The U.S. Senate voted 50 to 48 on Tuesday to urge President Donald Trump to pull American forces back from the confrontation with Iran, a rare congressional challenge to his policy and to continued U.S. military involvement in the region. The resolution won support from nearly all Senate Democrats and four Republicans who broke with the White House, Rand Paul, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Bill Cassidy. Democratic Senator John Fetterman voted against it, backing the administration.
The vote was another political setback for Trump and came amid an ongoing Democratic effort to curb presidential war powers. In recent months, Democrats have forced a series of votes on the issue in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, increasingly joined by some Republicans. It was the tenth Senate vote this year on a matter tied to war powers involving Iran.
A similar measure already passed the House of Representatives earlier this month by 215 to 208, with four Republican lawmakers siding with Democrats, angering Trump. After that vote, he called those lawmakers “attention seekers” and “not patriotic” in a post on Truth Social.
Although the resolution cleared both chambers of Congress, its practical effect is limited. It is a concurrent resolution, so it does not require the president’s signature and has no force as federal law. Still, Democratic backers said they believe it is binding, and argued that its legal status could be settled later.
