The United States Senate on Tuesday advanced legislation aimed at forcing President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Iran war, a new test of Congress’s power over a conflict that has split Republicans and left the White House under growing pressure. The vote was 50-47.
The measure would require Trump to either win congressional approval for the war or pull U.S. troops back. It now goes to a final passage vote, though the timing was not immediately clear. For Democrats, the action marked another effort to use war powers resolutions to rein in a conflict they say began after Trump ordered the attack on Iran at the end of February.
The vote succeeded only after Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana switched sides following his primary election loss last week and delivered the decisive support to move the legislation forward for the first time. He said he was proud of his work to uphold the Constitution. Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted for the measure again Tuesday.
Until now, Republicans had repeatedly been able to block the resolutions. That changed as the party’s unease with the conflict became harder to hide. The war is now in a fragile ceasefire, and it has helped drive rising gas prices in the United States, giving the debate a sharper political edge for lawmakers who had been willing to dismiss it before.
The shift also exposed a widening split inside the Republican Party over how closely to stand with Trump. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who opposed the move, said the effort had tried to destroy the president’s war policy and warned that the fight over Iran was turning the party into the party of Donald Trump. The result leaves both chambers closer to a direct confrontation over whether the president can keep U.S. forces in the conflict without new approval from Congress.
The next vote will show whether the Senate is prepared to turn Tuesday’s warning shot into a binding check on Trump, or whether the chamber will stop short of forcing a withdrawal after all.
