Politics
Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska became the latest Republican to switch her vote to halt the conflict and require President Trump to win congressional approval to continue it.
Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) during a Senate hearing in Washington on Feb. 3, 2026. Eric Lee/The New York Times
May 13, 2026 | 4:27 PM
3 minutes to read
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday blocked Democrats’ seventh attempt to halt the war in Iran, as Republicans banded together almost unanimously to beat back the first such effort since President Donald Trump blew past a 60-day deadline to seek congressional authorization to continue the fighting.
But another Republican who had opposed earlier attempts defected from the party line Wednesday, in a sign of growing cracks in the GOP’s patience with the conflict and the president’s handling of it.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska for the first time joined Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky in voting with Democrats to advance the measure. The effort failed on a vote of 50-49, with Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania again joining Republicans in opposition.
With one GOP senator absent Wednesday, the measure would have passed had Fetterman not voted with Republicans.
Murkowski was the latest Republican to flip in recent weeks; Collins, who had opposed similar resolutions since the war began in late February, switched her vote this month and joined Democrats and Paul in support.
A similar measure narrowly failed in the House last month. Such resolutions have little hope of enactment given Trump’s vehement opposition and veto power. But Democrats have vowed to continue to force the votes, eager to force Republicans to weigh in repeatedly on what polls show is an unpopular war whose cost poses political perils before the midterm elections.
The White House has said hostilities with Iran terminated on the day the war reached its 60-day mark, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reiterated Tuesday that even if the president were to restart bombings, he would not seek permission from Congress.
But Democrats and a small contingent of Republicans rejected the claim that hostilities had ended, pointing to recent exchanges of fire in the Strait of Hormuz, and the continued deployment of some 50,000 troops to the region.
“We’re in a different place than we were last time we voted,” Murkowski, who criticized the administration earlier in the week for claiming hostilities had ended when there were still U.S. troops deployed and an active naval blockade, said Wednesday after the vote.
“Both sides are engaged in a daily war, as defined by international law,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who sponsored Wednesday’s war powers resolution. “Is it at a somewhat lower level than the bombing campaign? Yes, I will grant you that. But it is a war by every definition.”
Still, the vast majority of Republicans agreed with the administration that the current ceasefire with Iran means the hostilities the president notified Congress of on March 2, beginning the 60-day countdown to the president needing to ask Congress to approve continued combat operations, had ended.
“The president made it very clear,” Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said Wednesday. “Clear that the major fighting has halted, clear that the American ceasefire has held for more than a month.” He accused Democrats of “obstructing the president.”
Sen. John Curtis of Utah, a Republican who like Collins and Murkowski, had said attacks on Iran must begin to wind down unless Congress provided formal authorization. But he voted against forcing an end to the war Wednesday.
“I wouldn’t say I’m totally resolved in my mind,” Curtis said before entering the chamber. “But we are in a ceasefire, and I want to see how this thing plays out.”
Democrats noted that the White House had provided no public evidence that Iran was poised to launch a nuclear attack on the United States, as the president, his Cabinet officials and his GOP allies in Congress have claimed was the rationale for launching joint attacks with Israel on Iran on Feb. 28.
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said there was no threat of “any action anytime soon by Iran” to develop nuclear weapons that justified a wide-scale military operation.
“I don’t use this phrase a lot,” said Kaine, the Democrat leading the effort to force weekly votes on ending the war. “The White House has lied to the American public, and every time they say this war is justified to stop Iran’s nuclear program, they are telling the American public a lie.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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