Late September in the Oval Office, President Trump declared, "Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. We're gonna win that war very soon." It wasn't the first time he's described the hostilities as "war."

On Feb. 28, the day U.S. and Israeli began bombarding Iran, he warned that "the lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war, but we're doing this not for now. We're doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission." But throughout seven months of back-and-forth strikes with Iran, Trump administration officials, and sometimes Trump himself, have performed verbal acrobatics to avoid the “W” word. Senior administration officials loosely tossed around “war” during the first stages of conflict, but with polls showing the war in unpopular and congressional support waning, “war” and even “Operation Epic Fury” have become taboo among members of the Trump administration. Trump has called attacks on Iran a “military operation,” “military decimation,” “excursion” and “skirmish."

At a White House press briefing last month, Vice President JD Vance attempted to clear the air when a reporter asked about a potential end to what she called a “war in Iran.”“I wouldn’t call it a war right now,” Vance said. “Major combat operations lasted for about six weeks.”Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tread carefully in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee in July, repeatedly referring to a “conflict” in Iran that needed additional funding to continue. On May 5, during the first of two delicate ceasefires with Iran, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced an end to the objectives laid out in Operation Epic Fury and the beginning of “Project Freedom” — an effort to escort merchant ships through the Strait of Hormuz. In April, Trump announced the blockade of Iranian ports. When asked about whether the blockade constituted an act of war, Rubio replied, “That's not an act of war, that’s a defensive measure. It's a counter to what they have decided to do." Senior Trump officials have maintained that the conflict can no longer be viewed as war because the intensity of strikes between the two countries has been reduced. The "end" of Operation Epic Fury, the name Trump used when he announced hostilities on Feb. 28, was declared on May 5 — 60 days after the fighting began.

The timing was no coincidence. Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a president must cease all hostilities abroad after 60 days if there is no congressional declaration of war. Under the Constitution, only Congress declares war, but past presidents have routinely circumvented this rule by exercising their authority to direct the military and initiate strikes on targeted nations. Nearly every modern president, from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Trump, has used this justification to undertake military action without the declaratory approval of Congress. Congress can also choose to approve an Authorization for Use of Military Force, which grants the president legal authority to conduct military operations overseas. Unless Congress sets a time limit on the authorization, authority to use the legal justification to launch military strikes can theoretically span multiple administrations. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former constitutional law professor at American University, said that presidents of both parties have avoided the term "war" when attempting to evade congressional approval of hostile action abroad. "Trump has followed some of his predecessors in playing word games with the war power," Raskin said.

"What makes his case so extreme is that he proudly described it as a war and depicted it in glorified military terms." In March, seven days into the fighting, Trump said, “The war itself is going unbelievably. It’s as good as it can be.”Congress has not officially declared war since World War II. The Vietnam War, the invasion of Afghanistan and both wars in Iraq were all approved by Congress under the umbrella of an Authorization for the Use of Military Force. This year Congress has not approved such an authorization for the action with Iran. Fourteen Senate votes for a War Powers Resolution to curb Trump's war efforts have failed in the chamber so far. According to a CNN/SSRS poll last month, only 26% of Americans approve of the Trump administration's handling of the Iran war. Raskin said that he believes Trump's terminology has shifted with the public mood, adding that he hasn't heard any of his Republican colleagues "play along with the semantic games." "When things have turned south in the fortunes of this war, he has tried to pretend it's something else," Raskin said.

"I think that has just further enraged the population." The administration's declaration that Operation Epic Fury had concluded echoed May 2003, when then-President George W. Bush stood in front of a banner reading “Mission Accomplished” aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, approximately six weeks after Operation Iraqi Freedom began. “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” Bush said. “And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.”Despite the victory lap, combat operations in Iraq and across the Middle East continued through the aughts. The Iraq war wouldn’t officially end until 2011, with President Obama's signature. Obama himself relied heavily on the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force — passed by Congress under Bush — in his military campaign against Islamic State during his presidency. According to Council on Foreign Relations data, Obama launched 542 drone strikes and killed 3,797 people in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia without renewed approval from Congress. A case more analogous to Trump’s comes in former President Truman’s unilateral decision to deploy U.S. troops to Korea in 1950. The Truman administration forwent congressional approval altogether and used United Nations Security Council resolutions to justify the intervention against Communist forces in the north, according to a White House news release from the time. There were many critics of this exercise of executive war powers, most notably, Ohio Republican Sen. Robert A. Taft, who argued that Truman had usurped congressional war powers. However, that Congress still provided monetary support, granting Truman military funds and extensions to the draft to raise additional troops for the Korean War effort.

According to historical Gallup polls, 78% of Americans in 1950 approved of U.S. intervention in Korea. While Vance and other administration officials continue to avoid "war," it does slip out now and then. Trump has been, perhaps, the most discordant messenger of the administration when discussing Iran. After referring to the "war" on social media and public interviews more than a dozen times, Trump backed Vance’s comments about the Iran war no longer being active as he spoke to reporters in the Oval Office in September. He refuses to call the conflict a “war,” Trump said, because “you are supposed to get approval.”“I call it a military conflict, because it’s small potatoes for us,” Trump said.