Tess Bridgeman

I was in a 2 hour briefing today on the Iran War. All the briefings are closed, because Trump can't defend this war in public.

I obviously can't disclose classified info, but you deserve to know how incoherent and incomplete these war plans are.

1/ Here's what I can share:

So important to ask questions like this 👇

FT comments section this morning - saying what everyone else is thinking, right?

The War on Anthropic: Pretextual Designation and Unlawful Punishment The Trump admin’s action against Anthropic is barred by statutory limits, the First Amendment, and the Constitution’s bills of attainder.

Anthropic lawsuit against Department of Defense here:
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

An excellent analysis at @justsecurity.org on Friday by Harold Koh, Bruce Swartz et al here:

www.justsecurity.org/133247/anthr...

Thank you for your expertise @mikeschmitt.bsky.social and Elizabeth Hutton:

GC IV: Internment in Non-Occupied Territory International humanitarian law (IHL) treaties use a range of terms to denote deprivation of liberty, one of which is internment. While there is no legal definition, internment is understood to mean th...

GC IV: Internment in Non-Occupied Territory | by Jelena Pejic

This post is part of a symposium is being run in collaboration with @justsecurity.org and the @icrc.org.

Digest of Recent Articles on Just Security (Feb. 28-Mar. 6, 2026) U.S.-Israel-Iran War • Russia-Ukraine War • United States / Venezuela • Emerging Technologies • ICE and CBP Operations • Symposium: Updated ICRC Commentary • Counterterrorism

(1/3) Catch up on our recent analysis:

• U.S.-Israel-Iran War
• Russia-Ukraine War
• United States / Venezuela
• Emerging Technologies
• ICE and CBP Operations
• Symposium: Updated ICRC Commentary
• Counterterrorism

www.justsecurity.org/132905/diges...

Important from @bcfinucane.bsky.social on a possible #Iran war supplemental.

My view: Congress should use its power of the purse to put an end to this tragic and unnecessary disaster now.

Short of that, they must refuse a request to appropriate funds for it.

Even the minority has power here.

"That's essentially not a high bar when you're talking about nation states bombing each other... We were at war the moment we started dropping bombs on Iran."

@tessbridgeman.bsky.social explains to @sarahlongwell25.bsky.social why it's legally accurate to call what's happening in Iran a war.

"The idea that bombing our way to regime change solely from the air is going to help the people. Is one that has just been disproven so many times in history, that trying it again right now is a fool's errand at best."

@tessbridgeman.bsky.social on the futility of Trump's Iran war strategy.

Watch the full episode of The Illegal News at lnk.thebulwark.com/4aoCA1S and YouTube, or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

It is inaccurate to say that every administration has regarded the War Powers Resolution to be unconstitutional.

@tessbridgeman.bsky.social and I wrote about this issue in January. 2/n

www.justsecurity.org/128517/war-p...

🧵Some War Powers notes on this exchange:

If Trump admin has a legal theory for attacking Iran w/o congressional authorization, it is almost certainly that the US military action does not amount to "war in the constitutional sense."

POTUS (correctly) calling it a "war," is therefore unhelpful. 1/n

It was great to join @weissmann.substack.com and Mary for such a thoughtful conversation - though I wish we weren’t talking about (another) illegal and reckless war. Listen on #Iran, war powers, and what it all means in context:

The authority that Trump has asserted in taking America to war against Iran is, like many of his other power grabs, an expression of the very tyranny the Framers were seeking to prevent. “Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object,” a young congressman named Abraham Lincoln wrote in 1848. This was “understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.” This quote, incidentally, is immortalized on the House’s website, if any members of Congress are looking for it.

The design of the Constitution divided warmaking authority between Congress and the executive to prevent a president to take the country to war by themselves for any petty or self-serving reason. You know, like a king would. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The Trump Admin has sent a war powers report on Iran to Congress, its 6th report this term.
Amidst shifting explanations for the war, it's an important document for the public.
Now analyzed and available on our #WarPowersResolutionReportingProject site:
warpowers.lawandsecurity.org/reports/2026...

@justsecurity.org's Israel-Us-Iran collection has already developed into a mini-syllabus for the war's legal aspects. All of the pieces can be found here, and surely more will come:
www.justsecurity.org/114556/colle...

Double Preemption, Imminence, and the U.S. Attack Against Iran Rubio’s argument that Operation Epic Fury was preemptive self-defense is not credible and does not satisfy the necessary precondition.

Vitally important by Eliav Lieblich on why the anticipatory self-defense (which some are calling preemption) argument US officials have tried to make to justify their war in #Iran collapses completely.

Clear, concise, thoughtful, must read:

www.justsecurity.org/133093/preem...

Double Preemption, Imminence, and the U.S. Attack Against Iran Rubio’s argument that Operation Epic Fury was preemptive self-defense is not credible and does not satisfy the necessary precondition.

Vitally important by Eliav Lieblich on why the anticipatory self-defense (which some are calling preemption) argument US officials have tried to make to justify their war in #Iran collapses completely.

Clear, concise, thoughtful, must read:

www.justsecurity.org/133093/preem...

The one question everyone should be asking after OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon The US said we can’t afford to let a surveillance state like China win the AI race. Well...

Good line of analysis from @sigalsamuel.bsky.social.

"But what if authoritarian rule that uses tech to surveil people in alarming ways is already becoming the norm in the US? If America is shape-shifting into the bogeyman it critiques, what happens to the case for racing ahead on AI?"

Trump’s Case for War With Iran Faces Growing Scrutiny U.S. intelligence showed threats from Iran loomed, as they had for years. But they were not imminent.

2/ "Some lawmakers and U.S. officials say Iran was nowhere near capable of building a nuclear weapon, even if Tehran seeks one. They also say there is NO EVIDENCE to support Trump’s claim that Iran could rapidly develop a missile capable of striking the U.S."

www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Trump’s Case for War With Iran Faces Growing Scrutiny U.S. intelligence showed threats from Iran loomed, as they had for years. But they were not imminent.

"U.S. officials and lawmakers with access to classified information ... say the administration’s assertions are incomplete, unsubstantiated, or flat-out wrong."

- Wall Street Journal

Top Questions the Trump Administration Needs to Answer on War with Iran Congress and journalists should demand answers to these questions, many of which should have been answered prior to the war beginning

2/

Subset isolates when POTUS made decision to abandon negotiations, resort to war.

Subset gets at pre-strike assessments - what stakes for the American people were considered, and for the region.

Subset gets at intelligence assessments and levels of confidence on what happens next.

Much more.

Top Questions the Trump Administration Needs to Answer on War with Iran Congress and journalists should demand answers to these questions, many of which should have been answered prior to the war beginning

With senior US officials briefing Congress on Tuesday about Iran war plans.

I teamed up with @tessbridgeman.bsky.social @k8brannen.bsky.social

Top Questions the Trump Administration Needs to Answer on War with Iran

Also plenty of questions for journalists (and the public) here.

🧵1/

This is an important point. A capability ≠ an imminent threat of armed attack.

Here's how @mikeschmitt.bsky.social, @rgoodlaw.bsky.social and I explained it recently:

www.justsecurity.org/132180/us-ir...

“By Hegseth’s standard, any country having any advanced defensive weaponry of any kind can be labeled an imminent threat.”

trib.al/7Q6ZGAX

Top Questions the Trump Administration Needs to Answer on War with Iran Congress and journalists should demand answers to these questions, many of which should have been answered prior to the war beginning

Folks on the Hill, these are Qs that should have been answered prior to the #Iran war if Trump had come to Congress as he must under the law.

Qs cover:
-stragegy/goals/off-ramps
-domestic & int'l law
-targeting & LOAC
-costs & readiness
-long-term consequences

www.justsecurity.org/132970/quest...

Trump argues for forever wars

Trump is now defending “forever” wars.

The linchpin of his populist-style critique of the foreign policy establishment was that it got us into “forever” wars.

Trump isn’t just defending his war with Iran. Now he is claiming that he can wage “forever” wars “very successfully.”

If this were SNL it would be funny, a parody of a declining dictator...

But all too seriously, this is the President's confused musing about the abuse of his power to direct the US military into aimless war.

With staggering real consequences for lives, security, the economy, & the rule of law.

Top Questions the Trump Administration Needs to Answer on War with Iran Congress and journalists should demand answers to these questions, many of which should have been answered prior to the war beginning

Folks on the Hill, these are Qs that should have been answered prior to the #Iran war if Trump had come to Congress as he must under the law.

Qs cover:
-stragegy/goals/off-ramps
-domestic & int'l law
-targeting & LOAC
-costs & readiness
-long-term consequences

www.justsecurity.org/132970/quest...