Political leaders around the country are expressing outrage over the start of armed conflict between the United States and Iran. Pete Buttigieg , a Navy Reserve veteran who deployed to Afghanistan in 2014 while serving as mayor of South Bend, Indiana , on Saturday joined a widening chorus of Democratic leaders condemning President Donald Trump’s overnight launch of large-scale military strikes on dozens of targets in Iran. California U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia is demanding an immediate vote on war powers in the U.S. Congress. They join others who say the operation was undertaken without congressional authorization and without a plan for what comes next. Keep up with the latest in LGBTQ + news and politics. Sign up for The Advocate's email newsletter. “The President has launched our nation and our great military into a war of choice, risking American lives and resources, ignoring American law, and endangering our allies and partners,” the former Biden transportation secretary wrote on the social media platform Bluesky . “It does nothing to help with the urgent problems here at home that Americans face every day.” In a second post, Buttigieg invoked a lesson etched deeply into the political memory of his generation: “This nation learned the hard way that an unnecessary war, with no plan for what comes next, can lead to years of chaos and put America in still greater danger.” Related : Retired Space Force colonel warns Trump’s Iran strikes are ‘reckless adventurism and distraction’ Related : Trump administration is potentially sending two gay men to their death by preparing to deport them to Iran The criticism followed Trump’s 2:30 a.m. video address on Truth Social, in which he announced that the United States had begun “major combat operations in Iran.” The president described a “massive and ongoing operation” designed to eliminate what he called imminent threats from the Iranian regime, vowed that Tehran “will never have a nuclear weapon,” and acknowledged that “American heroes may be lost.” He also directly urged Iranians to “take over your government” when the operation concludes. That rationale has been challenged not only by lawmakers but also by veterans’ advocates. In June 2025, following Operation Midnight Hammer, a coordinated U.S. strike targeting Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, Trump and his administration declared that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated,” and the White House published a statement insisting that “Iran’s nuclear facilities have been obliterated” and dismissing suggestions otherwise as “fake news.” Related : Pete Buttigieg & Stephen Colbert take turns roasting Donald Trump for his unhinged presidential address Related : Pete Buttigieg: Trump Cabinet's use of Signal app for military ops is ‘highest level of f**kup imaginable’ Veterans’ advocacy organization VoteVets seized on that history in its own rebuke, calling the latest strikes “reckless and unconstitutional” and suggesting that the administration’s shifting justification highlights a failure of strategy. “When launching wars of choice, especially with American lives in the balance, the president goes to Congress and Congress authorizes it,” VoteVets Senior Advisor, retired U.S. Army Major General Paul Eaton, said in a statement. “That did not happen, and these operations are blatantly unconstitutional.” Eaton added, “A war without focus is a war with no tangible goals. And a war with no goals ends up a Forever War." Virginia’s senior U.S. senator, Mark Warner, a Democrat and vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, similarly warned that the strikes extended well beyond nuclear or missile infrastructure and into “a broad set of targets, including senior Iranian leadership,” marking what he called a “deeply consequential decision” that risks pulling the United States into another prolonged conflict. “The American people have seen this playbook before — claims of urgency, misrepresented intelligence, and military action that pulls the United States into regime change and prolonged, costly nation-building,” Warner wrote on X. Warner recognized Iran’s long record of regional destabilization and support for terrorism, but insisted that those realities “do not relieve any president of the responsibility to act within the law, with a clear strategy, and with Congress.” Related : Pete Buttigieg calls Pete Hegseth ‘unfit to lead’ after second bombshell Signal chat leak revelation “The Constitution is clear: the decision to take this nation to war rests with Congress,” he wrote, adding that launching “large-scale military operations, particularly in the absence of an imminent threat to the United States, raises serious legal and constitutional concerns.” He called for a full briefing and demanded “a clear legal justification, a defined end state, and a plan that avoids dragging the United States into yet another costly and unnecessary war.” Garcia, a gay Democrat and ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, tied the foreign policy decision directly to domestic pressures. “The American people deserve lower prices and affordable healthcare, not another war in the Middle East,” Garcia wrote on X. “We can support the people of Iran & their self-determination without this dangerous action that is already costing innocent lives.” “End this war. We need a War Powers Vote now.” Earlier Saturday, Virginia congressional candidate and retired Space Force Col. Bree Fram , forced out of the military under Trump’s ban on transgender people’s military service, described the operation, dubbed Operation Epic Fury , as “reckless adventurism. She accused Trump of treating war “as an opportunity to look strong, instead of as a last resort to protect our lives and values.”