The Senate rejected another bid to limit President Donald Trump’s authority to keep U.S. forces in hostilities against Iran, handing the White House a narrow political win as the war widened again across the Gulf.
The Guardian reported Thursday that the war powers resolution failed 49-50. The measure would have directed Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran unless Congress explicitly authorized the campaign.
CBS News reported the same 49-50 vote and said the resolution was brought by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. Three Republicans, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul, voted to limit the president’s authority. Democrat John Fetterman voted against the measure, while Mitch McConnell did not vote.
Why This Vote Matters Now
The vote came as the U.S. military said it had launched a fresh wave of strikes in Iran after an Iranian missile attack targeting a U.S. base in Jordan. The Guardian described the operation as a “heavy wave” of retaliatory airstrikes, while CBS said the broader conflict now appears to be expanding after five months of war.
The timing turns the Senate vote into more than a procedural defeat. Congress was being asked whether to claw back war authority at the same moment U.S. forces were again striking Iranian targets and U.S. commanders were expanding maritime pressure around Iranian ports.
CBS reported that U.S. Central Command said it had redirected 24 commercial vessels since the Trump administration restarted a blockade on Iranian ports earlier this month, up from 20 a day earlier. CENTCOM also said U.S. forces had boarded two ships accused of violating the blockade and fired on two others to disable them.
The Senate Lineup
The failed vote exposed a narrow but real split inside both parties. Collins, Murkowski, and Paul broke with most Republicans by voting for the resolution. Fetterman, meanwhile, was the only Democrat to vote against it, according to both CBS and the Guardian.
The Guardian reported that this was the second Senate attempt in two weeks aimed at forcing Trump to end hostilities with Iran. CBS said it was likely the last such vote before the Senate recess begins on August 10.
Gillibrand argued before the vote that Congress had constitutional authority to end the war and warned that the conflict was driving up costs for households. The Trump administration has argued that its military campaign is necessary to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to curb Iran-backed attacks across the region.
A Political Check That Failed
List25 has already covered today’s Kuwait strike, the Qeshm Island casualty claim, Hormuz tanker fire, Saudi Red Sea coalition push, and Iraq’s denial that it approved U.S.-Saudi strikes on Iran-backed PMF sites. The new angle here is domestic but directly tied to the battlefield: the Senate declined to restrict Trump’s Iran war authority just as the military campaign accelerated again.
That leaves the White House with more room to continue strikes, blockade enforcement, and regional coordination without a new congressional authorization. It also leaves critics with a clear political marker: even after months of fighting, casualties, disrupted shipping, and repeated escalation, the Senate still came up one vote short of forcing a pullback.
For now, the practical result is simple. The war powers challenge failed, the U.S. campaign continues, and Iran’s crisis remains both a military fight abroad and a constitutional fight in Washington.