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Nearly one month into U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s war against Iran, support from Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill is showing increasing signs of strain amid fresh U.S. troop deployments, the lifting of some oil sanctions on Iran and Russia, and a looming hefty military bill that Congress could shortly be asked to approve.<\/p>\n
As Congress prepares to depart for a two-week spring recess, the U.S. Defense Department has yet to send its formal proposal for emergency Iran war-related funding, even as a request of around $200 billion has been widely reported in recent days.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Nearly one month into U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s war against Iran, support from Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill is showing increasing signs of strain amid fresh U.S. troop deployments, the lifting of some oil sanctions on Iran and Russia, and a looming hefty military bill that Congress could shortly be asked to approve.<\/p>\n
As Congress prepares to depart for a two-week spring recess, the U.S. Defense Department has yet to send its formal proposal for emergency Iran war-related funding, even as a request of around $200 billion has been widely reported in recent days.<\/p>\n
With Democrats nearly unanimous in their opposition to funding the war that their voters overwhelmingly detest<\/a>, there is growing talk among Republicans about including the Iran war funding in a partisan \u201creconciliation<\/a>\u201d spending bill that wouldn\u2019t rely on Democratic votes.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we do a reconciliation bill, yes, it would need to be done quickly, and the Iran money would be in there,\u201d said Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.<\/p>\n However, it would still be very tricky to pass due to strict procedural rules and general lawmaker nervousness about spending billions on an unpopular war months ahead of midterm voting.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also unlikely all Republicans<\/a> would back the measure, as there are increasing signs of Republican discontent on Capitol Hill even as the dam continues to hold against a major party break with Trump. With both the Senate and House closely divided along party lines, the White House can afford to lose only a few Republican votes in each chamber on a partisan reconciliation bill.<\/p>\n Multiple Republican senators criticized the Trump administration\u2019s decision to grant monthlong waivers from U.S. sanctions for purchases of Russian and Iranian oil that is already at sea. The administration is hoping the sanctions relief will lead to lower prices at the gas pump for U.S. consumers despite estimates<\/a> that Moscow and Tehran stand to earn billions from the temporary reprieve.<\/p>\n \u201cIt makes no sense to provide financial relief to a country that we\u2019re currently fighting. The impacts of these waivers will be immediate. Russia can now more easily fund its war machine,\u201d said Sen. Jerry Moran in a Tuesday floor speech. \u201cThe waivers signal desperation to the Iranian regime and reinforces that their strategy of taking the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> hostage is working.\u201d<\/p>\n Sen. John Kennedy told reporters he \u201chated\u201d the sanctions waivers.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not saying that the president made the wrong decision, because I don\u2019t have the information that he has, but it breaks my heart to see us remove sanctions on Iranian oil and on Russian oil,\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n And Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said the sanctions relief was \u201chelping our adversaries again. I get they\u2019re trying to manage some of the supply shocks, but it\u2019s concerning to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Democrats were even more scathing in their criticism of the Iran sanctions relief.<\/p>\n \u201cWaging war on a regime while simultaneously enabling it to increase oil profits by lifting sanctions makes zero sense and reaches new levels of incoherence,\u201d said a joint Thursday statement<\/a> by Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democratic leaders of key national security-related committees. \u201cThis looks less like a plan and more like a panicked move that benefits our adversaries while leaving the American people to bear the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n Republicans have also grown more willing to complain about the lack of a consistent and clear strategy from the administration on its objectives with Iran and its plan for achieving them.<\/p>\n For instance, on Tuesday, Sen. Mike Rounds, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said \u201cnot yet\u201d when asked if he felt it was time for Congress to debate and vote on a new authorization for military force to domestically legalize operations against Iran. \u201cThis is not something new. This is what\u2019s already been talked about.\u201d<\/p>\n News shortly followed that Trump had ordered 2,000 additional combat troops<\/a> deployed to the Middle East, bringing to almost 7,000 the number of ground troops the president has recently dispatched to the region.<\/p>\n Rounds sounded less sanguine on Wednesday when he left a classified Iran briefing, telling reporters<\/a> that senators are waiting for more information about how much the war against Iran is costing. \u201cOur oversight responsibilities are important, and as part of that, we continue to remind them that we expect to get good answers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Republican Rep. Nancy Mace sounded even more aggrieved following a House classified briefing.<\/p>\n \u201cJust walked out of a House Armed Services briefing on Iran. Let me repeat: I will not support troops on the ground in Iran, even more so after this briefing,\u201d she wrote in a Wednesday post on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Republican Mike Rogers, told reporters<\/a> after the briefing that \u201cwe want to know more about what\u2019s going on, what the options are, and why they\u2019re being considered, and we\u2019re just not getting enough answers on those questions.\u201d<\/p>\n Several other Republican senators have reportedly also raised concerns<\/a> behind closed doors about the lack of specific cost details that Defense Department officials would share with them at their classified briefing.<\/p>\n A possible $200 billion Iran war spending bill would likely be hard for Republican lawmakers to digest given the war\u2019s domestic unpopularity and polling showing that voters are prioritizing policies<\/a> that bring down the cost of living. (In comparison, U.S. taxpayer support for Ukraine\u2019s defense against Russia\u2019s invasion totals about $188 billion<\/a>, though that war has a broader base of U.S. bipartisan support and has been spread out over multiple years.)<\/p>\n The strains in Trump\u2019s party support<\/a> for his overseas adventurism aren\u2019t helped by increasingly grim domestic polling that shows Republicans seriously underwater<\/a> when it comes to generic support for their party versus Democrats ahead of the fall midterms. And while roughly half of surveyed Republicans in a new Associated Press poll<\/a> believe U.S. military actions against Iran have been \u201cabout right,\u201d that party support drops to about one-fifth when asked about support for ramped-up U.S. military involvement against Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cThe numbers that they\u2019re talking about are pretty staggering in the sense of what they say about how long this is going to go on,\u201d said Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine on Tuesday of the expected Iran war spending request.<\/p>\n For the last month, Kaine has been leading an effort in the Senate to hold regular war powers votes challenging the legality of Trump\u2019s military attacks on Iran as a means of pressuring Republican leaders to insist that senior Trump administration officials publicly testify and submit to lawmaker questions about the Iran war.<\/p>\n But only Republican Sen. Rand Paul broke with his party on the most recent<\/a> procedural war powers vote on Tuesday, continuing the voting pattern established since Trump first launched the war nearly a month ago.<\/p>\n \u201cI get it, why Republicans don\u2019t want to have a debate about an authorization,\u201d Kaine said. \u201cAny Republican who would vote for an authorization for this war under these circumstances would get absolutely roasted by their constituents.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n