Cassidy says Iran briefing could change his war powers vote

Bill Cassidy said a late Wednesday Situation Room briefing on Iran could still change his war powers vote after he had supported the measure because Congress was not being briefed. The Louisiana Republican said Vice President JD Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff delivered the briefing, and that the new details answered the information gap he had pointed to when he first backed the resolution.

Cassidy’s remarks came on the June 28 episode of Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, where CBS said he also discussed the explosive meeting between President Trump and Senate Republicans. CBS’s transcript says Cassidy’s interview was conducted on June 25, 2026, and that he originally supported the war powers vote because lawmakers had not been adequately briefed. After the Situation Room session, Cassidy said he was open to changing his position.

The dispute sits inside a sharper fight over whether Congress or the White House sets the rules for military action against Iran. The Senate approved the war powers resolution earlier in the week, a rare rebuke to Trump and, as Reuters and The Associated Press reported, the first time the chamber approved such a measure in the Iran conflict. Reporting also described a closed-door June 24 meeting on Capitol Hill in which Trump clashed with Senate Republicans, including a shouting match with Cassidy over Iran policy.

Cassidy’s clout in the Senate made the shift more consequential. CBS identified him as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, a post that has made him a prominent Republican voice on policy disputes beyond foreign affairs. Tim Kaine also appeared on the program; CBS identified the Virginia Democrat as a senator, underscoring how the Iran fight has cut across party lines inside the chamber.

The broadcast also turned briefly to the Supreme Court, where CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford said the remaining decisions in the court’s late-June term could be a mixed bag for Trump. That pairing, war powers in the Senate and unfinished rulings at the court, framed the week in Washington as one defined less by legislation than by competing claims over presidential power. CBS said Face the Nation has aired since 1954 and remains one of television’s longest-running news programs.