. We've been through 9-11, the conflict in Kuwait, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay. I understand a lot of things need to be held secure, but openness and transparency allow the public to know what the government is doing in times of peace, but especially in times of war. Well, that's some important context, Dakota. I want to follow on what Phil has said here. The Pentagon Papers. showed that military planners and politicians lied to the public for years about Vietnam. This is just a little bit of the history. The Bush administration is infamous now for starting the war in Iraq on a false claim of weapons of mass destruction under the control of Saddam Hussein. Here, President Trump claimed there was a threat of imminent attack from Iran in the days before the war. The administration's own briefings since in Congress have contradicted that. U.S. officials have claimed Iran was a week away from being able to build a nuclear bomb, and briefings have contradicted that. So how do these initial explanation and America's collective experience with false justifications for war affect the trust that we, the public, can put into anything this president or figures like Pete Hegseth? Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, say about the war going forward. It is a massive problem. You know, in a republic such as ours, we have popular sovereignty that's right in the Constitution where it says we, the people of the United States. So the public is sovereign. And inevitably, the interests of the public are going to be impacted by a war. And so there needs to be accountability to the public and explanation of why use of military force is necessary, how that use of military force is unfolding. And especially in the context that you mentioned, where in multiple armed conflicts in the past, the government has been less than honest with the public. And this administration has a particularly poor record when it comes to being people of integrity. So it's a massive problem. So I think there needs to be a much clearer explanation of the goals of the war, how it's unfolding. And we also need to see a legal explanation. To the best of my knowledge, this administration has not published an argument for why this war is legal under the Constitution and under international law. And there's massive reason to think that it's egregiously unconstitutional and illegal under international law. You know, that's just a stunning lack of accountability. Phil? Well, I mean, that's a really interesting point. You know, experts that we spoke to in the run-up to the conflict were asking that very question because usually there needs to be some explanation of the imminence of the threat to a nation in order to wage war against another. The president seemed to know that. That's why he pointed to imminence that a couple of days later we found out really wasn't there. Right. So, you know, the questions were, you know, was Iran on the verge of having a nuclear weapon? Was there some imminent threat there? You know, experts would say that no.

There was not. You know, was Iran on the verge of having an ICBM capable of striking the United States? Again, experts would say no. So the imminence argument was hard to really understand. There was an idea that maybe Iran would preempt the United States in negotiations by launching, you know, attacks against U.S. bases. But, you know, reporting on that hasn't held that up either. We got this from Gary about Congress. For me, it's the willful conspiracy to void a critical provision of the Constitution. It's a direct attack on our republic. Pretty close to treason in my book, says Gary. And we got this from Denise. The current occupant of the White House owes us, the public, his resignation. He continues to undermine our democracy and destroy our standing in the international community. Enough is enough, says Denise. Well, there's another wrinkle in this story that I want to ask you. both about. Over the weekend, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, indicated in a post on X that broadcasters needed to change their news coverage around the Iran War, quote, before their license renewals come up, the president posted on Sunday that he approves of Brendan Carr's efforts, stories he considers fake news should be, quote, brought up on charges of treason. reporters and news outlets brought up on charges of treason. Phil, how do you understand that kind of threat from the administration aimed at the media itself and aimed at the very heart of fact-finding and faithful reporting? Well, you know, this gets to an issue that the Pentagon Press Association, and I'm a board member of that group, you know, had been concerned about, which is that, you know, is reporting, you know, seen as a criminal act potentially by the administration, you know, when it comes to... asking questions, asking questions that might not be seen as in the interest of that administration. And so, you know, the argument that was made in that court case, again, that I referenced earlier by the government attorney was that if a journalist solicits, the word was solicit, you know, classified or sensitive information, they're not protected by the First Amendment. And obviously the PPA does not agree with that. Dakota-Rudisil, what's your take on the chairman of the FCC warning? holders of broadcast license that their licenses could be in trouble if they don't get on board with the administration's message? Well, this fits a pattern, which is that this Trump administration is endlessly generating more evidence to support the claim of its critics that it is authoritarian. This is just standard authoritarian autocratic behavior to try to intimidate the media, take over the media, force the media to run messages that the government approves.

And we've seen exactly this sort of thing where the media is criticized by the government that's in charge. And they try to bludgeon it using whatever regulatory approaches they have or get billionaire buddies to buy out the media. We've seen this in Hungary. We've seen this in Russia. We've seen this in so many places. And so it is just the latest example. And we see this in so many different areas where this administration... It gets very upset when people say that they're authoritarian or dictatorial or fascist or whatever. And then they endlessly generate more evidence to support that claim. And so I think people should be really alarmed by that. Yeah, and then last Pentagon press conference, I also remember, I think Secretary Higgs said something along the lines of, you know, the sooner that David Ellison buys CNN, the better. What did he mean by that? Well, yeah, I think he meant that, you know, maybe it's hard to know. He didn't explicitly say it, but, you know, some folks afterwards commented that, you know, he's looking to see CNN either, you know, destroyed or changed. Now, to be clear, when he talks about Ellison, that's Paramount, Paramount took over CBS. A lot of people have been watching a CBS news coverage appears to be changing to a more pro-Trump posture. And here's the Secretary of Defense saying the sooner this happens to CNN, the better. That's how I took it. At a press conference. Yeah. Telling everybody. Dakota, shift gears a little bit. You study something called secret law. What is secret law? Why is it important here and how does it inform what we're talking about with the war in Iran? Yeah, thanks. No, it's very, very relevant. So secret law, it sounds terrifying, but it's a thing in America. And as my scholarship has indicated, it is present. It is produced by all three branches of the federal government. Basically, it is legal rules that are real law, real rules that are not published. And it is a limited exception to the general expectation and norm that we have in a republic that the law is published. So we can all go read it. There are various examples of this. The one that comes up here most immediately is secret law and the executive branch. And what may be happening here is that the Trump administration... has produced a legal memo of some kind, which lays out their case as to why this Iran war is legal under the U.S. Constitution, legal under international law, but they've classified it or not published it. And unfortunately... There are a lot of examples over the decades, especially during the George W. Bush administration, where legal memos, which made dramatic departures from how the law just read if you sat down and read it, right, basically made dramatic departures in secret legal documents from how the law appeared to the public.

But then classified it, but of course moved ahead on that basis. This happened with the Pentagon strikes in the Caribbean and the Western Pacific. There was secret legal justification, as I recall. Anybody correct me if this is wrong, Phil? Secret legal justifications that were not revealed to the public until reporters got their hands on them and did publish what these articles, what these memos were arguing, justifying preemptive, extrajudicial U.S. strikes on boats on the high seas. Dakota, I have that right, don't I? Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, so this administration has been using, you know, just as you said, like classified legal explanations for things. And unfortunately, what we've seen when these documents get published is they're terrible. The quality is so low as I read one of these documents about the Caribbean operations. Like, I really started to wonder, did they just drop a question into chat GPT? I mean, it was just, it's such poor work. This is one of the problems of secret law, is that when you make the law secret and especially legal memos that do analysis, what you do is you shield false claims and you also shield crappy legal work. And so I think it's a long past time for the public to ask and Congress to legally require that any legal document that does any important work has got to be published. Phil Stewart, let's boil this down. I mean, why does this really matter? The need for the administration, the president especially, the secretary of defense, the secretary of... Secretary of State to go directly to the public and earn support for a war like this. I mean, you could argue, hey, that's what midterms are for. Stop complaining. You don't like it, vote against it. The elections are coming in a few months. That's one argument. Why does this opacity, this hiding of the truth and this, this culture of shifting explanations really matter? Well, you know, if you speak to experts on U.S. military history and the U.S. military currently, they would tell you that, you know, public support is important for any war. And ultimately, you know, the America's sons and daughters are being sent off to fight these wars. And so having public support is obviously critical. And part of that is building this case in public for why this is necessary and why it's being done correctly. And it is very unusual to see the U.S. trying to build that support kind of retroactively right now. You're seeing the president calling on allies to send ships off to police the strait of Hormuz, and he's finding some probably uncomfortable resistance from people that he's depended on for a long time, like Australia. So the public case for war is fundamental, both at home and...

abroad. What's your biggest unanswered question? I'm sorry to ask you that, because I'm sure as a veteran reporter, you have about 50. What does the public need to know now today about this war? Is it about the Strait of Hormuz? Is it about the president's ability to keep this war going? Prices? What is it? You know, just the question popped in my mind, an old Petraeus question, which is, you know, how does this end? How does this end? The president says it ends when he feels it in his bones. How does it end? How indeed. That's Phil Stewart, Chief National Security correspondent for Reuters. Also, Dakota Rudicill Law Professor at the Ohio State University, who served a senior staff in the Senate, worked on intelligence matters in the Obama administration. Phil, Dakota, thank you, Ulf, so much for joining us. Today's producer was Michael Filaro. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Todd's Willie. This is 1A.

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