Article 2 of the US Constitution

Article 2 of the US Constitution vests the executive power in the President and designates him Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. On 12 May 2026, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth testified under oath before the Senate Appropriations Committee that Donald Trump has "all the authorities he needs under Article 2" and that no Authorisation for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) on Iran is required. It was the first time a cabinet officer formally named the verbal-track method as policy rather than denying it, converting 75 days of unsigned Iran paper from an oversight gap into a stated constitutional doctrine.

The Article 2 commander-in-chief clause has historically been invoked for short-window, reactive operations, not for sustained campaigns. The 60-day War Powers Resolution clock and the 30-day wind-down period exist precisely to constrain open-ended Article 2 claims; Hegseth's position effectively strips both clocks of their enforcement logic by removing the need for any written authorisation against which they could run. The Iran operation has now lasted 75 days with 15,000 US personnel deployed and a declared Hormuz blockade.

The constitutional question is whether the Office of Legal Counsel will formally back the position. Congress's only remaining lever is the power of the purse: the Senate Appropriations Committee, which controls the $29 billion supplemental war request Hegseth was defending at the time, can attach conditions to appropriations even where it cannot compel an AUMF. Senator Lisa Murkowski's threatened Iran AUMF, unfiled after the 9 May deadline, illustrates the gap between individual congressional opposition and collective institutional action.