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Strikes, law, and court threat
The United States carried out strikes on Iran for a second day, drawing retaliatory attacks from Tehran and criticism from Democratic lawmaker Ro Khanna, who accused Republican President Donald Trump of violating a war powers resolution passed by Congress.
Khanna, a Democrat from California, condemned the latest US attacks on Iran as “a blatant violation” of the congressional resolution and said he was threatening to take Trump to court over it.
Congress passed the resolution on Tuesday, stipulating that the president must either halt his military campaign against Iran or seek congressional approval before any further action is taken.
The US military’s Central Command hit Iranian military sites after accusing Tehran of targeting a ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz, and Tehran responded by hitting US military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait on Sunday as the two sides exchanged strikes for a second time over the weekend.
The strikes also came as the two sides threatened to unravel a fragile Iran-US memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on June 17.
War powers vote and Trump’s pushback
The 1973 War Powers Resolution requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to hostilities and bars sustained military action after 60 days, pending congressional approval.
In the Senate on Tuesday, lawmakers voted for the 10th time to try to rein in the war, passing the resolution in a 50-48 vote despite Trump’s Republican Party enjoying a slim majority in both it and the House of Representatives.
Addressing the Senate before the vote, top Democrat Chuck Schumer said: “For years, Trump promised to put maximum pressure on Iran, but he ended up delivering maximum confusion, maximum chaos, maximum cost to the American people with his disastrous war.”
The resolution “directs the President to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” and it would allow further military force only if “explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or a specific congressional authorisation.”
Trump called the vote “poorly timed and meaningless” and said it “provided aid and comfort” to Iran.
Funding fight and reconciliation
As Congress weighs war powers and the Iran conflict, House Republican Mark Harris said Congress will likely need to provide the Pentagon with additional funding for the Iran war via a budget reconciliation package.
Harris, the North Carolina Republican, told host Chris Stirewalt on NewsNation’s “The Hill” that “it’s probably going to take something along reconciliation to be able to do it because the Democrats don’t offer us any votes to go along,” linking the strategy to Senate filibuster limits.
Earlier this week, the White House requested $87.6 billion in supplemental funding for Operation Epic Fury, spread across the departments of Defense and Energy, the Coast Guard and the FBI, in addition to the administration’s requested Pentagon budget of $1.15 trillion.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to drum up support for the funding, while Harris said Sunday the money will ensure “we get our weapons back to where we need to be from what we’ve already done.”
The Hill also noted skepticism in the GOP Senate about moving a third budget reconciliation package, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.) saying they do not think there will be a third package.
