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The US House of Representatives approved a war powers resolution ordering President Trump to pull American forces out of the conflict with Iran.
Getting into it: The 215-208 vote on Wednesday marked a notable bipartisan rejection of Trump’s handling of the war, now in roughly its 100th day since the US joined Israel in striking Iran on February 28. Four Republicans (Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Tom Barrett of Michigan, and Warren Davidson of Ohio) crossed party lines to join a unified Democratic caucus, and the floor broke into cheers. It was the House’s fourth crack at clawing back Trump’s authority to keep the war going.
The defectors framed their votes around both the law and the pain back home. Massie pointed to economic strain, saying people are “tired of $5 gallon gas and $6 gallon diesel, and fertilizer we can’t afford to put on our fields in Kentucky.” Barrett, asked whether he feared retribution from Trump, said he would “vote my conscience for what I think is right.”
Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Foreign Affairs Committee Democrat who introduced the measure, called it “a significant bipartisan rebuke of President Trump’s illegal and costly war,” declaring, “Enough is enough.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who had abruptly shut down an earlier vote two weeks ago, warned that tying Trump’s hands now “weakens us, our position, and our leverage” in peace talks, insisting “Operation Epic Fury is concluded” and its objectives achieved. Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed the concern at a committee hearing, saying Iran would conclude “we won’t be able to do anything to them, so why make a deal?”
Despite all of this, the vote is more symbolic than anything because it falls short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto that President Trump would almost certainly use.
