Cassidy explains Iran war powers reversal after Trump clash with Senate Republicans

Sen. Bill Cassidy said a late-night briefing from Vice President JD Vance and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff helped change his vote on an Iran war powers resolution, after a bruising confrontation between President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans. Cassidy explained the shift on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, where the guest list also included Sen. Tim Kaine and CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford.

Cassidy said his original reason for backing the measure was simple: Congress had not been briefed. He said the briefing from Vance and Witkoff addressed many of his concerns and left him believing the administration had a plausible plan to achieve its stated goals against Iran. The interview was conducted June 25, the same day Trump met with Republican senators in a tense session that ended with sharp recriminations over the White House approach to Iran.

The Senate vote that followed showed how fragile the coalition had become. Late Wednesday, senators voted 47-50-1 to block Kaine’s war powers resolution from advancing, reversing an earlier narrow Senate move on the issue. Rand Paul changed his vote to present, while Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voted in favor of the resolution. Kaine had cast the measure as a constitutional check on presidential war-making authority, putting the chamber directly into the fight over how much room Trump has to act on Iran without new authorization from Congress.

Cassidy’s reversal also carried immediate political weight. He lost Louisiana’s Republican primary in May to a Trump-backed challenger, making his break with Trump on Iran part of a broader pattern that has already put him at odds with the president. The same pressure shadowed his earlier vote against Trump during the 2021 impeachment fight, and it hung over the Senate debate as Republicans tried to balance loyalty to the White House against demands for congressional oversight.

The June 28 Face the Nation lineup made that conflict plain: Cassidy was there to explain his reversal, Kaine to defend the resolution, and Crawford to unpack the legal stakes. Inside the Senate, the fight settled one question for the moment, but left intact the larger dispute over whether Trump can keep moving on Iran while Congress remains on the sidelines.