House votes to block Trump from ordering more strikes on Iran

Four Republicans broke with the president as the House joined the Senate for the first time in passing a measure that will add to pressure on the administration to wind down an unpopular three-month old war that Congress didn’t authorize.

By Theodoric Meyer and Mariana Alfaro

The House passed a resolution Wednesday to block President Donald Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran, ratcheting up pressure on the administration to find a way to end the unpopular war.

The 215-208 vote marked the first time such a measure has cleared the House or the Senate on a final vote since the start of the conflict more than three months ago. The Senate advanced a similar resolution last month on a procedural vote, reflecting growing impatience with a war Congress hasn’t authorized.

The effort faces sizable hurdles, however, before Congress could force Trump to end hostilities.

In the House, four Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie (Kentucky), Tom Barrett (Michigan), Warren Davidson (Ohio) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania) — joined Democrats in voting to force Trump to end the war.

“We are trapped in a war that won’t end because an incompetent president launched it thinking of only his own ego while failing to prepare for the consequences,” Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (New York), the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said during debate on the House floor. “Diplomacy is the only exit from this, not more bombing, not more bluster.”

Later Wednesday, the House bucked Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) on a second foreign policy issue, voting 218-204 to advance a bill that would provide Ukraine $8 billion in loans and $300 million in long-term security aid. The legislation still requires a final vote before heading to the Senate.

The bill, which would also impose additional sanctions on Russia’s finance and energy sectors, came to the floor only after six Republicans broke ranks and sided with Democrats to support the effort.

Democrats have forced repeated votes on war powers resolutions in both chambers since the start of the conflict, which polling shows is unpopular. A New York Times-Siena College poll conducted in mid-May found that 64 percent of registered voters think Trump made the wrong decision in going to war with Iran; 30 percent believe he made the right decision.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 — the law Democrats used to force the vote — requires presidents to remove U.S. forces from any conflict that Congress has not authorized within 60 days. Trump hit the deadline May 1 but dodged it by arguing that hostilities have been “terminated” since a ceasefire took effect, even as the United States continues to enforce a naval blockade of Iran.

Rep. Brian Mast (R-Florida), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, echoed Trump’s argument that the war is effectively over.

“We are not in hostilities,” he said. “We are out there with almost the exact same number of forces that we continually keep in the region.”

To reach Trump’s desk, the Senate resolution would require a final vote in the chamber, which could be tough if every senator is voting. Three Republican senators who had opposed similar measures in the past missed the procedural vote on the resolution last month, allowing it to advance. If they had voted the way they had in the past, it would have failed 50-50.

The House would also need to pass the Senate version before it reached Trump’s desk. Trump would almost certainly veto it, forcing the Senate and the House to override his veto with a two-thirds vote in both chambers before the resolution could take effect. No war powers resolution has ever overcome a veto.

Unlike the Senate resolution, the House version cannot be vetoed, but it is unclear whether it is privileged, guaranteeing that it gets a vote in the Senate. If the Senate parliamentarian rules that it is not, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) could decline to bring it up for a vote.

There is also considerable dispute about whether the House resolution would have the force of law if it passed both chambers.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), who has spearheaded the effort to force war powers votes in the Senate, has said that Congress passing a resolution could put pressure on Trump to negotiate an end to the conflict, even if the president vetoed it and Congress was unable to override it.

“It shouldn’t be surprising to the President and his national security team that this war is deeply unpopular — especially when the Trump-Vance Administration has offered no explanation to the American people about what our objectives are, whether we can achieve them through military force alone, what the legal rationale is, or what the financial and human costs and risks are for our country,” Kaine said in a statement Wednesday. “Today’s House vote is more evidence that this Administration is focused on the wrong things.”

While testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Congress passing a resolution would make Iranians less likely to come to the negotiating table.

“Iranians have misunderstood it in the past,” Rubio told Rep. Michael Lawler (R-New York). “They think that ‘if this thing passes, that means the president will not be able to come after us so he no longer has any leverage.’”

Rubio said the vote makes Iranian negotiators think that “somehow” the Trump administration’s hands “are going to be tied and we won’t be able to do anything to them, so why make a deal?”

The House resolution was widely expected to pass last month, but GOP leaders pulled the measure at the last minute in an effort to flip Republican votes during a recently concluded recess for the chamber.

Massie said the strategy backfired.

“When the members went back home, they heard from their constituents … it confirmed to [the Republicans who voted yes] that they should do the right thing,” he said.

Meeks agreed that the delay helped build support.

“I’ve been confident a little while, and that’s why we continued to pursue and move forward, because we knew we could do this,” he said.

Fitzpatrick argued that Congress had to follow the law — which declares that only Congress can declare war — and assert its powers.

“I don’t see what’s complicated about it,” he said. “Bring it to Congress, debate it on the merits, and have us vote. That’s the way the system’s supposed to work.”

Meeks said the advance of the measure supporting Ukraine sent a message “to the people of Ukraine … that the United States of America is not going to turn its back on [them].”

Thune said last month that the course of the war with Iran would influence whether more Republican senators come out against it, as the administration negotiates with Tehran even while Trump contemplates more strikes.

“Our members are — and rightly so — asking the right questions and trying to figure out what the strategy is going forward,” Thune told reporters.

The House is also scheduled this week to consider a separate war powers resolution, introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan), that would stop the Trump administration from joining Israel’s war in Lebanon. That measure, however, faces steeper odds, given fractured support within the Democratic Party.

Noah Robertson and Anna Liss-Roy contributed to this report.