WASHINGTON — The approval gap on President Donald Trump’s war in Iran narrowed slightly Thursday in the U.S. House, when a War Powers Resolution gained a handful of votes, though still falling just short of passage.

The effort to force Trump to seek congressional authorization before further action in Iran failed 213-214, with one Republican voting present — shrinking the daylight compared to a 212-219 result in early March.

Democrats Greg Landsman of Ohio, Juan Vargas of California and Henry Cuellar of Texas flipped to vote in favor of the resolution brought to the floor by Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y. 

Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, remained the only Democrat in opposition.

Golden said in a statement following the vote that he opposed the War Powers Resolution because it “would weaken our hand.”

“The purported aim of this and other war powers resolutions is to stop the hostilities. Thankfully, the United States and Iran are currently in a ceasefire, and we are negotiating over critical questions of national security and international order. I believe we must maintain a strong negotiation position over Iran’s nuclear program, freedom of movement in the international waters at the Strait of Hormuz, and how to achieve a durable peace between our two nations,” Golden said.  

As he did in early March, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., supported curtailing Trump’s military operations in the Middle East without further approval from Congress.

Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, switched his support from last month’s “yes” vote to “present” Thursday.

The vote occurred one day after the Senate rejected a similar proposal, for the fourth time. The Senate’s vote margin has remained unchanged, with the exception of a couple absences.

Ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon

The vote also happened minutes after Trump announced on his social media platform Truth Social a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, a separate deadly war front that flared just days after the United States and Israel launched their Feb. 28 joint strikes on Iran.

The U.S. and Iran, meanwhile, are more than halfway through a two-week ceasefire that began on tenuous ground on April 7.

Talks with the Iranians, led by Vice President JD Vance, collapsed Saturday in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Trump on Thursday repeated his earlier claims that the war is winding down.

“We’re very close to making a deal with Iran. You’ll be the first to know,” Trump told reporters at the White House before departing for a planned event in Nevada to promote his no tax on tips policy. 

“I think we have a chance. And if that happens, oil goes way down, prices go way down, inflation goes way down, and you’re going to have much more importantly than even that, you won’t have nuclear holocaust happening now,” Trump said.

The war is “very close to being over,” Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo Wednesday. Trump told the New York Post Tuesday that Iran-U.S. peace talks could pick up again “over the next two days.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Thursday the U.S. military remains “locked and loaded” on Iran’s “critical dual use infrastructure,” including power plants and energy infrastructure, if the regime does not meet U.S. demands.

Strait of Hormuz

The U.S. is three days into a blockade on vessels from any nation sailing in and out of Iranian ports and coastline. 

Thirteen vessels turned around to comply with orders from the U.S. Navy in the waters just east of the narrowest point in the Strait of Hormuz, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said during a joint press briefing Thursday morning from the Pentagon.

U.S. Central Command updated that figure to 14 in a Thursday morning X post.

Caine said more than 10,000 sailors, marines and airmen are executing the operation on more than a dozen ships and dozens of aircraft.

Caine said in addition to the blockade, U.S. forces in all international waters are ordered to “actively pursue any Iranian flagged vessel or any vessel attempting to provide material support to Iran.”

The flashpoint in the Strait of Hormuz has rocked global energy markets, causing massive fuel shortages and soaring gas prices. Americans are paying on average $4.09 for a gallon of regular gas, and $5.61 for a gallon of diesel, according to AAA.

The war has claimed the lives of 13 American troops, and injured 398 as of Thursday, according to the Pentagon. Thousands of civilians have been killed and injured across the Middle East since the start of the conflict.

WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Capitol Hill Thursday slammed President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on Iran as “beyond the pale” and urged House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to reconvene Congress and rein in the president’s war powers.

The eight Democrats, who represent districts in California, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington state, made a largely symbolic attempt to bring a War Powers Resolution to the House floor during the morning’s pro forma session — a short, routine meeting that occurs when Congress is out of session. The House is not scheduled to return until April 14.

“The pro forma speaker ignored us, which was a tragedy, but we will keep fighting,” Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said.

U.S. House Democrats discuss the Iran war on April 9, 2026. (Video by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

Efforts to limit Trump’s military actions in Iran failed last month in both the House and Senate.

Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., who led a press conference afterward on the steps outside the House of Representatives, said Trump’s war with Iran is on “the wrong track.”

“He’s been terrible at the wheel. The threats of total annihilation were beyond the pale. It’s time for Congress to step in and take control of the wheel,” Ivey said.

Threats and then a ceasefire

Trump threatened Tuesday to wipe out Iran’s “whole civilization” if the regime did not open the Strait of Hormuz, a major maritime passageway for one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquid natural gas. 

The United States and Iran entered a tenuous two-week ceasefire agreement roughly 90 minutes before Trump hit his self-imposed deadline to begin bombing civilian infrastructure, likely a war crime.

One day into the ceasefire Wednesday, the pause in fighting was punctuated by Iranian drones and missiles striking Gulf nations. Israeli forces reported launching 100 strikes in Lebanon in 10 minutes. The wave of intense bombardment killed roughly 300 and injured just over 1,100, according to health officials cited by the United Nations.

Trump’s post urging violence on his social media platform, Truth Social, followed his Easter Sunday profanity-laced message threatening to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges unless they lifted their blockade on the strait.

The regime has for weeks only allowed a trickle of tankers and cargo ships from certain friendly countries to pass, routing the traffic through Iranian waters and reportedly charging steep tolls. Islamic Republic officials told the Financial Times Wednesday that they planned to charge tankers $1 per barrel of oil, to be paid in cryptocurrency, going forward. 

Prior to the war, roughly 140 ships a day flowed freely through the strait. The chokepoint has rocked the global oil market.

Ivey called the situation “out of control.”

“In fact, Iran’s in a better place with respect to the strait than they were before this war started,” he said.

Pentagon reports 380 injured troops

The war has claimed thousands of lives across the Middle East, and scores of civilians have been injured. Thirteen U.S. service members were killed in the fighting, and as of Thursday the Pentagon reported 380 injured.

“Look at us now in a war of his choosing, egged on by Mr. (Benjamin) Netanyahu for his purposes, a war that has proved deadly to 13 members of the American military,” said Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., referring to the Israeli prime minister.

“The speaker must live up to his constitutional responsibilities. Call us back in, consider the War Powers Resolution, let the American people and their representatives in Congress weigh in. The words and actions of this president have proved that he is unhinged and unwell,” Scanlon said.

Johnson’s office did not immediately respond for comment.

WASHINGTON — The United States and Iran both claimed victory Wednesday, a day after agreeing to a two-week conditional ceasefire, though doubts loomed following continued strikes across the Gulf nations and an indication by Iran that it will continue to control the Strait of Hormuz, a major passage for one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas. 

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said during an early-morning briefing the U.S. achieved an “historic and overwhelming victory,” but also troops are “prepared to restart at a moment’s notice.”

“We’ll be hanging around. We’re not going anywhere. We’re going to make sure Iran complies with this ceasefire, and then ultimately comes to the table and makes a deal,” Hegseth said.

Oil prices dropped sharply after news of the ceasefire, with Brent crude, the international standard, sitting at $95 a barrel before noon Eastern Wednesday. That’s down from the previous day’s price of nearly $110 per barrel. 

U.S. stocks shot up Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite all on the rise.

U.S. and Iranian delegations were set to arrive in Islamabad Friday for negotiations, according to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who in part brokered the pause in fighting.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at an afternoon briefing that Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will attend a first round of talks Saturday morning.

Nuclear material

President Donald Trump said early Wednesday morning that the U.S. “will work closely with Iran, which we have determined has gone through what will be a very productive Regime Change!”

“There will be no enrichment of Uranium, and the United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried (B-2 Bombers) Nuclear ‘Dust,’” Trump wrote on his platform, Truth Social, referring to Iran’s buried enriched uranium following heavy U.S.-Israeli bombing in June.

When pressed at the briefing, Hegseth said of the nuclear material: “We’re watching it. We know what they have, and they will give it up, and we’ll get it, and we’ll take it if we have to. We can do it in any means necessary. So that’s something the president is going to solve for.”

Hegseth ended the press conference saying the Iranian public has been “oppressed by the previous regime, and they’ll have a new opportunity with this regime that remains to be seen,” adding that a civilian uprising was “not our objective.” 

“We wish them the best,” Hegseth said. 

Hegseth’s claim about a civilian uprising directly contradicted Trump’s message to the Iranian people on Feb. 28, when the U.S. and Israel began the bombing.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is the son of the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who led the Islamic Republic from 1989 until U.S. and Israeli strikes assassinated him hours into the conflict. Experts point to Mojtaba Khamenei as being a conservative hardliner with close ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Reports across Iranian state media and Middle East regional news outlets Wednesday quoted the regime’s Supreme National Security Council as declaring an “historic and crushing defeat” over the U.S. and Israel.

Calls for invocation of 25th Amendment

Hegseth’s victory declaration came after Trump on Tuesday threatened Iran’s “whole civilization will die tonight” if the regime did not meet his self-imposed 8 p.m. Eastern deadline to open the Strait of Hormuz. 

The comments drew intense criticism, with some — from progressive Democrats to former Trump loyalists — calling for the president’s removal under the Constitution’s 25th Amendment.

Two Senate Republicans, John Curtis of Utah and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, denounced Trump’s rhetoric and actions in recent days. One House GOP member, Nathaniel Moore of Texas, also joined them Tuesday. 

The offices of Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., did not respond to States Newsroom Tuesday for comment on Trump’s remark that he would wipe out Iran’s “whole civilization.” Neither have posted anything regarding Trump’s comments on their X social media feeds, where they regularly communicate to the public.

Others continued to support Trump. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., told local media Tuesday “I take it with a grain of salt,” when asked about Trump’s vow to wipe out Iran’s civilization.

Leavitt told reporters at the White House briefing Wednesday, “The world should take his word very seriously.”

“He said that they would face very grave consequences … by the 8 p.m. deadline if they did not agree to reopening the Strait of Hormuz. And what did they do last night? They agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz,” she said.

Roughly 90 minutes before his deadline to order strikes on Iran’s power plants and bridges, the president agreed to stop the bombardment for two weeks, after receiving a 10-point plan from Iran that “is a workable basis on which to negotiate,” he wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.

In a statement released early Wednesday morning Tehran time, Iran appeared to retain control of the narrow passage in and out of the Persian Gulf.

“For a period of two weeks, safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible via coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces and with due consideration of technical limitations,” the country’s foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, said in a written statement posted on social media. 

Iranian drones and missiles

Strikes continued across the Gulf region, with Kuwait’s defense ministry reporting “an intense wave” of Iranian drones and missiles that damaged oil infrastructure, power stations and water desalination plants.

“Violations of ceasefire have been reported at (a) few places across the conflict zone which undermine the spirit of peace process. I earnestly and sincerely urge all parties to exercise restraint and respect the ceasefire for two weeks, as agreed upon, so that diplomacy can take a lead role towards peaceful settlement of the conflict,” Sharif warned on X just after 10 a.m. Eastern. 

The Pakistani prime minister tagged in the post Trump and numerous administration officials, as well as Iranian leaders.

Israel continued bombardment on southern Lebanon, launching widespread strikes across the region and in the capital city of Beirut Wednesday. By noon Eastern, which is evening in Lebanon, health authorities said 89 people were killed in the strikes and over 700 had been injured. An official with Doctors Without Borders reporting from a large public hospital in Beirut cited a higher death toll.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on social media early Wednesday that “The two-weeks ceasefire does not include Lebanon.”

When asked during the White House press briefing Wednesday, Leavitt echoed Netanyahu.

“Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire that has been related to all parties involved in the ceasefire,” she said.