Share and Follow
President Trump’s recent military action against Iran has intensified discussions on Capitol Hill regarding the scope of presidential war powers.
Democratic lawmakers in both the House and Senate are swiftly pushing for votes on a resolution aimed at restricting Trump’s authority to launch military operations against Tehran without explicit congressional consent.
Originally conceived as a preventive measure against potential strikes, the initiative is moving forward despite the recent attacks. Democrats are now focused on halting further military actions until the administration provides a clear justification.
The urgency of these votes has increased significantly following the attacks, especially given their magnitude, the administration’s reluctance to outline the duration of military operations, and the history of extended conflicts in the Middle East. The recent loss of six American service members underscores the dangers of an extended military engagement.
In Congress, most Republicans are rallying behind Trump, opposing the resolution, while a substantial majority of Democrats are advocating for the measure as a stand against the president’s unilateral military decisions.
But there are defectors in both parties, as some Republicans criticize Trump for abandoning his “America First” pledge to avoid foreign conflicts, and some Democrats stress the importance of protecting Israel from the Iranian threat. The aisle-hopping has erased any clean lines of partisan messaging as the debate consumes Washington this week. And it sets the stage for a vote on war powers that might be tighter than it would have been before the attack, when the measure was clearly on track to fail.
“It’s going to be very close,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who’s sponsoring the House war powers resolution with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“Right now, I’d say it’s 40/60 to pass, but we’ve got a few days to work on it.”
Khanna and other supporters have their work cut out.
In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other GOP leaders are adamantly opposed to the Khanna-Massie resolution, arguing it would tie the hands of U.S. forces just as they need maximum flexibility to knock out Iran’s top leaders and military capabilities.
“I think the idea that we would move a War Powers Act vote right now, I mean, it will be forced to the floor, but the idea that we would take the ability of our commander-in-chief, the president, take his authority away right now to finish this job, is a frightening prospect to me,” Johnson said Monday after receiving a briefing from administration officials. “It’s dangerous, and I am certainly hopeful, and I believe we do have the votes to put it down. That’s going to be a good thing for the country and our security and civility.”
The GOP leaders appear to have the backing of virtually all members of the Republican conference: Only Massie and Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) have said they’ll vote for the resolution.
Trump and the Republicans are getting some help from at least two Democrats — Reps. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.) and Jared Moskowitz (Fla.) — who are among the loudest supporters of Israel in Congress.
Those dynamics are mirrored in the Senate, where Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) is leading the effort to rein in Trump’s unilateral war powers. So far, only one Republican, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), has announced his support for the measure, while Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) appears to be the only Democrat lining up against it.
“Every member in the U.S. Senate agrees we cannot allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. I’m baffled why so many are unwilling to support the only action to achieve that,” Fetterman posted Monday on the social platform X in a shot at fellow Democrats. “Empty sloganeering vs. commitment to global security — which is it?”
If that math holds, the war powers resolutions will fail in both chambers.
Still, the sheer level of the attacks, combined with Trump’s unwillingness to brief most lawmakers that they were coming, has sparked fears in the Capitol that the administration is readying for another long conflict in the Middle East without so much as a debate about it.
The gravity of the conflict — combined with the pushback from key European allies and the “forever war” fatigue of U.S. voters — has created a sense that the Iran campaign is very different from the other military operations Trump launched against foreign adversaries, going back to his first term. And there is some evidence that the strikes have shifted the momentum of the congressional discussion in favor of those seeking to limit Trump’s powers.
Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), a staunch ally of Israel, had been careful not to say how he’d vote on the Khanna-Massie resolution just a few days ago. But on Saturday, just hours after the strikes, he quickly announced his support, citing Congress’s sole authority to declare war as defined under the Constitution.
“The Administration must provide Congress with comprehensive classified briefings to understand the threat that justified today’s actions, the goals of the operation, and the strategy for achieving these goals,” he said.
Democrats are not the only critics.
Trump rose to power over the last decade on a foreign policy message that’s been highly critical of the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which coincided with the public’s exhaustion with those conflicts. Trump vowed instead to use U.S. resources to tackle domestic problems — a promise that’s now inviting charges of hypocrisy from those conservatives who want him to follow through.
“And just like that we are no longer a nation divided by left and right, we are now a nation divided [by] those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance,” former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wrote Monday on X.
Trump on Monday sent several top administration officials to the Capitol to meet with House and Senate leaders on the Armed Services committees. And officials are scheduled to brief all members of Congress in the Capitol on Tuesday.
If the goal was to provide clarity, however, the conflicting statements from some of those same officials on Monday is instead creating only more confusion — and a sense that Trump launched the attacks without a plan for a resolution or long-term stability in the region.
On Monday morning, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the goal was not regime change in Tehran — a message that was contradicted by Trump, days earlier, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday afternoon.
“We would love to see this regime be replaced,” Rubio told reporters in the Capitol.
Trump, for his part, did little to discourage the notion that the initial strikes merely set the stage for a much longer conflict.
“Whatever the time is, it’s OK, whatever it takes,” Trump said. “Right from the beginning we projected four to five weeks, but we have the capability to go far longer than that. We’ll do it.”