1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

The deadline has passed for President Trump to either seek congressional approval to continue his catastrophic war in Iran or to withdraw troops and end the conflict. Please take action now using all the tools at your disposal. Stop the war, do oversight. Put the brakes on. Remove Hegseth. Spending over 1 billion dollars a day on an illegal war, war crimes, and shocking incompetence-- all while cutting money for veterans, food support, health care and medical research?-- This is not acceptable. As you surely know, per the War Powers Act of 1973, "the president has 60 days to conduct military action in response to an imminent threat or an attack on the United States if Congress has not voted to authorize a war. Without explicit congressional authorization, the law says that once that deadline is reached, the president "shall terminate any use of the United States Armed Forces."' Last Friday, May 1st, was the 60th day according to most tallies. (Recall that Trump informed Congress of the hostilities on March 2nd.) Even if some of your colleagues are arguing about the whether ceasefire date count toward the deadline, it is an inescapable reality that the deadline is either imminent or past. It is time for Congress to carry out its legal role: do oversight, demand accountability: insist that the president either end the war or seek authorization. I'm sure I don't need to remind you that this war has been a disaster according to every yardstick: war crimes have been committed -bombing civilian targets and a girls' school and threats of genocide have been made. Before starting this war, there was a nuclear agreement and the straits were open. Now there is neither. Public support for the war has cratered; it now matches the popularity of the Vietnam war in 1973. Even legislators with no morals or integrity should see that this conflict is politically and electorally disastrous. Look at the price of gasoline! Look at the polls. As members of a co-equal branch, you are complicit-- until you use your legal and constitutional power to call a halt.