President Donald Trump is facing his first political loss on the Iran war.
Votes in the House and Senate to effectively halt the military campaign this week could deliver Democrats a rare victory and signal the war’s widening unpopularity even among Republicans.
Defections within the president’s party — including two GOP lawmakers who Trump helped defeat in primaries in recent days — handed Democrats an initial win Tuesday in the Senate and could power an even bigger triumph Wednesday in the House.
After nearly three months at war with Iran, Trump may finally confront a major setback in the conflict, albeit a political one in Washington instead of a military loss on the battlefield. While largely symbolic, given a likely presidential veto, the votes would amount to a stunning embarrassment for the president.
“The story today is the momentum is growing for Republican members to say, ‘You can’t do this war without us,’” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), one of the organizers of the measure.
Republican dissent has risen as the administration blows past legal deadlines to end the war and skyrocketing gas prices drag down GOP favorability headed into the midterm elections.
The initial Senate vote will force the chamber to continue debating the measure. But an even more consequential vote looms in the House, which could pass with a coalition of Democrats and a handful of Republicans.
Final vote tallies can still change in a narrowly divided House and high-stakes election year. Senate Republicans are expected to try to sideline the final effort since Democrats took advantage of GOP absences Tuesday to advance the measure. And neither chamber has built up enough support to overturn Trump’s veto, which is a near certainty if any legislation reaches his desk.
But Democrats say the steady growth of support for war powers limits — across eight votes in the Senate and three in the House — mirrors public dissatisfaction for the war. A New York Times/Siena poll conducted between May 11 and May 15 found 64 percent of Americans see the attacks on Iran as a wrong decision, as opposed to 30 percent who support it.
“Every one of our votes tends to get a little more support,” said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich). “A vast majority of American people do not support the war, so anybody who’s voting another way is not aligned with where the American people are.”
The House vote Wednesday comes after advocates lost a tie vote last week, despite support from three Republicans — Reps. Tom Barrett of Michigan, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. That’s the most GOP defections since the war began.
One Democratic holdout, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, said he intends to support the “clean” war powers measure this week.
Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to whip against the measure, but the final tally could ultimately come down to which lawmakers show up.
Massie, who has become one of Trump’s biggest GOP critics, lost his reelection bid Tuesday to former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein in Kentucky’s primary. Gallrein ran with Trump’s endorsement, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stumped for him this week in an unusual partisan turn for a Pentagon chief.
In the Senate, four Republicans voted to rein in the war, including Sen. Bill Cassidy, who lost his primary decisively last weekend at the hands of a Trump-backed challenger. Cassidy became a target of Trump’s wrath after he voted to convict Trump after he was impeached in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
Critics took advantage of GOP absences to win Tuesday’s initial Senate vote. GOP leaders will likely push to sideline the war powers measure when they reach full attendance. But in another ironic twist, one of those absent Republican senators whose vote will be needed is Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who suffered a major political blow Tuesday when Trump endorsed his primary opponent.
“If today’s environment is reflective, I’d say the mood was pretty sour,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) about Senate relations with the president, and one of four Republicans to break ranks on Iran. “Maybe he doesn’t think he needs us. But I don’t know, last time I checked, the laws don’t just appear before his desk to sign. The funding just doesn’t come.”
Senate Republicans supportive of the war largely dismissed the latest vote.
“I don’t think you can read a whole lot into it,” said Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), because of the absent senators. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the effort “a waste of time.”
But Senate leaders likely won’t take final action until after the holiday break, Kaine said. That gives Democratic lawmakers a week to advertise their progress to voters and try to pressure their Republican colleagues to back the plan.
“They’re going to hear a lot from people when they’re home about gas prices and the war,” Kaine said. “This is just slowly leading to more GOP members being willing to say, ‘Hey, Mr. President, you shouldn’t be doing this without us.’”
Jennifer Scholtes, Ali Bianco and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
