Washington — The Senate is expected to vote Friday on whether to block President Trump from using further military force against Iran, as Democratic anger festers over the lack of details from the administration about the recent strikes on the country’s nuclear facilities.
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia introduced the war powers resolution days before the U.S. bombed three locations central to Iran’s nuclear program, seeking to force the president to get congressional authorization before entering the conflict between Israel and Iran.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, told reporters Thursday a vote is planned for Friday. The measure needs 51 votes to pass, a heavy lift given Republicans’ 53-47 Senate majority.
Since the measure was introduced, Mr. Trump announced a ceasefire between the adversaries and declared that Iran’s nuclear sites were “obliterated” during the 12-day war. On Friday, Mr. Trump said he would “without question” consider bombing Iran again if Tehran was enriching uranium to a level that concerned the U.S.
But anger from Democrats, including those who have said that Iran should never be able to obtain a nuclear weapon, has simmered as they say they have been left in the dark about U.S. military actions.
It’s led some Democrats to question whether the Trump administration is misleading the public about the strikes, especially after an initial classified assessment found that they set back Tehran’s nuclear program by a matter of months. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has said the nuclear program was set back “basically decades.”
Top intelligence officials said Wednesday that new intelligence showed the nuclear program had been “severely damaged” and its facilities “destroyed.” It would take the Iranians “years” to rebuild the facilities, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called it “an historically successful attack” in a contentious press briefing Thursday.
Classified briefings for the Senate and House were originally scheduled for Tuesday, the same day the initial assessment was leaked. Officials briefed senators on Thursday afternoon and House members on Friday.
A White House official said Tuesday the Senate briefing was postponed because of “evolved circumstances as a result of recent positive developments in the Middle East.”
After the briefings, some Democrats cast doubt on the administration’s characterization of the strikes and questioned assertions regarding how much Iran’s nuclear program has been hindered.
“I walk away from that briefing still under the belief that we have not obliterated the program,” Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told reporters. “The president was deliberately misleading the public when he said the program was obliterated. It is certain that there is still significant capability, significant equipment that remain.”
Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said the information disclosed in the briefing was “massively different than what has been told to Congress over the last year, up until a month ago, about both Iranian capabilities and Iranian intent.”
Crow said he was “not convinced of that whatsoever” when asked whether Iranian nuclear facilities had been obliterated.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, has railed against a lack of transparency and said earlier this week the administration had not presented Congress with any evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat requiring immediate military action.
But Jeffries did not go as far as supporting a resolution to impeach Mr. Trump over the bombings. He and more than 120 Democrats voted with all Republicans to kill the measure, which was introduced by Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas, on Tuesday.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, also questioned the timing of the strikes.
“It’s pretty clear that there was no imminent threat to the United States,” Himes said. “There’s always an Iranian threat to the world. But … I have not seen anything to suggest that the threat from the Iranians was radically different last Saturday than it was two Saturdays ago.”
Kaine’s resolution is one of a handful of similar efforts seeking to curtail further U.S. involvement in Iran, though it’s unclear whether any will be successful in a Congress controlled narrowly by Republicans.
Some Republicans who were supportive of the resolutions, like Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, appear to be backing away from forcing a vote as long as the ceasefire holds and the U.S. does not conduct any further bombings. And House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, called the efforts irrelevant because Iran and Israel agreed to stop the fighting.
“It’s kind of a moot point now, isn’t it?” Johnson said Monday. “It seems rather silly at this point and I hope they’ll acknowledge it as such and put it to bed because it has zero chance of passing anyway.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told The Wall Street Journal this week he believes Mr. Trump acted “perfectly within his authority” by striking Iran, and he hopes the war powers resolution will be defeated.
“I don’t think there’s any question the president has the authority legally and constitutionally to do what he did,” the South Dakota Republican said. “There are always questions around these things, but past presidents and both political parties have similarly acted in circumstances where there’ve been airstrikes at various places around the world where our national security interests dictated it.”
The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, and most major military conflicts in recent history have been launched under an authorization for the use of military force passed by Congress. But presidents have periodically acted without explicit permission from lawmakers, including during President Bill Clinton’s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia and President Barack Obama’s 2011 airstrikes on Libya, the Congressional Research Service notes.
“Everyone in the Senate should agree that this is a matter of such gravity and importance that we shouldn’t allow war to begin without Congress having a debate in full view of the American public and members of the Senate and House having to go on the record about it,” he said.
Nikole Killion and
contributed to this report.
