The Scoop
Senate Democrats are threatening to force repeated votes on President Donald Trump’s war with Iran unless Republicans agree to hold committee hearings about the ongoing war, according to details shared first with Semafor.
Six Senate Democrats are joining in the push for public hearings on the Iran conflict, saying they are tired of closed-door briefings that don’t inform the US public. The Democrats are also seeking an investigation and airing outrage over the bombing of an Iranian school, which reportedly killed scores of children.
The Democrats plan to tell Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Monday afternoon that unless he greenlights committee hearings on the war, “they will use the tools of the Senate to hold this public debate and a series of votes on the administration’s war powers on the floor of the Senate,” according to an aide briefed on the plan.
Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Adam Schiff of California, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and Chris Murphy of Connecticut introduced the resolutions last week. They will be ready for floor action in the coming days and weeks.
“Now is the time for Democrats to use all the leverage we have to try to stop this unnecessary war,” those five senators and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., said in a statement for this story.
“Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio must immediately come before Congress for a public hearing and explain why we’re in this war, how it will end, and why they are prioritizing billions of dollars on an open-ended war instead of lowering costs for American families.”
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The war powers votes are set at simple majority thresholds, which means the 53-seat Republican majority can defeat them with full party unity. Last week, a resolution from Kaine failed 47-53, with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., joining Democrats and Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., opposing it on a procedural vote.
But war powers debates are a potent tool for the Senate’s minority party even when defeated; they force vulnerable Republicans to take tough votes and eat up floor time.
Democrats are seeking to remind voters about how far Trump has strayed from his campaign image as an anti-war candidate; they said in their statement that “Americans do not want their taxpayer dollars funding another potential forever war.”
The Senate’s floor schedule is facing separate huge challenges after Trump said he won’t sign any more bills until the chamber passes a stalled bill requiring ID and citizenship verification for voting.
The new Iran war powers measures will be eligible for floor action as soon as next week; they were filed last week and ripen after 10 days.
Notable
- Democrats are facing a subtle electoral litmus test when it comes to how they talk about the war and Trump’s power to wage it, our Nicholas Wu reported.