Rejected! The resolution to force Trump to end Iran strikes

The Senate rejected a resolution Wednesday to block President Donald Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran, declined to halt a war that Trump started without the consent of Congress. Democrats along with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) forced a vote on the war powers resolution over the opposition of most Republicans, who control the Senate. Democrats implored a handful of Republicans to break with their party to end the conflict and reassert Congress’s control over declaring war.

“This essentially is the vote whether to go to war or not,” Paul told reporters. But Paul was the only Republican who voted to advance the resolution, which failed 47-53 on a procedural vote. One Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman (Pennsylvania) voted against it.

The vote was the latest setback in Democrats’ long-shot strategy to block Trump from ordering military strikes without authorization from Congress. They have forced votes on eight war power resolutions in the House and Senate a record for a single Congress since Trump returned to office in an attempt to block him from striking Venezuela, Iran and boats near Latin America suspected of smuggling drugs. All of them have failed. Republicans in Congress broadly support Trump’s decision to strike Iran, though a few have raised concerns about Congress’s lack of involvement.

“Yes, I wish I would have been consulted,” Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said in a statement. “I wish my vote would have been asked for before this. But the President did act within his legal bounds to do what he has done.”

Curtis and other Republicans argued that ordering the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the war days after it started would send the wrong message. Sen. Todd Young (R-Indiana) said he wished in retrospect that Congress had done more to assert its authority before the strikes.

“We should’ve 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,” Young told reporters ahead of the vote. “But here we are. We’re at war.”

Democrats countered that it was not too late to halt a war it did not authorize.

“We must act to stop Trump’s belligerence,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said on the Senate floor before the vote. “The American people will be watching how senators vote. History will judge this chamber for how we act.”

Democrats have argued that Americans do not want to be ensnared in another war in the Middle East, but early polls have presented a less clear picture of how the public views the war. A CNN poll found 59 percent of Americans disapproved of the decision to strike Iran and 41 percent approved. But a Fox News poll found registered voters evenly split: 50 percent approved and 50 percent disapproved. Several other surveys including a Washington Post flash poll have found results in between the CNN and Fox polls.

Many Democrats have compared Trump’s strikes on Iran to the Iraq War, although President George W. Bush sought and received authorization from Congress before the U.S. invasion in 2003. Trump has not asked for authorization to strike Iran, and Democrats warned that failing to rein him in now could set a precedent.

“If we vest the sole power to make war in the president of the United States, the sole decision to bring a country into war with the president of the United States, there is no check on the use of that authority, there is no check on the abuse of that authority,”

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) who introduced the resolution with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), Paul and Schumer said on the Senate floor before the vote. The House is set to vote Thursday on a similar war powers resolution, which Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said he believes he has the votes to defeat.

“The idea that we would take the ability of our commander in chief … to finish this job is a frightening prospect to me,” Johnson told reporters. “It’s dangerous, and I am certainly hopeful and I believe we do have the votes to put it down.”

The War Powers Resolution, which Congress passed in 1973 in response to the Vietnam War, allows a single lawmaker to force a vote to withdraw U.S. forces from a conflict or to block strikes when hostilities are imminent. But even if Congress passed such a resolution, it would stand little chance of forcing Trump to end the war with Iran because he could veto it. Overriding a veto would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers. No war powers resolution has ever overcome a veto.

Kaine and Paul waited for weeks to force the vote as Trump massed U.S. forces near Iran, even as the two countries continued to negotiate over Iran’s nuclear program. Kaine said last week that he wanted the vote to happen before any strikes because it would increase its odds of passage.

But at least two House Democrats said they would oppose the resolution if their colleagues forced a vote on it while negotiations were ongoing, making it hard for Democrats to get the timing right. Kaine said before Wednesday’s vote that he would file more resolutions to end the conflict in Iran if the vote failed. The Senate and House votes this week are “the first effort of all Congress going on the record about this, but I can assure you it’s not going to be the last,” he told reporters.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) argued before the vote that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 was unconstitutional and suggested another way that Democrats could force an end to the conflict so by refusing to vote for legislation funding it. Democrats might get such an opportunity soon if the administration asks Congress for more money to prosecute the war.

“If you want to stop this war, say we will not pay for it,” Graham said on the Senate floor. “I would not agree with you, but at least it would be constitutional.”

The 1973 law also requires the president to withdraw forces after 60 days or 90 days if the president seeks an extension unless Congress declares war or authorizes the use of military force. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said he does not believe the Trump administration needed to seek authorization to continue the Iran campaign even if it lasts for longer than 90 days.

“I think the president has the authority that he needs to conduct the activities, the operations that are currently underway there,” - Thune told reporters.

But Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) said he believed Trump would need to seek authorization from Congress if he wanted to deploy ground troops in Iran, which the administration has not ruled out.

“Most American presidents have said, ‘Listen, if I’m going to commit ground troops into combat, that constitutes war in the constitutional sense and would require some sort of authorization,’” Hawley told reporters. “I think that’s a pretty tried-and-tested line.”

Tim Kaine shutdown trying to stop President Trump from using further military force against Iran

So the loser who ran with Hillary Clinton for VP the first time we have a "TIM WALZ" type on the VP ticket.. As both Tim's are idiots who should just retire. These guys are useless but he's some how still a Senator! But Tim Kaine’s (D-VA) tried to stop the war powers of Trump with a resolution, which would have required Congress to debate and vote on whether the president could declare war or strike Iran, was struck down in the upper chamber. The Senate Friday voted down an effort to block President Trump from using further military force against Iran, as Democratic anger festers over the lack of details about the recent strikes on the country's nuclear facilities.

The measure failed in a 47-53 vote, with Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky voting with most Democrats in favor of the resolution, and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania voting with most Republicans against it. Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia introduced the war powers resolution days before the U.S. bombed three locations central to Iran's nuclear program, seeking to force the president to get congressional authorization before entering the conflict between Israel and Iran. "The events of this week have demonstrated that war is too big to be consigned to the decisions of any one person," Kaine said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote.

Since the measure was introduced, Mr. Trump announced a ceasefire between the adversaries and declared that Iran's nuclear sites were "obliterated" during the 12-day war. On Friday, Mr. Trump said he would "without question" consider bombing Iran again if Tehran was enriching uranium to a level that concerned the U.S. But anger from Democrats, including those who have said that Iran should never be able to obtain a nuclear weapon, has simmered as they say they have been left in the dark about U.S. military actions. It's led some Democrats to question whether the Trump administration is misleading the public about the strikes, especially after an initial classified assessment found that they set back Tehran's nuclear program by a matter of months. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has said the nuclear program was set back "basically decades."

Top intelligence officials said Wednesday that new intelligence showed the nuclear program had been "severely damaged" and its facilities "destroyed." It would take the Iranians "years" to rebuild the facilities, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called it "an historically successful attack" in a contentious press briefing Thursday. Classified briefings for the Senate and House were originally scheduled for Tuesday, the same day the initial assessment was leaked. Officials briefed senators on Thursday afternoon and House members on Friday.

A White House official said Tuesday the Senate briefing was postponed because of "evolved circumstances as a result of recent positive developments in the Middle East." After the briefings, some Democrats cast doubt on the administration's characterization of the strikes and questioned assertions regarding how much Iran's nuclear program has been hindered. "I walk away from that briefing still under the belief that we have not obliterated the program," Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told reporters. "The president was deliberately misleading the public when he said the program was obliterated. It is certain that there is still significant capability, significant equipment that remain."

Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said the information disclosed in the briefing was "massively different than what has been told to Congress over the last year, up until a month ago, about both Iranian capabilities and Iranian intent." Crow said he was "not convinced of that whatsoever" when asked whether Iranian nuclear facilities had been obliterated. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, has railed against a lack of transparency and said earlier this week the administration had not presented Congress with any evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat requiring immediate military action.

But Jeffries did not go as far as supporting a resolution to impeach Mr. Trump over the bombings. He and more than 120 Democrats voted with all Republicans to kill the measure, which was introduced by Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas, on Tuesday. Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, also questioned the timing of the strikes.

"It's pretty clear that there was no imminent threat to the United States," Himes said. "There's always an Iranian threat to the world. But ... I have not seen anything to suggest that the threat from the Iranians was radically different last Saturday than it was two Saturdays ago." Kaine's resolution was one of a handful of similar efforts seeking to curtail further U.S. involvement in Iran, though it's unclear whether any will be successful in a Congress controlled narrowly by Republicans. Some Republicans who were initially supportive of the resolutions, like Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, appear to be backing away from forcing a vote as long as the ceasefire holds and the U.S. does not conduct any further bombings. And House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, called the efforts irrelevant because Iran and Israel agreed to stop the fighting. "It's kind of a moot point now, isn't it?" Johnson said Monday. "It seems rather silly at this point and I hope they'll acknowledge it as such and put it to bed because it has zero chance of passing anyway."

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told The Wall Street Journal this week he believes Mr. Trump acted "perfectly within his authority" by striking Iran. "I don't think there's any question the president has the authority legally and constitutionally to do what he did," the South Dakota Republican said. "There are always questions around these things, but past presidents and both political parties have similarly acted in circumstances where there've been airstrikes at various places around the world where our national security interests dictated it."

The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, and most major military conflicts in recent history have been launched under an authorization for the use of military force passed by Congress. But presidents have periodically acted without explicit permission from lawmakers, including during President Bill Clinton's 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia and President Barack Obama's 2011 airstrikes on Libya, the Congressional Research Service notes. In announcing his support for Kaine's resolution, Paul said Congress was abdicating its constitutional responsibility by allowing a president to act unilaterally and warned that last week's strikes could have unintended consequences. "Despite the tactical success of our strikes, they may end up proving to be a strategic failure.

It is unclear if this intervention will fully curtail Iran's nuclear aspirations, or, in fact, whether the Iranians may well conclude to double down on their efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon," Paul said. Those opposed to the resolution argued that Mr. Trump acted within his constitutional authority and that the measure would constrain the president's ability to respond quickly to a threat. In an interview last week with CBS News' Major Garrett, Kaine acknowledged that his resolution could fail but said he wanted his colleagues to be on the record about U.S. involvement in another war. "Everyone in the Senate should agree that this is a matter of such gravity and importance that we shouldn't allow war to begin without Congress having a debate in full view of the American public and members of the Senate and House having to go on the record about it," he said.