Senate votes to halt Iran war, then flips

Opinion>Congress Blog The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill Senate votes to halt Iran war, then flips Comments: by Don Wolfensberger, opinion contributor - 07/02/26 9:30 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Don Wolfensberger, opinion contributor - 07/02/26 9:30 AM ET Comments: Link copied

President Donald Trump, center, is joined by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., left, and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., right, as he departs the Senate Steering Committee Lunch at the U.S. Capitol, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

Last week, the Senate seemed to suffer from political bipolar disorder, voting on two consecutive days both for and against ending the war with Iran.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump attended a closed-door Senate Republican Conference lunch at which he lashed out at the four GOP senators who had voted the previous day for a House resolution barring any future U.S. military activities against Iran: Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Bill Cassidy (La.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Rand Paul (Ky.). The Senate had adopted the resolution, 50-48.

President Trump reportedly asked senators, “Why would anybody vote for the war powers resolution?” Cassidy, who had just lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, rose in anger and asked, “Is that a rhetorical question or do you really want to know?” He then proceeded to offer his own answers, charging the president had not told the American people what’s going on, had not achieved any of his original objectives, and his estimated four-week mission was now in its fourth month. Cassidy’s retorts provoked a high-volume yelling match between the two.

The administration has argued that the resolution is unconstitutional based on the 1983 Supreme Court decision in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha in which the court held that any measure, before it becomes law, must pass both houses and be presented to the president for approval or veto. At issue in the Chadha case was a provision in immigration law that allowed either house, by majority vote, to disapprove the suspension of a deportation order — a so-called one-house legislative veto.

The INS had suspended the deportation of Jagdish Rai Chadha, an Indian from Kenya attending school in Ohio. The U.S. House voted to reverse that suspension by adopting a simple resolution of disapproval. Chadha appealed the House action all the way to the Supreme Court on grounds it was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court confirmed that the one-house veto violates the constitution’s “presentment clause,” and struck down the provision.

The court decision, by implication, also called into question the existence of numerous other laws that authorized one- or two-house approval or disapproval resolutions. Congress consequently set about revising nearly all such laws, replacing the simple or concurrent legislative veto provisions with joint resolutions that do require presentment to the president.

However, Congress did not change the wording of the 1973 War Powers Resolution that allowed for two-house concurrent resolutions to terminate U.S. military hostilities abroad because the Supreme Court has traditionally avoided involvement in disputes between the branches over foreign policy matters as being “political questions,” beyond the court’s purview.

After tempers had cooled following last Wednesday’s lunch, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) felt emboldened by the previous day’s war powers vote and offered a motion to consider his own Senate joint resolution, which does require a presidential signature or veto, to bar further U.S. military action in Iran. This time, however, Cassidy voted against the motion to consider, and Paul voted “present,” resulting in a 47-50 vote against considering the measure.

The Senate was simultaneously caught up in the president’s demand for an immediate vote on the SAVE America Act election law changes. In return for the SAVE America Act’s passage, he would consider signing the bipartisan housing affordability bill that had passed both houses overwhelmingly. The election law changes still did not have sufficient votes to pass the Senate, and that chamber adjourned in a huff a day early for a two-week recess.

The previous week, at the last minute, the president ordered his nominee for director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, not to appear before a Senate confirmation hearing until the Senate first confirmed Trump’s nominee as Clayton’s successor as U.S. district court attorney for the Southern District of New York. That totally upended the Senate’s plans for a speedy confirmation process for Clayton.

The president’s new tactic of taking bills and nominations hostage until his demands are met to first act on what he considers his “emergency” priorities has not gone down well with congressional leaders who pride themselves on well-planned and successfully-executed scheduling each week. A president’s intervention in such internal planning has bollixed things more than once.

It brings to mind the 1941 movie, “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” Only this time it was “the president who came to lunch,” not only insisting on dictating the menu for the meal but also the order in which the courses were to be served. Some things are difficult, even for a tough gut Congress to swallow.

Don Wolfensberger is a 28-year congressional staff veteran, culminating as chief of staff of the House Rules Committee in1995. He is author of, “Congress and the People: Deliberative Democracy on Trial” (2000); and, “Changing Cultures in Congress: From Fair Play to Power Plays” (2018).