“You could easily see him wanting to ramp up the war on terror and take it to new parts of the globe,” said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “There are few limits on what he can do.”
Democrats like Schiff worry that without an updated legal framework to govern the war on terror, Trump could turn some of his controversial campaign rhetoric into reality — from vows to bring back waterboarding to killing the families of terrorists.
For “an inexperienced president who tweets and gets angry … to have broad war-making power, it’s a dangerous place to be,” said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the lone member of Congress who voted against the nation’s existing war authorization, which was passed in 2001 but has not been updated since.
Some Democrats are starting to lay the groundwork for a new push next year for a war resolution, but the chances of passage remain low. Without a new resolution, Trump is likely to have almost unlimited powers as he takes over U.S. military involvement in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and potentially ratchets up ongoing efforts to hunt down and kill suspected terrorists the world over.
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