Hegseth tells Senate Trump needs no Iran war vote on day 60

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that President Trump does not need fresh congressional authorization to continue military action against Iran, arguing that the April 8 ceasefire paused the 60-day clock set in motion by the administration’s War Powers Resolution notification. The testimony came one day before that 60-day window would otherwise expire, and it ran into open resistance from Republican senators on the committee.

It was Hegseth’s second day of testimony this week. The argument he laid out is narrow but consequential: because hostilities formally stopped on April 8 under a US-brokered pause, the statutory clock that begins running when a president introduces US forces into hostilities under the War Powers Resolution was tolled on that date. Under the administration’s reading, any resumption of strikes against Iran would not require a new authorization for the use of military force, and the May 1 cliff Congress has been counting toward is, in the Pentagon’s view, not a cliff at all.

That position landed badly with at least three Republican senators. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska each pushed back during the hearing, asking either for a floor vote on continued operations or for substantially fuller communication from the executive branch about what the United States is doing, where, and against whom, according to Iran International’s account of the session. None of the three called for an immediate halt to operations; all three signaled that the legal theory Hegseth offered does not, on its own, satisfy them.

The hearing unfolded against an unusually dense operational backdrop. Earlier Thursday, US Central Command commander Adm. Brad Cooper, Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine briefed President Trump on a menu of Iran strike options at the White House. Hours before the briefing, the president rejected a proposed Iran-Hormuz de-escalation framework, and Brent crude touched $126 a barrel intraday before easing, according to CNBC’s market wrap.

The legal argument

The administration’s tolling theory is the load-bearing piece. The War Powers Resolution gives a president 60 days from the moment forces are introduced into hostilities, or imminent hostilities, before withdrawal is required absent a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization. Trump’s notification to Congress started that clock earlier this spring. Hegseth told senators that when hostilities formally paused under the April 8 ceasefire, the clock paused with them, and that resumed kinetic activity short of a fresh “introduction” into new hostilities does not restart it.

That is a contested reading. The statute itself does not contain an explicit pause-and-resume mechanism, and senators on both sides of the aisle have, in past administrations, treated the 60-day window as a hard ceiling rather than a stoppable timer. Hegseth’s testimony, as reported by Iran International citing Washington Post coverage, is the first time the Trump administration has formalized the tolling argument on the record before the relevant oversight committee.

Senate posture

Collins, Hawley and Murkowski are the names to watch on a War Powers vote. All three have records of pressing the executive branch on Iran-related authorities going back to the first Trump term and the Biden years; none of the three is reflexively anti-administration. Their public discomfort on Thursday is a signal that any Senate joint resolution under the War Powers Resolution to direct the removal of US forces from hostilities with Iran would not lack for Republican co-sponsors, even if it ultimately failed to clear a presidential veto.

The committee did not vote Thursday. Chairman and ranking member statements indicated further classified sessions would follow, and at least one senator asked the department to provide written answers on the tolling theory before any markup.

What’s around it

The day-60 hearing is one piece of a wider posture shift. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump spoke for roughly 90 minutes on Wednesday, and the Kremlin said Putin urged extension of the Iran ceasefire during that call, The Moscow Times reported. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in remarks carried by Gulf outlets on Thursday, called the US naval blockade in the Gulf “doomed to fail,” and the Iranian government has continued to refuse direct talks while the blockade is in place. Trump on Tuesday canceled a planned Islamabad track that had been one of the few remaining diplomatic openings.

On the nuclear file, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told Foreign Policy in an interview published Wednesday that the agency still cannot fully account for enriched uranium stocks at Isfahan, a gap that has shadowed every administration assessment of Iranian breakout timelines this spring. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hosted Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, where Putin publicly backed Iran’s position on the nuclear file.

Day 60

The administration’s argument is, in effect, that day 60 does not arrive on Friday because the clock stopped on April 8. Senators across the aisle are not yet persuaded. Whether that disagreement turns into a privileged Senate resolution under the War Powers Resolution — the only vehicle that forces a floor vote on a fixed timeline — will become clearer in the next several session days. If a resolution is introduced and survives the committee process, it would be the first such vote on Iran of Trump’s second term.

The Pentagon did not announce any operational changes during Thursday’s hearing. Hegseth told senators that any decision on resumed strikes “remains the president’s to make,” language that did not satisfy the three Republican senators who asked the question.