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Fetterman Joins GOP to Block Iran War Powers Effort
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., joined 52 Senate Republicans in voting against a War Powers Resolution in response to Operation Epic Fury against Iran.
The resolution, introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., sought to limit President Donald Trump’s ability to use military action in Iran. Forty-six Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted in favor of Kaine’s resolution.
“Every President since Truman hasn’t used an authorization of war to exercise military action,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told The Daily Signal ahead of the votes. “This is just a political exercise. I’m going to support the president; I’m not going to limit his authority.”
Scott added that he does not believe this would lead into a prolonged military campaign.
“Trump hates war, I think the plan is to just make sure Iran doesn’t have access to nuclear missiles,” the senator added.
While the president would have vetoed the legislation, the vote was seen as a barometer for Congress’s support for the campaign and portends what future votes on additional funding for the operation could look like.
Senate Republicans voted to shoot down the resolution because they believe limiting the president’s “authority” on decisive action could place Americans in harm’s way.
“I think the President has the authority that he needs to conduct the activities and operations that are currently underway there,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters on Tuesday.
“I think the President is acting in the best interest of the nation and our national security interests by ensuring that he’s protecting Americans and American bases and installations in that region, as well as those of our allies,” Thune added.
On the senate floor before the vote, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that, “this weekend’s events are not the beginning of a war, but an attempt to end one that spanned nearly half a century.”
“President Trump made a bold and tough decision, one that could transform the region for the better literally for generations to come,” the outgoing senator added.
On X, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., added that the resolution is not necessary, because Democrats did not introduce one under previous war time presidents.
“Barack Obama dropped 26,000 bombs in at least 7 countries in 2016 without a word from Congress. I won’t hamstring President Trump,” he wrote.
Kaine first introduced the resolution in June of 2025 around Operation Midnight Hammer.
In the lead up to Wednesday afternoon’s vote, Kaine’s measure earned the support of high-profile Senate Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
The resolution “ensures this administration cannot sleepwalk this country into an endless and costly war,” Schumer wrote in a press release.
Kaine, Schumer, and Schiff did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Despite the Senate vote, the House is still expected to vote on it’s own resolution aimed at Trump’s action against Iran, the office of the resolution’s lead, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., told The Daily Signal.
Massie and Rep. Rho Kanna, D-Calif., have worked together to push the resolution in the lower chamber since June 2025. It aims to prevent the “executive branch to unilaterally committing an act of war against a sovereign nation that hasn’t attacked the United States.”
“The Constitution requires a vote, and your Representative needs to be on record as opposing or supporting this war,” Massie told The Daily Signal.
Khanna did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
However, House Republicans and Senior Administration officials have since refuted the claim, stating that Iran’s regime has been planning to build nuclear capabilities to use against the United States and its allies.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters on Wednesday that the resolution “would put the country in serious harm and it would certainly jeopardize the lives of our troops.”
“Well, they [Iran] want to kill us, so I think it was pretty much in self-defense,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., told The Daily Signal of the operation on Tuesday.
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