Senate Republicans defeat measure to halt Iran strikes despite growing anxieties

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Karoline Leavitt Gets HEATED In Briefing, Defending U.S. Evacuations And Strikes In Iran | TRENDING

Senate Republicans voted largely along party lines Wednesday to defeat a bipartisan war powers resolution to halt military action against Iran, even though a number of GOP senators are voicing concerns about the lack of a clear game plan for ending the conflict.

The motion to discharge the resolution from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee failed by a vote of 47-53.

Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), who regularly opposes deploying U.S. armed forces in foreign conflicts, was the only Republican to vote to advance the measure.

Two key moderate Republicans, Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), who faces a tough reelection, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), whose political base includes Democrats and moderates in Alaska, both voted to block the resolution even as both included notes of caution about the operation.

Collins said before the vote that the administration had done a much better job explaining the mission to members of Congress than it did before the overnight assault to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

And in a statement released after the vote, Collins argued that advancing a war powers resolution would undercut the troops.

But she also warned that the Trump administration has to keep lawmakers fully briefed on the conflict.

“Passing this resolution now would send the wrong message to Iran and to our troops. At this juncture, providing unequivocal support to our service members is critically important, as is ongoing consultation by the Administration with Congress,” she said.

Murkowski on Wednesday agreed that the administration did a better job of earning GOP support for the strikes against Iran than it did before Congress voted on another resolution to halt military action against Venezuela earlier this year.

“I think it is actually better than how they communicated with Venezuela, but that doesn’t say much,” she said.

Even though she voted against the resolution, Murkowski said she has concerns about the lack of a clear endgame for the conflict.

“That’s what most Americans are thinking,” she said.

A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll of 1,282 U.S. adults nationwide found that only 27 percent of respondents approved of the strikes against Iran and 43 percent disapproved.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), an outspoken proponent of Israel using military force to defend itself, was the only Democrat to vote to block the measure.

Speaking before the vote, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) framed the vote as a question “about whether or not senators are ready to send your sons and your daughters into harm’s way.”

He urged GOP colleagues to “take a stand,” arguing “the last thing the American people want or need is another war in the Middle East.”

But GOP senators argued that President Trump has the authority as commander in chief to order thousands of missile strikes and bombing raids.

“I think the president has the authority that he needs to conduct the activities, the operations that are currently underway there,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters. “The president is acting in the best interests of the nation and our national security interests by ensuring that he’s protecting Americans and American bases and installations in the region.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a close ally of Trump, called the war powers resolution “unconstitutional.”

“It sucks,” he said of the effort by Congress to constraint Trump’s authority to launch preemptive strikes. “It’s an unconstitutional shift of power from the commander in chief to the Congress.”

GOP lawmakers warned that pulling U.S. troops from an ongoing military conflict while Iran is launching hundreds of missiles against U.S. bases and installations in the Middle East would be irresponsible.

Some Republicans, however, expressed growing concern that senior administration officials haven’t yet given them a clear answer on how long the conflict will last.

Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), a key swing Republican, who voted against the war powers resolution Wednesday said Congress needs to do a better job of getting answers from the administration about its plan for conducting the operation, which could stretch well into the spring.

He voiced concern about whether there was sufficient planning and engagement from Congress before Trump launched the massive military operation.

“I look primarily to Congress. I think we should have asked more questions. [Media outlets] were reporting for weeks that we’re marching toward war,” Young said. “We should have been holding hearings and asking probing questions and making the case to get a greater measure of unity around this operation on the front end but here we are. We’re at war.”

Young, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that despite whatever misgivings he might have about how the leadup to the military strikes were handled by the administration and lawmakers on key committees, it would be dangerous to pull troops out of the field now.

“As a practical matter it would be dangerous to the American people and our national security to withdraw all military action, involvement right now. The country of Iran and the surrounding region has been destabilized,” he said.

Young was one of eight GOP senators who voted for a war powers resolution to prohibit military action against Iran in February of 2020, after Trump ordered a U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.

Paul, Collins, Murkowski and Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) also voted for the Iran war powers resolution six years ago.

Cassidy said he voted against the war powers resolution Wednesday because U.S. troops are in active combat.

“I think right now we got troops in the field. They need our support. It needs to be unequivocal,” he said

Moran also voted against the resolution but he told The Hill Wednesday that he didn’t have a clear idea of how much longer the conflict would last, even after receiving a briefing from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine on Tuesday.

Asked if he was satisfied with the administration’s explanation of the conflict’s end-game, Moran replied: “I don’t think the information is sufficient because it’s unknowable.”

Paul, a critic of projecting U.S. military power abroad, said before the vote that Trump had abandoned the anti-war positions he ran on as a candidate for president in 2016.

He said GOP colleagues should “listen to the campaign message of Donald Trump that he ran on and that he won with, which was that he was opposed to regime change, that he was opposed to preemptive war.”

He said the strikes launched against Iran in recent days were “inconsistent with the message that he ran on and there are a lot of people, I think, who are not that excited about being in another Middle Eastern war.”

Paul said that conflict with Iran could drag out far longer than senior administration officials expect, pointing out that the war in Afghanistan lasted for two decades.

Asked how long the fighting will last, Paul said: “I don’t think anybody knows.”

“Sometimes it turns out worse to be anticipated. Nobody thought when they voted for the war in Afghanistan that we’d be there 20 years and spend $2 trillion,” he said.

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