WASHINGTON — After a two-week spring recess, senators returned to Capitol Hill with the same problem hanging over them: the war against Iran is moving, the political temperature is rising, and Republicans don’t seem to have crisp answers.
War powers, timing, and a lot of unanswered questions
By and large, Republicans did not have answers for reporters.
When asked about Trump’s public threats—about actions some describe in moral terms rather than military terms—several lawmakers either changed the subject or pivoted to praising the administration’s latest tactic.
The tactic, at least in their telling, is meant to pressure Tehran’s decision to shutter the Strait of Hormuz by imposing a U.S.
blockade of tankers going into and out of Iran.
On Tuesday, when asked if he had any concerns about Trump’s threat last week to end Iranian civilization, Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he was more focused on what the president was doing.
“He’s trying to open up the Strait of Hormuz, which we are all supportive, and the efforts that are being made there to further isolate the Iranian regime and their economy … hopefully will have the desired effect, and we’ll get the strait open again.” It was a pointed response—more operational than moral—but still didn’t really answer the underlying question of strategy.
Not counting the shaky cease-fire that began on April 8, the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has been going on for more than 45 days.
Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, U.S.
military hostilities initiated without permission by Congress are supposed to automatically end after 60 days if lawmakers haven’t acted.
But the law also allows the president an additional 30 days if he certifies to Congress that the extension is in U.S.
national security interests.
That’s the timeline Congress is watching, and Thune sounded less than eager to get locked into the next checkpoint.
Thune was cagey on whether he would vote to authorize the war if it goes beyond 90 days.
“Most of us, I believe, feel pretty good about what the military … has achieved there in terms of its objectives,” Thune said, calling it a “hypothetical” that Trump might seek to prolong the Middle East conflict.
“I think the administration has a clear objective, a clear plan, and if they can execute on it, hopefully, that question won’t be necessary.” Actually—if you step back—Trump’s stated objectives in the Iran war have frequently changed, so it’s unclear what goals Thune had in mind that he considered stable enough to bet on.
Outside the hearings and hallway conversations, people kept circling back to the same practical issue: even with U.S.
conventional military superiority over Iran, Tehran’s asymmetrical tactics—like closing the Strait of Hormuz to most tanker traffic or striking energy infrastructure in neighboring Gulf countries—can help it outlast an American campaign that is constantly forced to answer to domestic politics, especially rising consumer prices and voter displeasure.
Democrats turn gas prices and budget gaps into leverage
In the background, even amid reports of some Republican lawmakers privately venting to each other about how much the war is jeopardizing their reelection chances, the party still provides the president the critical votes he needs.
The Senate on Wednesday rejected, 47-52, a bid to take up a war powers resolution from Democratic Sen.
Tammy Duckworth.
The vote split along similar lines to previous attempts.
A Thursday war powers vote forced by Democrats in the House also failed, 213-214.
Democrats also keep pressing a different complaint: that Republicans haven’t insisted hard enough that top administration officials come to Capitol Hill for public hearings about the costs, strategy, and impact of the war. “I saw the absolute insane [post] that President Trump put out about destroying a civilization. I came straight back to the Capitol to try to demand what the American people have been asking for, because they are livid right now about this
war that’s being fought in their name, at their expense, but without their say,” Democratic Sen. Andy Kim told reporters on Tuesday. “I went to the Pentagon, I asked for a briefing about this war, and the answer I got was ‘no.’ They’re not just saying no to me, they’re saying no to the American people, they’re saying you don’t deserve to know what is happening with this war. And we are just so sick
of this.”
It’s hard not to notice how the scheduling and the information gaps are now part of the argument.
Top Defense Department officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, are slated to testify at the end of the month on the administration’s annual spending request and will likely be questioned about the Iran war, roughly two months after it started.
Other Trump officials, pressed on Thursday, faced questions about an eye-catching $450 billion increase in military funding compared to current levels, partially offset by deep cuts to a range of domestic social safety net programs.
In a hearing with Russ Vought, the White House’s top budget official, Sen.
Patty Murray—top Democrat on the influential Senate Appropriations Committee—said lawmakers were still waiting to find out how much the Pentagon wants in a separate request to cover the costs of the Iran war.
She also questioned why officials were refusing to tell lawmakers what the war has already cost.
“I just want to confirm this: You have no idea, none, [how] much has been spent on the war so far?” Murray asked Vought.
Vought responded that he didn’t want to provide even an estimate in case it was inaccurate.
“We don’t have that figure right now, I think in part, because it’s fluctuating on a day-in, day-out basis,” he said.
In the corridor afterward, someone’s coffee smelled burnt—thin and sharp—and it felt like the whole place was running on that kind of impatience.
Republicans in both chambers are divided on how to approve Trump’s massive $1.5 trillion defense spending request.
They likely lack the Democratic votes to pass it in the Senate through the normal appropriations process.
There are options, including another partisan reconciliation process, but that path comes with its own risks: a few Republican lawmakers could withhold votes and sink the whole effort.
And the more unpopular the war becomes with the American public, the more that scenario starts looking possible—maybe not likely yet, but no longer theoretical.
Somewhere between the War Powers clock and the missing cost estimates, the party’s strategy seems to be… still catching up, if it’s catching up at all,
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