The Washington Post
Senate rejects bill to halt Iran war despite lawmakers’ growing frustrations
It was the first such vote since a deadline passed for the Trump administration to seek Congress’s approval to continue the military campaign.
The vote marked the latest setback for congressional Democrats, who have pledged to continue bringing the war powers measures to the floor even though each of them has failed.
“We’re going to force this vote every week until the Senate says we shouldn’t be at war. And I do believe that day is coming,” Sen. Tim Kaine (Virginia), one of the Democrats leading the effort, told reporters Wednesday.
The War Powers Resolution — a Vietnam-era law that mandates congressional authorization for any declaration of armed conflict — requires the administration to end hostilities after 60 days of fighting unless Congress gives its explicit approval. Wednesday’s vote is the first time lawmakers have considered a bill to end the Iran war since that deadline passed earlier this month.
Kaine said Wednesday that some of his Republican colleagues who initially supported the war have said that they would reconsider their position after two months elapsed.
“They’ve said — at 60 days this changes, at 60 days the president cannot undertake this war without Congress,” the senator said. “Today is the first test of their fidelity.”
The Trump administration has asserted that its ceasefire with Tehran, which took effect in April, resets the clock, stating in a letter to Congress that hostilities had “terminated.”
Some Republicans have been skeptical of that argument.
“It doesn’t appear that hostilities have ended,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) said Tuesday during a hearing with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, referring to the administration’s ongoing blockade of Iranian ports.
Hegseth responded that President Donald Trump has “all the authorities he needs,” including to fully resume military strikes.
Murkowski, who declined to discuss her vote, supported the resolution on Wednesday.
The other two Republicans who voted for the measure are Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Rand Paul (Kentucky).
Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah), who has said he will not support funding to cover the costs of the war without an explicit authorization from Congress, voted no, arguing that it wasn’t a “serious” effort.
When asked what such a resolution would look like, Curtis referred to the origins of the War Powers Act and the ongoing tension between Congress and the presidency over the power to launch a military conflict.
Still, in a sign of GOP frustration with the Iran war, which after more than two months has spiked global energy prices and sapped the Pentagon’s stocks of precision weaponry, Republicans pressed Hegseth to explain the administration’s strategy for ending the conflict and paying for its costs, estimated to be more than $29 billion.
“It seems to me that there’s been a different plan, almost daily, with dealing with this problem,” Collins said of the administration’s efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway in the region for the flow of oil, fertilizer and other resources.
Iran has severed almost all access to the strait and sought to leverage its control over it in peace negotiations with Washington. Trump responded with his blockade of Iranian ports, leading to the stalemate.
Trump has increasingly cast doubt on the ceasefire, as the administration struggles to negotiate a lasting peace deal with Iran. On Monday, he told reporters that the pause in fighting was on “life support.”
“It’s unbelievably weak,” Trump said of the ceasefire, calling Iran’s latest peace proposal “garbage.”
Trump is traveling to Beijing this week for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, a summit that some Republicans mentioned Wednesday when opposing the measure.
“He’s negotiating with the Chinese on a whole range of issues, some of which bear on national security. I think it would be best if everybody hung together in support of the president,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) told reporters.
Theodoric Meyer contributed to this report.
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