Senate STUNS Nation with Vote on Trump's Iran War Power

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Hi everyone, Harry here to talk about the advance in the Senate of a War Powers resolution. That's a big deal in and of itself, but many many hurdles, including overcoming a Trump veto, which makes this essentially an effort to just um fan the flames of the unpopularity of this war. But it's a big deal to have gotten to this point anyway. And it happened because four Republican senators agreed. Ran Paul, Susan Collins, Lisa Marowski, and Bill Cassidy, whom Trump brought down uh with support of Cassid's opponent and is now on his way out, but unencumbered to oppose uh Trump as he has occasionally in the past. I want to remind you first about the War Powers Resolution. It says uh and it's the law even though the executive branch is always uh saying it's unconstitutional that um unless a war is authorized by Congress within 60 days everything has to stop. So the idea is it gives a possibility for Congress to do a vote earlier, but you get to this magic 60day mark and at that point under the terms of the law, no more use of the US forces, they must be removed from any conflict unless Congress has affirmatively authorized it within 60 days. So there are measures that Congress can weigh in before, but the War Powers Resolution says in any event, come 60 days, you've got to stop. You can't use troops. The administration's argument uh in response to this is on the one hand mindbendingly um ridiculous and Orwellian, on the other hand, par for the course. The argument is what war? The argument is the war in Iran has already stopped, so there's nothing to stop. And this actually was supported on the floor uh by uh certain Republican senators. Uh those hostilities do not exist today and have not existed for some time. The war is effectively over. You know, it it really is who who you going to believe the entire world and videos, etc. or Donald Trump? What would it even mean to say the war is over? It's such a among other things uh show of contempt for the American people. But that is the argument. The Democrats understandably are saying, "Nah, I don't think so." Uh and indeed it's not just that it's going on, but uh as Tim Kaine put it, we're in a ceasefire supposedly where we're trying to find a diplomatic path forward rather than renew a bombing campaign. That's exactly the time where Congress should be now having the debate about the rationale for um the war. We are in any event making war in uh any common sensical uh construction of that term.

[00:03:28]Okay. So war powers resolution this is the Senate voting 50 to 47 to advance it uh for very labyrinthine kinds of uh parliamentary reasons that we don't have to go into the Senate would have to do it two more times. uh and the House, which narrowly defeated a resolution like this last week, would also have to do it. It would then set up uh a certain veto by Trump. So we have another situation where there's a very strong claim of illegality and a very strong claim that that illegality is in addition to being illegal, really harmful, really unpopular, really something the American people don't want. And yet the administration is just ignoring the legal um compulsion to stop and just saying, you know, too bad. uh come get us. Oops, you can't. So, um that theme of lawlessness without recourse, you know, re really has to be um underscored here because it's basically one of the broadest themes of the whole Trump administration. Okay.

[00:04:46]But to get to the actual political context here, the people and the Dems and the four Republicans now who are fighting it understand that they won't eventually pass this over a presidential veto. But they also understand and the White House understands that this uh war is increasingly unpopular and what they are doing in advancing the resolution now is putting the White House on the defensive to justify uh the war to say ridiculous things like oh it's not really happening and there's you know war what war uh and to really make them own it today. Now, that vote, I remember I mentioned we need two more votes from the Senate. It w it was um there were three Republicans who didn't vote because they they missed it for whatever reason. And all three of them, including Cornin, who's in a the fight of his life against someone Trump has endorsed that could go either way, in a in the Texas primary for his seat. uh as well as Tillison and North Carolina uh Tuberville and Alabama uh are have already uh opposed this kind of motion.

[00:06:08]So if it the second and third time it comes up, the Dems will need one more otherwise it'll be 50/50 and uh Vance can break the tie. But even if something like that happens, it means all 50 of the people of the Republicans of the 54 Republicans who vote against it are more and more on record and have the albatross of the war more and more hung around their necks. And that's what's really happening. That's that's in fact why the administration is trying to say the war is over. But of course, uh, Trump's lurching here and there and erraticness and spasmoticness continues. But, uh, as as a prominent Democratic senator, former vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine said, with each additional vote, it's revealing to the president how unpopular this is with the American people, and that's what matters to him. So on the one hand uh he doesn't care about the law but on the other everything's going south for him and the war is a big part of it especially because it is tied directly to the huge increase in the price of gas at the pump. It's also tied directly and we've had conversations here on Talking Feds with people like Bob Kagan who who have really laid out the disaster this is for the US's role in the international world and why this is as stupid uh in addition as an unexplained uh war as we've had perhaps uh in our history and uh to continue to try to force course the issue for among other reasons to get Trump to actually explain what are we doing there and therefore when will we leave and tie it to some withdrawal rather than this sort of ongoing could stay forever could leave tomorrow nobody knows what's happening kind of situation so significant for political purposes that the Senate with four Republicans have have said we want to advance this war powers resolution they are totally right on the law, which is clear, unless a court were to strike that law down as unconstitutional. Everything should have stopped already. But they understand, as is the way with the Trump administration, the administration will parry them in with a veto in to actually vindicate the law. So, it's on a political setting, but that is uh one that is to Trump's increasing disadvantage for this war that no one understands why it started and what we're doing there and what would make it uh at all sensible uh to end it and come back home.

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