June 3, 2026
The House of Representatives just voted to rein in President Trump’s war powers in Iran. Four Republicans broke ranks and joined all the Democrats to vote yes to try and stop Trump.
I’m going to talk about what this means in a second — P.S., it’s a big deal — but before I do that…
The final vote in the House was 215 to 208. All the Democrats voted yes along with those four Republicans, and all of the other Republicans and one Independent voted no. Seven lawmakers did not vote.
The four Republicans who joined the Democrats were Representatives Davidson of Ohio, Massie of Kentucky, Barrett of Michigan, and Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
The House has tried to pass a war powers resolution several times in the past, but it has always failed. Today was different.
A war powers resolution comes from the War Powers Act of 1973, which says the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. If a president decides to engage our United States Armed Forces in some kind of military operation, Congress has the power to end that operation by passing a war powers resolution.
The law gives the president a total of 90 days to conduct his military operation. After that, if both the House and Senate pass a war powers resolution, the president gets two options. He can either withdraw those U.S. service members from harm’s way, or he has to get actual authorization from Congress to continue the military operation.
So now what?
Well, this House-passed resolution will be kicked over to the Senate. As I told you in this video a few weeks ago, during a procedural vote, and because several senators were absent, the Senate passed a similar war powers resolution to rein in Trump on Iran. Four Senate Republicans joined Democrats to do that: Senators Collins, Murkowski, Paul, and Cassidy.
But now, when it comes up again — especially when all the senators are present and voting — it’s unclear if a war powers resolution would have the votes to pass.
And even if it did, it’s very likely President Trump would veto it.
But what happened in the House is still a politically big deal.
We are well past the 90 days allowed in the War Powers Act for the president to conduct a military operation. We’ve been in Iran for 95 days. And it’s obvious that even Republican lawmakers in the House and the Senate are starting to get frustrated.
It’s also important to note that the House Speaker was not able to stop this bill from coming to the floor like he did last time when he just canceled the vote and sent everyone home on recess. And he was not able to stop his own members from voting yes.
That is not something you see very often in this Republican-controlled House.
See how your House Representative voted here.
