The House got close to voting to end the Iran war. Republicans canceled the vote.
The canceled vote capped off a week that at once demonstrated both the strength of President Trump's grip on the Republican Party – and his slipping hold over a functioning majority in Congress.
Zachary SchermeleWASHINGTON – Republican leaders in the House of Representatives abruptly canceled a scheduled war powers vote on Thursday, fearing it would pass amid GOP defections and lawmaker absences before the Memorial Day holiday.
It marked the latest sign of potentially fading support in Congress for the Iran war. The postponement came just a few days after the Senate, for the first time, successfully advanced a separate measure related to halting American involvement in the Middle East conflict.
After the vote was officially delayed, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Massachusetts, yelled at House Republicans that they didn't have the "guts" to watch the measure succeed.
"Are we not voting on it because the American people are sick and tired of this illegal war?" he said.
In the face of a certain presidential veto and a closely divided Congress, the war powers resolutions that Democrats have been seeking for months to pass, reasserting the legislative branch's authority over the U.S. officially declaring war, suffer long-shot odds to realistically become law.
Still, the canceled vote capped off a week that at once demonstrated both the strength of President Trump's grip on the Republican Party – and his slipping hold over a functioning majority in Congress.
In his successful crusade to drive out members of the party he has perceived as insufficiently loyal, Trump has also alienated key pillars of his base of support on Capitol Hill, where slim majorities have kept Congress under full GOP control. The fallout is already having clear repercussions for his agenda ahead of the midterm elections.
Earlier on Thursday, Republicans in the Senate canceled a months-in-the-making vote on a $70 billion cash infusion for federal immigration enforcement. Unease over the Justice Department's new $1.8 billion fund, that could benefit Trump's allies, prompted a last-minute push to attach legislative guardrails for the fund to the budget bill.
Negotiations ended without a compromise, and GOP lawmakers left town, still at odds, for a week-long holiday break.
Zachary Schermele is a congressional reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.