The U.S. Senate will vote as soon as Wednesday on the latest Democratic-led effort to rein in President Donald Trump’s war powers, and party leaders promised on Tuesday to keep bringing up such resolutions as long as the Iran war continues.
“Forty-five days into this war, Congress has been sidelined because our Republican colleagues refuse to take a strong stand against this war and duck it completely because they’re afraid of Trump,” Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a Senate speech on Tuesday.
Trump said on Tuesday talks to end the Iran war could resume in Pakistan over the next two days, after the collapse of weekend negotiations prompted Washington to impose a blockade on Iranian ports. Failure to reach an agreement in those talks raised doubts over the survival of a two-week ceasefire that still has a week to run.
Congressional Democrats have tried and repeatedly failed in recent months to pass war powers resolutions to force Trump to stop military action and obtain lawmakers’ authorization before launching military operations, in both Venezuela and Iran.
Democrats are attempting to link their efforts to rein in Trump on Iran to affordability, as disruptions in shipments of oil and natural gas have caused a run-up in U.S. gasoline prices and agricultural products such as fertilizers – on top of the long list of other high consumer prices.
10 MORE RESOLUTIONS IN THE WORKS
Schumer said 10 more war powers resolutions have been filed and Democrats intended to bring them up every week while the conflict in Iran, which began on February 28, continues.
Trump’s fellow Republicans, who hold slim majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives, have blocked the resolutions that have come up to date and there has been no indication that any are shifting their position.
Republican lawmakers say they support Trump’s actions and do not expect the war to continue for much longer. “The military effort here has been extraordinarily successful,” Senate Republican leader John Thune of South Dakota told a news conference.
