Senate rejects bid to curb Trump’s war powers on Iran

The Senate rejected a Democratic bid to rein in Donald Trump’s war powers on Iran by a 47-53 vote, leaving the president free to press ahead as he and Iranian officials say they have reached a framework deal to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to support the resolution, while Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the only Democrat to oppose it.

The measure, introduced by Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, would have required congressional authorization for continued hostilities. Democrats said they would keep forcing war powers votes to pressure the administration into public hearings and fuller explanations of the conflict. Tim Kaine of Virginia has led the broader push, arguing that Congress cannot keep ceding decisions over war and peace while U.S. forces remain exposed and the military campaign continues to reverberate through oil markets.

The fight has become a test of whether lawmakers will follow through on their rhetoric about executive overreach when a president claims both diplomatic progress and national security urgency. Trump and his allies have argued that he can act under the Constitution and the 1973 War Powers Resolution without new authorization in self-defense. Critics counter that the administration has not adequately justified the war or its claim that Iran posed an imminent threat.

Those doubts sharpened after classified briefings, when Democratic lawmakers said they were not convinced Iran’s nuclear facilities had been "obliterated" as Trump had claimed. Trump also said he would consider more bombing and dropped plans to lift sanctions on Iran, hardening concerns on Capitol Hill that the White House was making unilateral decisions while asking Congress to stay on the sidelines.

The March 24 vote was the third time since the conflict began on Feb. 28 that Senate Republicans had blocked an effort to challenge Trump’s authority. The resistance inside the chamber has not been absolute, though. On May 13, the Senate rejected a similar war powers measure 50-49 after the 60-day deadline in the War Powers Resolution had already expired, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska saying she wanted more clarity from the administration and had not received it. Six days later, the Senate advanced a war powers resolution for the first time in the conflict, 50-47, with Murkowski, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Paul joining Democrats to discharge it from committee.

Even so, the latest rejection showed how narrow the opening remains for Congress to force new limits on military action. With the administration now claiming a diplomatic off-ramp and a halt to the confrontation, the vote leaves unresolved the larger question: whether Congress will ever reclaim war powers unless a far larger bloc of Republicans decides the White House has gone too far.