Senate’s historic war powers vote underscores Trump’s loosening grip on Capitol Hill

Three weeks ago, the U.S. House took a step that hardly seemed possible: The Republican-led chamber adopted a war powers resolution, reasserting Congress’ authority over the war. The 215-208 vote featured four GOP members joining all Democrats in support of the measure.

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The vote was a stinging setback for Donald Trump, who condemned the developments with predictable rage, castigating the vote as “unpatriotic” and telling the four Republicans who backed the resolution that they “should be ashamed of themselves.”

Twenty days later, the Republican-led Senate did the same thing. NBC News reported:

The Senate on Tuesday approved a war powers resolution previously passed in the House that rebukes President Donald Trump by calling for an end to the U.S. war against Iran.

The resolution passed 50-48, with four Senate Republicans joining almost all Democrats in support of the measure. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., opposed the resolution, and two Republicans did not vote. The nonbinding measure is Capitol Hill’s sharpest symbolic pushback on the war yet.

The resolution “directs the President to remove U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities against Iran unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or a congressional authorization for use of military force against Iran.”

In recent months, the Senate voted on war powers resolutions nine other times, and in each of those instances, Democratic proponents picked up some GOP support, but not enough to succeed. This week, the 10th time was the charm.

White House officials quickly downplayed the significance of the developments, emphasizing the fact that the nonbinding resolution won’t go to the president’s desk and has no force of law. That’s true, but it doesn’t mean that the votes were irrelevant.