Senate votes down measure aiming to limit Trump’s war powers by 53-47 vote

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a measure that aimed to rein in Donald Trump’s power to wage war against Iran without congressional authorization.The 53-47 vote against taking up the measure fell almost completely along party lines, with no movement from earlier this month when Republicans blocked Democrats’ bid to limit Trump’s war-making power in the days after the joint US-Israeli strikes, known as Operation Epic Fury, began across Iran.“We do not know Donald Trump’s goals. We do not know Donald Trump’s timeline. We do not know what victory even looks like in his eyes,” Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, said before the vote, urging Republicans to support the effort to force a debate on the war. “Enough is enough.”The senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has led several war-powers efforts, was the only Republican to vote in support of the measure, while the senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who has emerged as a staunch supporter of Israel, was the only Democrat to break with his party and vote against the resolution.“If there’s anything that is plain in that constitution, it is that a president does not have the power to unilaterally bring a nation and its treasure, to bring a nation and its men and women, into conflict without a say of Congress,” the senator Cory Booker, who led the war-powers resolution, said in a floor speech before the vote.Booker acknowledged that he would not succeed, but vowed to continue to introduce measures that would force Congress to debate and authorize military action.He said: “Me and my colleagues will bring up these resolutions again and again and again as more and more Americans on both sides of the aisle see this war for what it is: one president’s decision.”Republican senator Tom Cotton, who chairs the Senate’s intelligence committee, argued strongly against the measure, claiming Iran had been prepared to attack the US first and that the Trump administration had been obligated to act quickly in response.“Given these facts on the ground, we were left with no choice,” Cotton said on the Senate floor. “Iran had already loaded and cocked the gun. What were you supposed to do? Wait till they pulled the trigger? Of course not.”It was the second attempt by Democrats to force Congress to weigh in on the open-ended US-Israeli military campaign that began late last month. More than 1,300 Iranians have been killed, as have hundreds of civilians in Lebanon and 15 people in Israel.The cost of the war exceeded $11.3bn in its first week and scrambled global supply chains for oil, fertilizer and aluminum. Earlier this week, US allies rebuffed Trump’s demand for help reopening the critical strait of Hormuz, insisting they would not join a war the US president started without their consultation.Earlier on Wednesday, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, testified that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated” by the US strikes on the country last year – and that Iran had made no effort to rebuild since.The president has repeatedly said the US needed to wage war against Iran to stave off what the administration has described as an imminent threat from Tehran’s Islamic Republic.Pressed by lawmakers on whether Iran had posed an imminent nuclear threat before the strikes, Gabbard, who, as a presidential candidate in 2020 sold shirts that said “No War With Iran,” repeatedly deflected and said it was a conclusion for the president to draw.The vote comes a day after Joe Kent, who led the National Counterterrorism Center and was a top aide to Gabbard, resigned in protest against the war in Iran, underlining the fury corners of Trump’s “America First” coalition are feeling over the vote.