In a historic bipartisan rebuke of former President Donald Trump’s unauthorized military campaign against Iran, the United States Senate voted 50-48 on Tuesday to approve a war powers resolution ordering the immediate withdrawal of all American forces from hostilities against the Middle Eastern nation.
The outcome marked a rare moment of cross-party opposition to the administration’s foreign policy, with four Senate Republicans breaking ranks to side with the overwhelming majority of Democrats in backing the measure. The resolution had already secured approval from the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this month, clearing both chambers of Congress for the first time since the 1973 War Powers Resolution was enacted to check presidential war-making authority.
Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington celebrated the vote in a social media post immediately after the results were finalized, writing, “The House and the Senate have both stood up. It’s time to stop this deadly and costly conflict.”
Breaking down the final vote count, the four Republicans who supported the resolution were Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. The only Democrat to break with his party was Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who voted against the measure.
Attorney Aaron Parnas framed the outcome as a definitive rejection of the White House’s approach to the region, writing on social media: “This is a major bipartisan rebuke of Trump’s foreign policy chaos.”
Anti-war advocacy group CodePink echoed that sentiment, emphasizing broad public support for ending the conflict. “The will of the people is undeniable: It’s time to permanently end this war of aggression,” the organization wrote in a public statement confirming the vote results.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer noted that the successful vote marked 10 years of Democratic efforts to rein in Trump’s authority to wage undeclared war, which began when the president unilaterally drew the U.S. into a joint military attack on Iran alongside Israel on February 28. Schumer slammed the majority of Senate Republicans for repeatedly blocking prior attempts to limit the conflict, telling reporters the Iran campaign “will go down in the history books as one of the worst foreign policy forays America has ever made,” according to reporting from The Associated Press.
Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen echoed that criticism in his own social media remarks, writing: “Congress finally passed a war powers resolution to stop Trump’s illegal war in Iran. It has been a disaster from the start. End it now.”
As The New York Times reported, the vote makes history as the first time since the 1973 War Powers Resolution was passed that both chambers of Congress have approved a concurrent resolution calling for a full end to an ongoing military conflict. While concurrent resolutions do not require presidential signature and rarely carry the full force of law, Democratic lawmakers and foreign policy experts argue that the Constitution’s grant of war-declaring authority to Congress means the resolution still carries binding weight to restrict the president’s military actions.
New York Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks, who sponsored the original House version of the resolution, reaffirmed that commitment to enforcing Congress’s will after the Senate vote. “With the Senate passage of my Iran War Powers Resolution, both chambers have now made clear that the president cannot continue this war of choice and must cease all hostilities against Iran,” Meeks said in a statement. “Regardless of what President Trump says, this measure is binding under the War Powers Resolution, and I will explore all legal avenues to ensure the executive complies with the will of Congress. Congress never authorized this failed war, and the president certainly has no authority to continue it indefinitely without our consent as the Constitution demands.”
The Senate vote comes roughly one week after U.S. and Iranian negotiators signed a memorandum of understanding outlining a path toward ending the conflict, which has killed at least 3,400 people in Iran and thousands more across the broader region. However, recent ceasefire efforts and ongoing negotiations have remained unstable, rocked by continued Israeli attacks on Lebanon and repeated threats from the Trump administration to escalate military operations.