WATCH: Senate Blocks Sens. Schiff, Kaine, and Schumer’s War Powers Resolution to End Trump’s Illegal War in Iran

Washington, DC - Today, a majority of Senate Republicans voted to block U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer's (D-N.Y.) resolution to ensure any U.S. participation in hostilities against Iran is explicitly authorized by Congress. The vote follows the Trump administration's military actions in Iran, which began without congressional authorization and has resulted in the death of six American servicemembers.

On the Senate floor prior to the vote, the Senators emphasized that the administration has failed to make the case to the American people and lacks Congressional approval for the war. Senator Schiff also called out the administration's continued shifting in justifying their actions - highlighting that Congress must reassert its war power and vital check on the executive.

"The American people continue to say loud and clear that they do not want another endless war that puts servicemembers at risk and costs our country dearly when we have so many needs at home. If the Senate continues to forsake Congress's war powers and its responsibility, there will be soon no constraint left on this president or any other to make war whenever they choose, wherever they choose. And the American people and our sons and daughters will pay the price in blood and treasure. We will continue to use every tool we have to force this administration to end this war and to force Congress to do its job," said Senator Schiff.

"No one is disputing that Iran has been a bad actor. But the civilian leadership of our country owes it to our servicemembers and their families that we will only send them into harm's way if it is absolutely necessary-and that if we do, we will have clear objectives and a plan that has been fully thought through," said Senator Kaine. "The President and his Administration's changing and contradictory statements underscore that they rushed into a war without thinking of the consequences that this will have for the American people, our economy, and stability in the region. My colleagues' failure to pass our bipartisan War Powers Resolution adds to a dangerous pattern of Congress ceding our constitutional duties to an increasingly erratic President. How are we supposed to look our constituents in the eyes and send our sons and daughters into war if we aren't willing to take this most solemn responsibility seriously? I pray for the families whose loved ones will never come home and hope that this war will not turn into another endless conflict."

"The American people have been clear: they do not want another endless and costly war in the Middle East. Yet today, most Senate Republicans made their choice-they sided with President Trump's Iran War," said Leader Schumer. "The Constitution gives Congress-not the president-the authority to decide when our nation goes to war. By blocking this War Powers Resolution, the Senate has failed in its duty as a check on the executive. Senate Republicans are choosing to give President Trump a green light to escalate. Senate Democrats will continue fighting for transparency, accountability, and a foreign policy that respects the gravity of sending Americans into harm's way."

Last June, the Senate voted on a similar War Powers Resolution introduced by Kaine and Schiff to prevent the use of military force against Iran unless explicitly authorized by Congress. The June resolution gained bipartisan support but did not receive enough votes to advance.

Watch his full speech HERE. Download remarks HERE.

Read the full transcript of his remarks as delivered below:

We are at war once again. George W. Bush had his Iraq War, and Donald Trump now has his Iran war. Make no mistake with the massive deployment of American military forces, with the massive amounts of ordinance that are being used with the tragic loss of six lives, six servicemembers of the United States. We are at war.

We are at war having had no national debate of whether we should enter into war. We are at war having had no authorization by Congress - a power explicitly given by our Founders to the Congress to declare war. The Founders understood that the executive branch acting alone would grow too fond of war. We are seeing that fear materialized before our eyes with a president that now has used military force repeatedly against different countries for different rationales. Why should we care whether there is a vote in Congress on war? Why should we care whether there's a debate in the country over war?

We should care, because if we vest the sole power to make war in the President of the United States, the sole decision to bring a country into war with the President of the United States - there is no check on the use of that authority. There is no check on the abuse of that authority. There is no meaningful way to constrain a president from getting involved in adventurism around the world that causes our country an enormous price to pay in lives lost, in treasure lost.

Now you might say, "Well, what about these other uses of military force by others in the past?" Well, of course, with the Iraq War, there was a vote on authorization. With the Afghanistan War, there was a vote on authorization. But what about these other uses? Doesn't a president have a right to use force to defend the country from imminent attack? And the answer is, yes.

If there is an imminent threat of attack, the president has the authority. But if it goes beyond anything imminent, he must come to Congress for an authorization. So, what was the imminent threat here? Well, the short answer is, there was none. But the administration has given several shifting rationales, several incompatible arguments with why they believe there was an imminent threat.

Let's look at Secretary Rubio last week, [who] said that the Iranians were headed in the pathway to one day being able to develop weapons that could reach the continental United States. Well, a threat to reach the United States one day in the future is the very antithesis of imminent.

Donald Trump said on Monday, the regime had missiles capable of hitting Europe and our bases, both local and overseas, and would soon have had missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America. By soon, the best estimates are that would take years. That is certainly not imminent.

Secretary Rubio on Monday, had this to say, "There absolutely was an imminent threat. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action," he said. "We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer high casualties. We knew that if Iran was attacked, even by someone else, they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded."

So, on Monday, Rubio says, because Israel was going to attack, we had to preemptively attack. But on Tuesday, the president contradicted his own Secretary of State and said, "We were having negotiations with these lunatics," meaning the Iranians. "It was my opinion that they," meaning Iran, "were going to attack first. They were going to attack if we didn't do it. If anything," the resident said, "I might have forced Israel's hand, but Israel was ready." So, the president says no, the imminent threat didn't come from Israel. He may have, in fact, forced Israel's hand.

And on Tuesday, Hegseth took sides with the president and not Marco Rubio, saying that Trump's explanation was 100% correct. Okay, so the imminent threat didn't come from anything that Israel was planning to do. It didn't come from missiles that could hit the United States that were years away. What was the other imminent rationale that the administration used?

Well, on February 21, Steve Witkoff said Iran is, "probably a week away from having industrial grade farm making material." Of course, that contradicts what the president said last June with the first Iran War, in which he said and reiterated just this past Saturday, that, "We obliterated the regime's nuclear program." Well, either we obliterated it or we didn't, and if we obliterated it, it's obviously not an imminent threat.

On Monday, Secretary Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon that the Islamic Republic was building sophisticated missiles and other conventional weapons to shield its plans for a nuclear bomb. "Iran had a conventional gun to our head," he said, "as they tried to lie their way to a nuclear bomb." Again, no evidence that Iran was on the cusp of a missile that could hit the United States. No evidence that Iran was building the mechanism of a bomb. No evidence of imminence.

What about regime change? Is that somehow a rationale for war at all, let alone war without an authorization by the American people in Congress. Donald Trump in 2016 had this to say about regime change. He said, "We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change." Even in earlier 2025 Donald Trump said, "Regime change takes chaos, and ideally we don't want to see so much chaos." But on Saturday, Donald Trump said, "When we are finished, take over your government," he said to the Iranian people, "it will be yours to take. Take back your country."

On Monday, Secretary Rubio said, "We would love to see this regime being replaced." On Tuesday, Donald Trump said someone within, someone from within the Iranian regime might be the best choice to take over. But regime change is not a argument that we face an imminent threat. And finally, the last rationale of the administration is on Saturday, the President posted on true social that, "Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024, elections to stop Trump, and now faces renewed war with the United States."

On Sunday, he said, and cited Iran's effort to assassinate him as a key factor in ordering the operation that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - "I got him before he got me," Trump told ABC News. "I got him first." So, this was, I guess the final rationale is, he wanted to get the Iranians before they got him.

So here we are with this shifting series of incoherent rationales. None of them amounting to imminence, none of them posing a direct amendment threat to the United States. And now we have war again, where we have tragically lost the lives of American servicemembers, where we are sinking billions and billions of dollars again into a foreign war without time constraint, without a plan. This comes at a great cost to the American people, most particularly to our military families.

But we are about to get a request for a supplemental appropriation probably in the tens of billions of dollars to backfill all the munitions we're using today. That's tens of billions of dollars that will not go into your health care. That's tens of billions of dollars that will not go to reducing the cost of your housing or your groceries. That's tens of billions of dollars that will not go into investing in America. That's tens of billions of dollars that we are literally blowing up over Iran when we face no imminent threat.

Folks, we have already essentially walked away from our most important power, and that is the congressional power of the purse. The president rescinds funds, he impounds funds, and we put up no murmur or protest. We have walked away from that most important power in the Constitution that the Founders gave us.

The other most important power they gave us was the power to declare war. There is no argument that this is anything less than war, and this resolution is about stopping that war, but it is also about reasserting Congress's vital role as a check on the executive and the abuse of the authority to bring a nation to war. This is about whether the American people, through their elected representatives, will have a say when their sons and daughters are put in harm's way, when the resources of this country are diverted away from their communities and towards the building of bombs and weapons and engagement in another potentially endless foreign war. I thank Senator Kaine for this resolution. I'm proud to work with you on this, Senator, and I urge all my colleagues to support it.

###