Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks to reporters during a news conference in the Ohio Clock Hall of the U.S. Capitol building, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine is at left. (Photo: Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans and one Democrat blocked a war powers resolution Wednesday aimed at curbing President Donald Trump’s joint war with Israel in Iran that has killed six U.S. soldiers and assassinated top Iranian leaders.
Resolution failed 47-52, with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the only Republican to co-sponsor the measure, joining Democrats in opposing Trump’s war on Iran.
Senator John Fetterman, Governor of Pennsylvania, was the only Democrat to break with his party and vote against moving forward with the bill. measure.
The vote came five days after Trump ordered the military to join Israel in surprise attacks on Iran that killed its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Pentagon officials say the administration has no plans to abandon the sustained offensive.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier Wednesday that U.S. B-1, B-2 and B-52 planes, as well as Predator drones, would fly with the Israeli Air Force “day and night” to rain “death and destruction from the skies all day long.”
Republicans largely came to an agreement support Trump’s actions and influenced the armed forces resolution, which would have forced the president to answer to Capitol Hill about further developments in Iran.
Democrats say Trump’s war in Iran is illegal, violating Art. I of the Constitution, granted Congress the power to declare war. Republicans maintain that Trump acted properly under the war powers granted to the president in Article II of the Constitution.
“Members of the Senate, this is war”
Year 1973 War Powers Resolution Requires the president to report to Congress within 48 hours of troop deployment. If, 60 days after the first notice, Congress has not authorized war or enacted legislation related to hostilities, the president’s exploit of armed forces shall automatically terminate.
Congress passed legislation to limit the president’s war powers despite a veto by President Richard Nixon due to the ongoing war in Vietnam. Congress rejected the veto.
Sen. Tim Kaine, R-Va., said on the floor before the vote that Republicans wanted to “allow the president to easily circumvent the Constitution.”
“You can’t stand up and say, ‘It’s over and no military is engaged in hostilities against Iran. Members of the Senate, this is war. The president of the United States has called it a war against Iran,'” said Kaine, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Kaine sponsored the War Powers Resolution with Paul.
Kaine told the floor that during Tuesday’s classified administration-led briefing, he asked officials whether the recent pattern of military interventions in Venezuela and now Iran means that “you believe you will never have to come to Congress to wage war against anyone, anywhere.”
“Nobody” denied his claims, he added.
Briefings for Congress
Administration officials informed all members Congress on Tuesday, for the first time since the war began. Officials informed congressional leaders and the heads of the intelligence committees.
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., who also serves on the Armed Services Committee, said before the vote that the Constitution “leaves no doubt that Congress, not the president, has the sole power to declare war.”
“And these controls were put in place for a very good reason. Our founders did not want to put enormous power over whether or not to go to war in the hands of just one person,” Peters said.
Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said on the floor before the vote that the enormous majority of presidents in American history “have ordered kinetic acts, as President Trump did, without having to go to Congress.”
“This is not new,” said Risch, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Lindsey Graham praises Trump again
In lengthy comments on the Senate floor before the vote, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., praised Trump’s decisions on Iran and argued that the war powers resolution violated the Constitution.
“To my colleagues in the Democratic Party: What you are proposing will cause chaos for any commander in chief that follows,” said Graham, a Trump ally who has openly supported the war all week.
Graham said if Congress wants to stop Trump’s war on Iran, it can do so by cutting funding during the annual appropriations process.
“The president, as commander in chief, has the ability to use our armed forces to protect our nation. And Congress, if we disagree with that choice, has the ability to end the action, take the money, and that’s a check and balance that was created a long time ago,” Graham said.
Speaker Johnson says the US is not at war
The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to pass a resolution on war powers on Thursday. Los Angeles State’s Mike Johnson repeatedly told reporters this week that he expected failure.
During a morning news conference, Johnson said he did not believe the military was “at war right now” and argued that Congress limiting the president’s ability to continue attacking Iran would “put the country at risk of serious harm.”
Johnson dismissed the possibility that Americans might vote Republicans out of power in November’s midterm elections if the war drags on, especially without formal congressional authorization.
“I think they will make up for it politically, but if people feel a bad taste in their mouths because of what happened here in the first half of the year in Iran, they will just do it,” he said. “But we know and history will record that we did the right thing.”
Johnson added that he believed lawmakers voting against further military action in Iran “would be a terrible and dangerous idea.”
The war powers’ resolution to halt Trump’s military actions in Venezuela in January narrowly failed on both counts House AND Senate.
Ground troops?
The White House maintains that Iran has rejected all negotiations with the U.S. to halt its nuclear program and that the goal of the war launched over the weekend is to destroy Iran’s current weapons and missile capabilities and “end its path to nuclear weapons,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday.
The press secretary said that US ground troops are “not part of the current plan,” but did not rule out that it is an option “on the table.”
Leavitt denied any claims that the offensive was aimed at regime change, despite the killing of some of Iran’s leaders.
Leavitt told a news conference that the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, “destroyed three major Iranian nuclear facilities.”
“However, the Iranian terrorist regime remains fully committed to rebuilding its nuclear program,” she said.
Iranian authorities said in November that the nation was no longer enriching uranium, According to to the Associated Press. The AP further reported that this was done by a reclusive government blocked international inspectors to assess four nuclear enrichment plants, citing a confidential report that journalists saw from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Control the sky, sink the ship
Hegseth stressed Wednesday morning that the United States is not slowing its offensive in Iran, having already hit 2,000 targets, and that more troops and airpower will arrive on Wednesday.
The secretary said that within days, the United States and Israel would have “full control over Iranian skies.”
Hegseth also showed video of an alleged US submarine attack in the Indian Ocean on an Iranian “prize ship”, sinking it.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the submarine used a single torpedo to sink the ship – he said it was the first time a U.S. submarine had done so since World War II.
US Central Command wrote on social media that it “struck or sank to the bottom of the ocean” more than 20 Iranian regime ships.
The Pentagon cited a significant decline in the number of retaliatory attacks by Iran. Since Sunday, the regime has fired missiles and drones at civilian targets in the Persian Gulf states and at regional U.S. military bases.
Caine said that so far, Iran’s missile and drone attacks have dropped by 86% and 73%, respectively, compared to the first day of fighting.
On Sunday, a drone attack killed six U.S. soldiers at a commercial port in Kuwait, a U.S. ally.
Caine said the remains of the six American soldiers would be returned to the U.S. “as soon as possible.” Pentagon in public identified four overdue Wednesday, and Caine said the military would release the names of the remaining two soldiers killed “once we are satisfied that all families have been properly notified.”
Leavitt said Trump would participate in the transfer of the soldiers’ remains upon arrival at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
Hegseth attacks the media
Hegseth said that before the war, the Pentagon moved 90% of U.S. troops out of range of Iran’s missiles.
“We took control of Iran’s airspace and waterways with no boots on the ground. We control their fate, but when a few drones get through or something tragic happens, it makes headlines. I get it. The press just wants to make the president look bad,” he said.
Both Hegseth and Leavitt declined to provide details about Saturday’s strike at an elementary school in southern Iran, which local authorities say left 168 people dead, many of them children.
“I can only say that we are investigating this matter. Of course, we never attack civilian targets,” Hegseth said.
When pressed whether American or Israeli munitions hit the school, Hegseth replied: “We are investigating the matter.”
Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.
