Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) had harsh words for Vice President JD Vance‘s assessment that the United States is not at war with Iran.
The vice president fielded a number of questions about Iran during a Thursday press briefing at the White House. Though President Donald Trump’s military campaign has extended beyond six months, Vance told reporters that he “wouldn’t call it war” as “right now, there is no active shooting.”
Massie, who has consistently voted to curb the president’s ability to engage in military action, told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that, unlike Vance, Trump “isn’t as careful with his rhetoric” and routinely claims that “we’re winning the war.”
“But the vice president and other sophisticated advisers recognize that to acknowledge it’s a war is to acknowledge they’re in violation of the 1973 War Powers Act, which allows them only 90 days to engage before they must withdraw or get congressional approval,” he continued, explaining the daylight between Vance and Trump.
“I think playing these semantics is an insult to the men and women fighting the war and to those who’ve already sacrificed,” Massie concluded. “Why not attempt to get the constitutionally and legally mandated congressional approval so they can call a war a war?”
Massie lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger after the president sought a retribution campaign for their disagreements.
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During Thursday’s briefing, Vance referred to the recent exchange of strikes between the U.S. and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, followed by a significant American wave later in the week on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets inside Iran, as a “flare-up.”
“But when you ask, ‘When will this end?’ you’re asking me a question like, ‘When will the Iranians stop shooting at ships?’” he added. “I think the reality is I don’t know the answer to that question. You would have to ask the Iranians, ‘When will the Iranians shooting at ships stop having an effect on world energy markets?’”