WASHINGTON — The U.S. House passed a resolution Wednesday to force President Donald Trump to withdraw from the war with Iran and require congressional approval for further military action in the country.

The 215-208 vote, in which four Republicans voted with all Democrats to adopt the resolution, is the strongest rebuke to date against Trump’s handling of the months-long war that has left more than a dozen military troops dead, killed thousands of Iranian civilians and disrupted global supply chains of fertilizer and oil with the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. 

Republican Reps. Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Thomas Massie of Kentucky voted in favor.

The War Powers Resolution nearly passed the House last month, but failed on a 212-212 tie. The measure is a tool for Congress to limit the president’s ability to initiate or escalate military actions.

Several similar efforts in the Senate have failed. However, following the Republican primary loss of Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisianan joined with Democrats and several GOP senators in a vote to move the measure forward. A vote on final passage on the Senate measure has not been scheduled.

Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sponsored the resolution in that chamber.

Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib has a separate War Powers Resolution that would force the president to withdraw troops from Lebanon. Israel, with weapons and funding from the United States, has launched an assault on that nation.

The passage of the resolution in the GOP-controlled House was the latest sign of growing dissent against Trump among congressional Republicans. 

Senate Republicans balked at Trump’s effort to create a nearly $1.8 billion fund to pay people who believe they were wrongly prosecuted by the Justice Department, including those who were convicted and later pardoned by the president for attacking the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. 

The Trump administration backed away from the fund after disputes over it halted work on legislation to fund immigration and deportation activities for the rest of the president’s second term.

WASHINGTON — The seventh effort to stop President Donald Trump’s military campaign in Iran until he obtains congressional approval failed Wednesday in the U.S. Senate.

The vote marked the first test for Senate Republicans’ support for a War Powers Resolution after the expiration of the statute’s 60-day period granted to the president for military operations.

The vote failed 49-50, though notably Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, flipped for the first time to support limiting Trump’s unfettered war on Iran. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, for a second time since April 30, voted in favor.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted yes, and Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., opposed the measure, as they both have done on previous votes.

Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., did not vote.

House lawmakers are expected to take up a similar War Powers Resolution as soon as Thursday.

The war, which Trump launched on Feb. 28 in conjunction with Israel, cost the lives of 13 American service members. The latest Pentagon figures reveal 404 service members were injured during Operation Epic Fury, the administration’s name for the conflict.

Ceasefire on ‘life support’

Despite a recent exchange of fire between Iran and the U.S. in the Strait of Hormuz, the administration maintains the operation is over, and claimed a 60-day clock on hostilities paused when the two countries agreed to a ceasefire in April. 

However, Trump told reporters Monday that any ceasefire between the two nations was on “massive life support.”

Iranian leaders have contested the existence of a ceasefire because of an ongoing U.S. Naval blockade on Iran’s ports.

Pentagon officials testified in both chambers of Congress Tuesday that the war to date has cost $29 billion, without accounting for Iran’s drone and missile damage to U.S. military installations in the region.

Hostilities ongoing, Dem says

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who sponsored the resolution, said Wednesday morning the Iran war has turned out to be “nothing like” the victory Trump promised.

“Both sides are still engaged in hostilities. And so I don’t accept that the 60-day clock is suspended,” Merkley said.

When asked Wednesday morning whether Republicans were whipping votes ahead of the War Powers Resolution, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that lawmakers should support the president while he’s overseas conducting high-stakes meetings with Chinese officials, including China’s leader Xi Jinping.

“He’s negotiating with the Chinese on a whole range of issues, some of which bear on national security, and I think it would be best if everybody hung together and supported the president,” Thune, R-S.D., said. “But we’ll see. … People have their own minds about some of these issues.”

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans, and one Democrat, maintained their support for President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, after blocking for the fifth time a resolution that would force the president to seek congressional authorization for further action in the Middle East.

The vote failed 46-51, largely following the same split as previous failed measures. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., opposed the resolution to rein in Trump, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted in favor, just as they have in the four times prior. 

Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, David McCormick, R-Pa., and Mark Warner, D-Va. were absent.

Thirteen U.S. service members and thousands of civilians across the Middle East have died in the war, which the Trump administration has claimed is about regime change and stopping Iran’s nuclear program.

As of Wednesday, the Pentagon updated the number of American troops injured in the conflict to 400.

Fetterman and all but one Senate Republican blocked the measure one day after Trump extended a ceasefire with Iran after the prospects of a second round of peace talks fell through. Trump did not specify an end date to the ceasefire extension but announced the United States would not back down on its blockade of ships traveling to and from Iranian ports.

Trump claimed late Tuesday night that Iran is “collapsing financially!” 

“They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately- Starving for cash! Losing 500 Million Dollars a day. Military and Police complaining that they are not getting paid. SOS!!!” he wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.

U.S. military forces fired on and seized a sanctioned Iranian cargo ship Sunday.

Iran’s foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, wrote Tuesday on X that the seizure was “an act of war and thus a violation of the ceasefire.” 

Early Wednesday, Iran claimed responsibility for attacking two commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, a key narrow maritime passage where a fifth of the world’s petroleum flowed prior to the war. Iranian parliament representative Ebrahim Rezaei declared on X, “an eye for an eye, an oil tanker for an oil tanker.” 

Baldwin leads opposition to war

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., lead sponsor of Wednesday’s War Powers Resolution, said on the floor ahead of the vote that Trump sold Americans “a bad bill of goods” when he campaigned on lowering costs and not starting any new foreign wars.

“This war has taken us backwards and created more problems for the people that I work for,” she said, citing increasing fuel and fertilizer costs as a result of a standstill in the Strait of Hormuz.

The latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation numbers reflected a 21% increase in the cost of fuel from February to March.

A gallon of regular gas remained on average just north of $4 across the country, according to AAA.

United Airlines announced Wednesday it plans to raise airfare as much as 20% to offset the cost of jet fuel, according to multiple media reports.

Brent crude oil, the global oil market’s standard, spiked above $100 a barrel Wednesday, as it has numerous times since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.

“Less than two months ago, oil prices were normal, the Straits of Hormuz was open, commerce was happening,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., ahead of the vote. 

“And then President Trump made the decision without a rationale, without a plan, without consulting with allies, without consulting or seeking a vote of Congress to enter the nation into yet another war in the Middle East. And the entire world is suffering,” Kaine said.

Trump entered the joint war on Iran alongside Israel on Feb. 28.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said passing the resolution would be “unwise.”

“We’ve been through these votes recently, and nothing has occurred in the makeup of this body or in the situation in Iran or the Middle East to materially change since the last time we voted on this matter,” the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee said on the floor ahead of the vote. 

Wicker was the only Republican to speak out against the resolution during Wednesday afternoon’s debate.

Earlier vote

Senate Democrats last forced a vote to stop Trump’s actions in Iran on April 15, just days after the president threatened on social media to wipe out Iran’s “whole civilization” and to bomb its power plants and bridges.

Senate Democrats say they have no plans to stop introducing War Powers Resolutions and speaking out against the war.

Several sent a letter Sunday to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth demanding answers about “troubling allegations of civilian harm incidents,” including a strike on an elementary school that killed more than 160 children on the war’s opening day.

“We are concerned that these were all preventable tragedies. The high human toll of this war reflects the administration’s broader disregard for the strategic, legal, and moral imperative to minimize civilian harm,” the senators wrote.

The letter, led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., was also signed by Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M; Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii; Tina Smith, D-Minn.; Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.; Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.; Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Peter Welch, D-Vt. and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. 

The 11 senators who joined Baldwin in sponsoring Wednesday’s War Powers Resolution, a vestige of Congress’ efforts to rein in President Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War, included Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sens. Gillibrand, Kaine, Merkley and Van Hollen, as well as Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.; Andy Kim, D-N.J.; Cory Booker, D-N.J.; and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.

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.