The Senate advanced legislation Tuesday that would force President Donald Trump to seek congressional approval for the Iran war or withdraw U.S. troops, a move that keeps pressure on the White House after months of repeated votes. The measure cleared the chamber on a 50-47 vote and is headed for final passage, though the timing for that vote was not immediately clear.
The tally was enough only because Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy crossed over and voted for the legislation for the first time after losing his primary election last week. Cassidy returned to Washington saying he was proud of his work to uphold the Constitution and would carefully consider how he would vote on several priorities of the Trump administration. His switch gave Democrats the opening they had been chasing since Trump ordered the attack on Iran at the end of February.
Since then, Democrats have forced repeated votes on war powers resolutions aimed at requiring Trump either to win congressional approval for the war or pull troops back. Republicans had been able to block those proposals before Cassidy changed sides, and Tuesday’s vote showed how narrow the path has become for the president’s defenders in the Senate.
Three Republicans who had already backed similar measures — Rand Paul, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — voted for the legislation again Tuesday. That left the outcome vulnerable to absences on the GOP side, with several Republican senators away from the chamber in numbers that would have been enough to defeat the bill if their positions on the war held.
The latest push comes as the Iran conflict remains fragile and continues to weigh on the U.S. economy through rising gas prices. The war powers resolution has become a recurring test of how far congressional Republicans are willing to go in backing Trump’s military decisions, even as some of them have already broken with him on the issue.
That split was sharpened over the weekend when Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday on NBC that Cassidy lost his Louisiana primary because he had tried to destroy Trump, adding that the GOP is the party of Donald Trump. Cassidy’s vote Tuesday answered that warning with a clear rejection: he backed the measure anyway. The final vote will show whether enough Republicans are willing to join him, or whether Trump can still hold the line in the Senate.
