Trump's entire foreign policy is focused on one question: biographer

President Donald Trump is expressing “contempt for Congress” by escalating the Iran war without consulting them, according to a recent report.

After Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth held briefings for lawmakers on Tuesday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said they anticipated a lengthy military campaign, according to The Washington Post.

“I think they have contempt for Congress,” Murphy told reporters. “They have no plans to come to Congress for any authorization, even if they were to insert ground forces.”

Murphy was joined by a Republican, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who quoted former Secretary of State and President John Q. Adams on X.

“As yet another preemptive war is begun in the Middle East, John Quincy Adam’s words of wisdom still ring true,” Paul wrote, quoting Adams saying “‘Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.’”

He added that, although he sympathizes with oppressed people from Iran and North Korea to Tibet, he agrees with Adams that America should not go “abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

As the Senate prepares to vote on a resolution to claw back its warmaking power from the president, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said “I pray so hard for my colleagues to exercise the judgment that this is not the right time for more war.”

By contrast, Sen. Todd Young (R-In.) said he will not vote to stop Trump from taking further action against Iran, arguing that “the United States and our allies are now in conflict with a brutal, hostile, and dangerous regime. I believe that danger will only grow if we limit the President’s military options at this critical moment.”

Similarly, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that the Senate “should let [Trump] finish the job. We should cheer him on, in my view.” Indeed, with the exception of Paul, every Republican in the Senate is voting with Young and Graham against the resolution. The only Democrat to also vote against it is Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.

Because Trump ran for president in 2024 on the claim that he opposed expanding America’s military presence throughout the world, former Republican Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois argued last week that the Trump supporters still backing him are proving themselves to be in a “cult.”

“I thought you wanted him to end wars all over the world,” Walsh wrote on his Substack. “You said you wanted him to end American entanglement in conflicts and wars around the world. America shouldn’t be involved in these wars, you said. That’s why you’re voting for Trump, you said.” Then, despite Trump’s actions against Denmark, Venezuela and Iran, they still support him.

Walsh added, “And you don’t like when people call you a cult, Trump voters? What else are people to think when you voted for Trump to get us the hell out of wars around the world, and instead he gets us involved in wars around the world and starts new wars, and you still sing his praises and support him? What are we to think, MAGA, but that you are a cult?”

According to journalist Michael Wolff, who has written extensively about Trump, Trump’s invasion of Iran is about his own ego and not about the national interest.

"His entire foreign policy is focused on that question: ‘Can we get a win? What’s the win?’” Wolff said. “In Trump’s head, it’s always, ‘I can get a win.’”

Describing Trump’s perception of his political career "as essentially a stage set in television," he described the Iran war as a "mini series” in the president’s mind.

"The central casting, there’s only one central person. And that’s Donald Trump,” Wolff concluded. “It’s his war."