The Home is preparing to vote Thursday on a war powers resolution to halt U.S. President Donald Trump‘s attack on Iran, an indication of unease in Congress over the rapidly widening conflict that’s reordering U.S. priorities at home and abroad.
It’s the second vote in as many days, after the Senate defeated an analogous measure along party lines. Lawmakers are confronting the sudden reality of representing the American people in wartime and all that entails — with lives lost, dollars spent and alliances tested by a president’s unilateral decision to go to war with Iran.
The tally within the House is predicted to be tight, however the consequence will provide an early snapshot of the political support, or opposition, to the U.S.-Israel military operation and Trump’s rationale for bypassing Congress, which alone has the facility to declare war.
“Donald Trump isn’t a king, and if he believes the war with Iran is in our national interest, then he must come to Congress and make the case,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks, the highest Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Meeks said in his nearly three a long time in Congress, the toughest votes he has taken have been deciding whether to send U.S. troops to war.
The roll calls are a clarifying moment for the president and the parties just days into the overseas conflict that has quickly carried echoes of the long U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many veterans of those wars have since run for office and now serve in Congress.
Republicans largely back Trump, and most Democrats oppose the war
Trump’s Republican Party, which narrowly controls the House and Senate, largely sees the conflict with Iran not as the beginning of a brand new war, but the tip of a regime that for a long time has long menaced the West. The operation has killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which some view as a possibility for regime change, though others warn of a chaotic power vacuum.
Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, the GOP chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, publicly thanked Trump for taking motion against Iran, saying the president is using his own constitutional authority to defend the U.S. against the “imminent threat” the country posed.
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Mast, an Army veteran who worked as a bomb disposal expert in Afghanistan, said the war powers resolution was effectively asking “that the president do nothing.”
For Democrats, Trump’s war with Iran, influenced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is a war of alternative that’s testing the balance of powers within the U.S. Structure.
“The framers weren’t playing around,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., arguing that the Structure is evident that only Congress can resolve matters of war.
He said whether lawmakers support or oppose the Trump administration’s military motion, they need to have the controversy. “It’s as much as us, we’ve got to vote on it.”
While views in Congress are largely falling along party lines, there are crossover coalitions. Each the House and Senate resolutions were bipartisan, and are drawing bipartisan support and opposition. The House can be voting on a separate resolution affirming that Iran is the most important state sponsor of terrorism.
The war powers resolution, if signed into law, would immediately halt Trump’s ability to conduct the war unless Congress approved the military motion. The president would likely veto the measure.
In its place, a small group of Democrats has proposed a separate war powers resolution that may allow the president to proceed the war for 30 days before he must seek congressional approval. It isn’t expected to come back yet for a vote.
Trump officials provide shifting rationale for war
After launching a surprise attack against Iran on Saturday, Trump has scrambled to win support for a conflict that Americans of all political persuasions were already wary of entering. Trump administration officials spent hours behind closed doors on Capitol Hill this week attempting to reassure lawmakers that they’ve the situation under control.
Six U.S. military members were killed over the weekend in a drone strike in Kuwait, and Trump has said more Americans could die. Hundreds of Americans abroad have scrambled for flights, many lighting up the phone lines at congressional offices as they sought help attempting to flee the Middle East.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the war could extend eight weeks, twice so long as the president himself first estimated. Trump has left open the potential of sending U.S. troops into what, thus far, has largely been bombing campaign by air. Tons of of individuals within the region have died.
The administration said the goal is to destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles that it believes are shielding its nuclear program. It has also said Israel was able to act against Iran, and American bases would face retaliation if the U.S. didn’t strike first. On Wednesday, the U.S. said it torpedoed an Iranian warship near Sri Lanka.
“This administration can’t even give us a straight answer of as to why we launched this preemptive war,” said Rep. Thomas Massie, the Republican from Kentucky who is commonly an outlier in his party.
Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who had teamed as much as release the Jeffrey Epstein files, also forced the war powers resolution to the ground, pushing past objections from House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Johnson has warned that it could be “dangerous” to limit the president’s authority while the U.S. military is already in conflict.
Senators sit of their desks for solemn vote
Within the Senate, Republican leaders have successfully, though narrowly, defeated a series of war powers resolutions pertaining to several other conflicts during Trump’s second term. This one, nevertheless, was different.
Underscoring the gravity of the moment Wednesday, Democratic senators filled the chamber and sat at their desks because the voting got underway.
“Today every senator — each one — will pick a side,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said before the vote. “Do you stand with the American people who find themselves exhausted with ceaselessly wars within the Middle East or stand with Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth as they bumble us headfirst into one other war?”
Sen. John Barrasso, second in Senate Republican leadership, said “Democrats would quite obstruct Donald Trump than obliterate Iran’s national nuclear program.”
The laws failed on a 47-53 tally mostly along party lines, with Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky in favor and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania against.