Emergency crews work at the scene of a U.S.-Israeli strike on an apartment building on April 7, 2026 in Tehran, Iran, which also destroyed the adjacent Rafi-Nia Synagogue. (Photo: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans and one Democrat maintained their support for President Donald Trump’s war in Iran after blocking for the fifth time a resolution that would have forced the president to seek congressional approval for further action in the Middle East.
The vote failed 46-51largely following the same division as previous failed measures. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania, opposed the resolution to stop Trump, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted in favor of it, as they had done four times previously.
Sense. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, David McCormick, R-Pa. and Mark Warner, D-Va. they were absent.
Thirteen American soldiers and thousands of civilians across the Middle East have been killed in a war that the Trump administration says is about regime change and stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
From Wednesday, the Pentagon updated the number of US soldiers injured in the conflict to 400.
Fetterman and all but one Republican senator blocked the measure the day after Trump expanded ceasefire with Iran after the failure of prospects for a second round of peace talks. Trump did not set an end date for extending the ceasefire, but said the United States would not lift its blockade of ships sailing to and from Iranian ports.
Trump claimed delayed Tuesday night that Iran is “financially failing!”
“They want the Strait of Hormuz to be opened immediately. Cash starvation! Losing $500 million a day. Military and police complaining that they are not being paid. SOS!!!” He he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
US forces fired at and captured on Sunday, a sanctioned Iranian cargo ship.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran Seyed Abbas Araghchi he wrote on Tuesday X that the seizure was “an act of war and therefore a violation of the ceasefire.”
Iran on Wednesday claimed responsibility for attacking two merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a key maritime chokepoint through which one-fifth of the world’s oil flowed before the war. Iranian parliament representative Ebrahim Rezaei decided on X “an eye for an eye, a tanker for a tanker”.
Baldwin leads opposition to the war
Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, the main sponsor of Wednesday’s War Powers conference Resolutionhe said on the floor before the vote that Trump had sold Americans a “bad product” by campaigning on cutting costs and not starting any fresh foreign wars.
“This war has set us back and created more problems for the people I work for,” she said, citing rising fuel and fertilizer costs as a result of the Strait of Hormuz standstill.
The latest inflation data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reflect: An augment of 21%. included in the price of fuel from February to March.
A gallon of regular gas remained According to AAA, they average north of $4 nationwide.
United Airlines announced Wednesday that it plans to raise airline ticket prices by as much as 20% to offset the cost of jet fuel, according to multiple media outlets. reports.
Brent crude, the standard on the global oil market, rose above $100 a barrel on Wednesday, as before numerous times since the beginning of the US-Israeli war in Iran.
“Less than two months ago, oil prices were normal, the Strait of Hormuz was open, trade was booming,” Sen. Tim Kaine, R-Va., said before the vote.
“And then President Trump made the decision, without justification, without a plan, without consulting allies, without consulting or getting a vote from Congress, to drag the nation into another war in the Middle East. And the whole world suffers,” Kaine said.
Trump entered a joint war with Iran alongside Israel on February 28.
Senator Roger Wicker said it would be “unwise” to adopt the resolution.
“We have recently analyzed these votes and nothing has happened in the composition of this body or in the situation in Iran or the Middle East that could have changed significantly since the last time we voted on this matter,” the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said on the floor before the vote.
Wicker was the only Republican to speak against the resolution during Wednesday afternoon’s debate.
Early voting
Senate Democrats forced a vote to stop Trump’s actions in Iran one last time April 15just days after the president threatened on social media to erase Iran’sentire civilization” and bomb its power plants and bridges.
Senate Democrats say yes I don’t plan on stopping presenting resolutions of the war powers and speaking out against the war.
A few sent letter On Sunday to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, demanding answers about “disturbing allegations of incidents of civilian harm,” including an elementary school strike that killed more than 160 children on the day the war began.
“We fear that all of these tragedies could have been prevented. The high human toll in this war reflects the administration’s broader disregard for the strategic, legal, and moral imperative to minimize civilian harm,” the senators wrote.
A letter written by sense. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., was also signed by Ben Ray Luján, D-Md.; Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii; Tina Smith, Minnesota; Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.; Raphael Warnock, Georgia; Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.; Kirsten Gillibrand, D.N.Y.; Peter Welch, D-Vt. and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent lawmaker who caucuses with Democrats.
The 11 senators who joined Baldwin in sponsoring Wednesday’s armed forces resolution, a holdover from Congress’ efforts to contain President Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War, included Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.M., and Sen. Gillibrand, Kaine, Merkley and Van Hollen, and Adam Schiff, of the State of California; Chris Murphy, Connecticut; Tammy Duckworth, IL; Andy Kim, D.N.J.; Cory Booker, D.N.J.; and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.
