U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to reporters in a departure lounge before returning to Washington following meetings with Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders, at Robert L. Bradshaw International Airport in Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis, February 25, 2026.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
As the Senate returns late Monday and the House plans to reconvene on Tuesday, the White House is planning a series of briefings with members on the weekend attack on Iran.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will brief congressional leaders on the war in Iran on Monday afternoon. On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine will hold an all-Congress briefing, the White House confirmed on Monday.
White House spokesperson Dylan Johnson on Monday said relevant congressional staffers had also been briefed.
“Yesterday, the Department of War briefed the bipartisan staffs of several national security committees in both chambers for over 90 minutes on the military action in Iran,” Johnson said in an email on Monday.
Immediately after the attacks, which killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, bipartisan lawmakers called for briefings on the military action. Democrats, in particular, questioned the legality of the strikes, which were carried out without authorization from Congress.
Democrats in both chambers have vowed to force votes this week on war powers resolutions that could limit President Donald Trump’s authority to carry out further attacks on Iran.
Rubio will meet with the Gang of Eight, a group that includes leaders from both parties in the House and Senate, as well as the chairs and ranking members of the Senate and House intelligence committees. The Gang of Eight was briefed last week ahead of the attack.
In an appearance on CNN’s “News Central” on Monday morning, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., was asked what his biggest question was going into the briefing.
“The administration has failed to provide any justification for these preemptive strikes. And so we’ll continue to look for information that they owe the American people to suggest that there was intelligence indicating that Iran was prepared to strike the United States,” Jeffries said. “Nothing has been presented to justify what’s taken place up until this point, and the administration has an obligation to be able to prove that.”
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement on Saturday that based on information received from the administration, “this is a war of choice with no strategic endgame.”
“As I expressed to Secretary Rubio when he briefed the Gang of Eight, military action in this region almost never ends well for the United States, and conflict with Iran can easily spiral and escalate in ways we cannot anticipate. It does not appear that Donald Trump has learned the lessons of history,” Himes said.
