President Donald Trump was in compliance with the War Powers Resolution when he ordered strikes on three nuclear testing sites in Iran, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said on NewsNation on Sunday.
Congress was notified of the strikes "well within" the 48-hour window required, Rounds said in an interview that pushed back on critics who said Trump acted outside his constitutional authority.
“The Constitution clearly gives the President the authority to act on our nation’s behalf,” Rounds said.
“Second of all, the War Powers Act, which is in place, was responded to appropriately. They were supposed to notify congressional leaders within 48 hours. They were well within that range of notifying them of the actions [that] were taken, so the law has been complied with. The Constitution is being complied with,” Rounds continued.
In Rounds' view, the Constitution was being applied just as “the founders wanted it to work.”
”The president is the chief. The commander in chief has the responsibility. Our Founding Fathers were brilliant in the way they wrote the Constitution. They understood that Congress takes a long time to act. They also understood that in times in military conflict or in times of great danger or emergencies that the president needed the authority to be able to respond quickly and effectively and decisively,” he said.
“This president did just exactly that. It is working the way the founders wanted it to work in the first place,” Rounds added.
Congress was notified of the strikes after bomber planes were safely out of Iran's airspace, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said.
It makes total sense that Trump would not want some members of Congress like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) to know about a planned attack in coordination with Israel, given their anti-Semitic comments and positions.
Clearly, he couldn't trust some Democrats to maintain confidentiality with the press or even with our enemies, as treasonous as that would be.
Rounds had a warning for Iran in another interview with The Hill on Sunday.
He said it was "time Iran understands they will never have a nuclear weapon" and that "there will be a price to pay" if they continue to be a "purveyor of terrorism" in the region.
WATCH: @SenatorRounds warns Iran to "give up your nuclear ambitions or there's more to come" during an interview with @ChrisStirewalt on "The Hill Sunday." pic.twitter.com/WT5fIlAqdl
— The Hill (@thehill) June 22, 2025
Some reports about the strikes have said that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) were briefed about the strikes, but Democrats like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said that Trump was wrong for not getting congressional authorization before the strikes and demanded that the full Congress be briefed.
