Only one Republican votes to end Trump

WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans on Wednesday rejected an attempt to curb President Donald Trump’s ability to wage war against Iran without congressional approval, ensuring that massive U.S. air and naval bombing of the country will continue for the foreseeable future.

the failed 47-53 The vote ensures that lawmakers will not hold any formal debate on another costly military conflict in the Middle East that has already left six U.S. service members and hundreds of Iranian civilians dead. It also comes amid bipartisan concerns about the mission’s shifting goals, its open scope and the possibility of Trump sending U.S. troops on the ground.

But nearly all Republicans argued this week that Trump has the legal authority to unilaterally wage war against Iran because its regime poses a threat to U.S. troops in the region.

“The president has broad powers under Article II of the Constitution,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R.S.D.) said at a news conference. “I think the president is perfectly within his rights to take the actions that he took. I think it was a necessary step to protect American lives.”

Democrats argue that Trump should have sought congressional authorization for the attacks, as required by the US Constitution. They forced a vote on the issue under the War Powers Act, which Congress passed after the Vietnam War to assert its constitutional authority over the war. The War Powers Act requires the president to notify Congress when he commits U.S. armed forces to hostilities in an emergency when the country is under imminent threat and gives lawmakers the power to trigger quick votes of disapproval.

Trump formally notified Congress of the attacks this week, but his claim that the United States faced an “imminent” threat from Iran, a decades-long U.S. adversary, was met with skepticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a leading defender of Congress’s authority on war powers issues, said after a classified briefing on Iran this week that he has not seen sufficient justification for unilateral action by the president.

“I don’t think this is even close to the United States facing an imminent threat. The term has traditionally been used when talking about military actions,” Kaine said.

Trump administration officials and their allies on Capitol Hill have dismissed a half-dozen justifications for launching a war against Iran, ranging from regime change to nuclear disarmament. Some have argued that the war is not really a war, others have argued that it was Iran that actually started it and that the United States was simply acting defensively by launching missile attacks against Iran along with Israel.

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the lone Republican vote in favor of the war powers resolution, which he helped introduce with Kaine, dismissed most of those claims as absurd doublespeak in an interview with News themezone.

“They’ve been saying they’re a week away from having a nuclear weapon, I think, since 1996,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said of Iran. “The other thing is, ‘Oh no, we’ve really been at war for 40 years and now we’re just finishing the war.’ I mean, most of the arguments don’t seem to hold up.”

Paul noted that the United States Constitution gave Congress the power to declare or start war for one reason: to make war less likely.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), an outspoken critic of the Trump administration, voted with his party to block the war powers resolution. However, he said his position could change if US involvement in Iran deepens and drags on for weeks.

“If it’s clear that this is a process that will take weeks, and whether troops are deployed there visibly or covertly, then we need to have a serious discussion about an authorization for the use of military force,” Tillis said.

The GOP-controlled House of Representatives will vote Thursday on its own war powers resolution that blocks hostilities with Iran. That measure is also expected to fail, thanks in part to at least seven House Democrats having indicated their support for the operation that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other top leaders of the Iranian regime.

Among Democrats in the Senate, only John Fetterman of Pennsylvania broke ranks and voted to keep the war in Iran.

Other Senate Democrats warned that Trump was dragging the United States into another “forever” war in the Middle East despite his 2024 campaign promises to end those wars.

“How many parents saw their children leave, fight and die in Iraq and Afghanistan?” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a speech on the Senate floor. “How many sleepless nights did families have over the last 20 years, worrying about their loved ones? How many headlines did we see over the decades of troops shot down, of convoys attacked, of wounded soldiers returning home forever scarred by the horrors of war? How many hundreds of billions of dollars were wasted? How much anguish, suffering and grief did the United States endure?”

“This is crazy,” he added.