The 60-day War Powers Resolution clock that began when President Trump notified Congress of hostilities with Iran on March 2 ran out Friday, and the Trump administration argued the deadline no longer applies. A senior administration official told Reuters that "For War Powers Resolution purposes, the hostilities that began on Saturday, February 28, have terminated," while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee a day earlier that the fragile ceasefire with Tehran had stopped the statutory countdown.
The position, advanced as the Senate killed a sixth withdrawal resolution 50-47 Thursday, escalates a constitutional dispute over a war that has cost roughly $25 billion in publicly disclosed Pentagon spending, pushed average U.S. gasoline to $4.39 a gallon and left a U.S. naval blockade and Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz in place.
The pause theory
Hegseth told senators, "We are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses, or stops, in a ceasefire." House Speaker Mike Johnson, asked the same day whether Congress needed to authorize the operation, told NBC News the United States is "not at war." The War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires a president to withdraw forces from hostilities within 60 days of notifying Congress unless lawmakers authorize the campaign. The statute contains no provision suspending the clock during a ceasefire.
Richard Goldberg, a former director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction at the National Security Council in Trump's first term, told The Associated Press he has urged administration officials to relabel the campaign and start over, suggesting the name "Epic Passage." That mission, Goldberg said, "would inherently be a mission of self-defence focused on reopening the strait while reserving the right to offensive action in support of restoring freedom of navigation."
On the Hill
Sen. Tim Kaine, the Virginia Democrat who has led successive war powers votes, told Hegseth, "I do not believe that statute would support that." Sen. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who sponsored the latest resolution, said, "Ceasing to use some forces while using others does not somehow stop the clock," pointing to the U.S. Navy blockade and an April 20 incident in which American forces fired on and seized the Iranian-flagged container ship Touska.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was the only Republican to break with the administration, calling the 60-day deadline "not a suggestion, it is a requirement." Bruce Fein, a former associate deputy attorney general, told Al Jazeera the resolution "never says anywhere" the clock stops for a ceasefire and warned that the administration's reading "turns the resolution into simply a paper tiger."
On the ground
The April 8 ceasefire halted direct U.S.-Iran air and missile exchanges but did not end military operations. Three U.S. aircraft carriers remain in the Middle East, and Iran continues to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne crude moves. Brent crude traded as high as $126 a barrel Thursday. U.S. officials told NBC News that Iran is using the pause to dig out missiles and launchers buried before the war and to reconstitute its drone arsenal in case Trump orders strikes to resume.
What's next
Trump is scheduled to travel to Beijing in mid-May to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, a trip already postponed once because of the war. A White House official told NBC News the visit may shape whether the president signs off on the new strike options Central Command chief Adm. Brad Cooper briefed him on this week.