A Senate effort that could best be described as the “Let’s tie Trump’s hands while Iran’s still shooting at us” bill didn’t exactly go as planned this week.
Democrats teamed up with Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (no surprise) to push a war powers resolution aimed at restricting President Donald Trump from continuing military action against Iran without Congress signing off first. The pitch: slow down the president while the conflict is still unfolding.
The Senate response? Hard pass.
The resolution failed [1] in a 53-47 vote against the resolution, with nearly all Republicans opposing it. Paul was the only GOP senator to join Democrats in supporting the measure, while one sane Democrat (John Fetterman) crossed the aisle to vote against it.
Supporters insisted the bill was about protecting Congress’s constitutional authority over war powers – a principle they somehow managed to overlook when presidents like Obama were launching military actions. Critics saw it a little differently: a political stunt to hobble the commander-in-chief in the middle of a fight to protect the country.
In the end, the vote was not really a constitutional debate as framed by the Democrats. It was another episode of the Democrats’ long-running “Stop Trump at All Costs” series – no matter what the actual consequences to the country.