House votes again to limit Trump’s Iran war powers

The House voted Tuesday for the third time to block President Donald Trump from taking further military action against Iran, a 220-204 rebuke that drew support from seven Republicans as the conflict nears seven months with no clear end in sight.

The war powers resolution, introduced by Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, directs the president “to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities with Iran.” All Democrats backed the measure, joined by Republican Reps. Tom Barrett of Michigan, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, and Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn of Iowa.

Mace, Miller-Meeks and Nunn were new Republican supporters of the effort, giving Tuesday’s vote more GOP backing than two earlier House attempts in June and July to limit Trump’s authority over the war.

Nunn said his vote reflected the length and status of the conflict. “With the negotiating window closed, sustained combat operations now require congressional authorization,” he said. “I will not support another open-ended war.”

The measure’s future is uncertain. CBS News reported that it is unclear whether the Senate will take up the resolution in its last two scheduled weeks of session before the November elections, and that a war powers resolution passed by the House in July has not moved in the Senate. CBS also reported that both chambers adopted another resolution in June, though the White House has argued against its validity. Al Jazeera reported that none of the resolutions has reached the president’s desk, where Trump would almost certainly veto it.

Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, opposed the measure and questioned which U.S. military resources Democrats wanted removed from a region where he said Iran remains a threat. Mast said Trump is against “forever wars, and that is what he is ending” — decades of hostilities from Iran. “They are a continuous ongoing threat to the United States,” Mast said. “Enough is enough.”

Trump launched the war on Feb. 28. Aug. 28 marked six months since it began, and the administration has yet to lay out an exit strategy. Trump initially predicted the conflict would last four to five weeks. Last week, he defended his strategy, saying the conflict has degraded Iran’s military and predicting “the war will end immediately after the election.”

The Pentagon has said Operation Epic Fury — its name for the initial strikes against Iran — ended in May, but the United States and Iran have continued to exchange fire for months. A ceasefire meant to end the war collapsed in July. Oil shipments from the region remain constrained, keeping global energy prices high.

The financial cost is mounting. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released an analysis Tuesday estimating the war could cost about $2 billion to $3 billion per month for as long as it continues. Between Feb. 28 and Aug. 1, direct costs to the United States were estimated at about $38 billion. Al Jazeera reported that the CBO found the war is worsening inflation and straining U.S. munitions stockpiles, and projected it would increase inflation by 0.5 percentage points in the first three months of 2027.

Republicans are seeking up to $73 billion in new war funding through the party-line reconciliation process. The House adopted a budget blueprint in July to begin that process, but it stalled in the Senate over inclusion of funding for Trump’s voting regulations bill, known as the SAVE America Act.

“The administration has yet to demonstrate that seven months of war have produced a lasting strategic resolution to the threats posed by Iran,” Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said during floor debate Monday night.