Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) asked the right question last week when he said, “In something like North Korea, what is it the president can do without any input from Congress?” during an appearance Thursday morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
Corker said that question and others will be the focus of a new set of Foreign Relations Committee hearings on “what Congress’ role should actually be…as we move into different countries dealing especially with ISIS?”
The first hearing will be Monday, Oct. 30, with the committee taking testimony from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis.
“There's a lot of division over what powers the commander-in-chief should have. But we're going to begin that process on Monday,” he said.
The session is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. and run through 8 p.m., and unusual time for such a session. “I have a feeling it will be highly watched,” Corker said.
For the Tennessee Republican, who has exchanged bitter personal comments with President Trump the past few weeks, this could be a change of tactics. Some believe the hearings were triggered by recent public concern over the four Army Special Forces soldiers who were killed Oct. 4 in Niger under circumstances that are still under investigation.
Corker said on MSNBC that he agrees with the Trump administration that there was and is legal authority to attack ISIS, al Qaeda or other terrorist groups anywhere in the world under the Congress-passed 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMF).
Not everyone agrees. Two senators on Corker’s committee, Sens. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Tim Kaine (D-VA), have been pressing their own measure to update the current AUMF.
But Corker said he sees North Korea as a different issue when it comes to what Trump, who has verbally threatened military action against the Kim Jong-un regime, can do on his own, where terrorism is not involved and the U.S. has not been attacked. “I think people would be shocked to know what those things are,” Corker said.
“We've got some members, like Senator [Ed] Markey (D-MA), he's concerned about what a president can do with launching a nuclear weapon in 120 seconds," Corker said, “So all of these things will be discussed.”
