Over a 48-hour window, the Trump Administration presented conflicting justifications for its large-scale military strike on Iran. Late Tuesday, as the U.S. closed embassies and urged Americans to evacuate the region in response to Iran’s escalating counterattacks, Secretary of State Marco Rubio found himself further debating the triggers behind the initial strike wave four days earlier.
“No. Your statement is false,” Rubio told a reporter summarizing his Monday comments—where he had suggested the timing of U.S. strikes was guided by Israel’s plans to attack Iran, which could have sparked “an attack against American forces.” He had previously warned that without preemptive action, American casualties would be higher.
But by Tuesday, Trump had effectively reversed that narrative. Speaking in the Oval Office, the President rejected the idea that Israel had pressured him. “If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand,” he said, adding that he believed Iran was poised to strike. “It was my opinion that they were going to attack first… They were going to attack if we didn’t do it.” Rubio further walked back his own statement that afternoon as he entered classified congressional briefings focused in part on the Administration’s conflicting rationales.
These mixed messages have left lawmakers, allies, and even some Trump supporters struggling to identify the precise legal and strategic basis for a conflict that has already claimed six American service members and hundreds of other lives across the Middle East.
Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, told TIME on Tuesday after the briefing that he was “disturbed” by Rubio’s comments. “The implication is that we’re delegating the decision of whether this country goes to war to another country,” he said. “That’s a breathtaking assertion. When I woke up to the news Saturday morning, my first question was, why now? And the original justifications given was the nuclear threat and those kinds of things—all of them have just sort of fallen by the wayside. I think [Israel] was the precipitating factor, and I think that’s inappropriate.”
Under U.S. law, the President may use military force without congressional authorization only in response to a direct, imminent threat. A strike to prevent future retaliation triggered by an ally’s action is a less clear-cut case, which some in Congress argue shows Trump ignored Congress’ constitutional authority over war decisions.
In recent days, Administration officials had also highlighted Iran’s advancing nuclear capabilities, ballistic missile production, and the possibility it would soon gain long-range strike capacity. Trump himself had previously claimed Iran would soon be able to directly threaten the U.S.—despite American intelligence assessments casting doubt on such scenarios. In a legally required notification to Congress sent Tuesday, Trump offered another framing: the strikes were undertaken to protect the homeland and U.S. forces, advance national interests, and act in “collective self-defense” of regional allies, including Israel.
The result is an administration that, in less than 10 days, has articulated multiple and sometimes contradictory theories of imminent danger. Congress is set to vote on War Powers resolutions in both chambers—an effort by lawmakers to reassert their constitutional authority over war decisions. The measures, unlikely to pass both chambers, would require the Trump Administration to end hostilities against Iran within a specified period unless lawmakers explicitly authorize continued military action.
“I’m more convinced now that this is going to be open ended and forever,” Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told reporters as he left the briefing. “They told us in that room that there are gonna be more Americans that are gonna die, that they’re not gonna be able to stop these drones. We have to have a debate in the U.S. Senate on an authorization of military.”
Lawmakers from both parties who attended the briefing signaled that the intensity of U.S.-Israeli military operations in Iran will increase in the coming days, echoing a message Rubio shared with reporters ahead of the briefing. “You’re gonna really begin to perceive a change in the scope and in the intensity of these attacks as frankly, the two most powerful air forces in the world take apart this terroristic regime,” Rubio said.
That message alarmed many Democrats leaving the briefing, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who said he believed American ground troops could soon be sent overseas. “I am more fearful than ever, after this briefing, that we may be putting boots on the ground,” Blumenthal said.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican who had supported a past War Powers Resolution before flipping his vote, noted that Congress would need to authorize sending troops to Iran, and some Republicans may be unlikely to support such a move. “I find it difficult to imagine a scenario where I would,” he said. “One of the things I took away from this is, this is a massive operation and rapidly changing.”