“But when you go on the offense against a group and if it’s more than just self-defense, and now suddenly it’s a back and forth that’s escalating. That’s classically when it becomes an offense of not just defense of operation. And then second, we just have to remember that most of the ships transiting the Red sea are not U.S. ships. They’re foreign flagged ships. And there might be a good strategic reason to protect them. But that is not a self-defense rationale under the Constitution.

“And so a bipartisan group wrote the president asking this set of questions that begins with, what is the strategy when we’re trying to deter and degrade? But your administration is actually predicting that the Houthis are going to up the pace, which they are doing. Okay. What’s the strategy? How do we de-escalate? And what are your legal authorities? We need to be briefed on that. And I think Congress needs to be brought into it, because the last thing we need to do is to slide into another war in the Middle East without a really careful consideration and a debate in front of the public.”

[Technically speaking, though, Biden has 90 days from the first use of military force in these situations to refer it to Congress. That’s the time frame dictated by the War Powers Act. Politically speaking, Biden would be better off doing it sooner rather than later, which is Kaine’s point. Given the need to keep escalating, the strategy needs more consideration. What Biden’s doing so far has been clearly insufficient. — Ed]