Ron DeSantis sees no constitutional conflict created by the Joe Biden administration’s decision Thursday to attack Iranian-backed Houthi forces.
Calling them “stateless actors,” the 2024 presidential candidate likened them to the Barbary Pirates who bedeviled merchants and battled American forces in the early 19th century.
“So if you have military action on the seas, what does that look like in the terms of congressional authorization? We actually know what the Founders thought because some of the main military skirmishes that were happening at the dawn of the republic were against the Barbary Pirates,” DeSantis said in Ames, Iowa.
He noted that while “Congress did authorize that through funding and other stuff,” legislators didn’t “formally declare war.”
“I think the Founders didn’t view that as rising to the diplomatic level where you would need it,” DeSantis said, even though “Congress would have to agree to fund those operations.”
“But I think that if shipping is stopped and you’re taking defensive actions to me, I don’t think that that rises to the level where you’re going to another country, but at a minimum, Congress would need to be able to be willing to apply funding to ratify that. And I think that they would do that.”
The Governor said the Barbary Pirates were “the original terrorists that our country had to deal with,” presenting “a huge, huge issue for years and years and years.
“I think all of our early presidents took action to fight the Barbary Pirates. And so I view it as similar to that. I think these are stateless actors. I think they’re operating outside the traditional laws of armed conflict. And I think you have a right to ensure that commerce continues and that they’re not allowed to just bomb ships and do and do other things.”
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