The war on Iran – and the economic toll that Trump’s decision has taken on all aspects of Americans’ lives – is now the top issue on the campaign trail heading into November. Should Democrats take majorities in the House and Senate, they will have an unmistakable mandate to end the war.
Yet many voters I talk to remain skeptical that a Democratic Congress would actually have the will and capability to stand up to Trump and force an end to the war. This is despite Hakeem Jeffries, who hopes to be Speaker in a Democrat-led House, promising to end the war if they win. In a press conference outlining Democrats’ top priorities if they win the House, Jeffries said, “We should end, decisively, if it’s still going on, Donald Trump’s reckless and costly war in the Middle East.”
If Democrats are serious about this promise, they should make a more ironclad commitment: a Democratic Congress will use its significant powers to deny any and all funding for continued U.S. participation in this war.
Antiwar rhetoric is good politics right now given the historic unpopularity of the Iran boondoggle, which over 70% of Americans now oppose. The conflict itself has already cost Americans over $50 billion in taxpayer funding and an additional $220 billion in economic costs from higher prices for gas, groceries and other goods and services — more than $1,650 per household, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics.
The war is so politically toxic that Republican allies of the President who supported the war, like Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) or Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), have publicly called for the war to end as they face competitive elections. Yet when the time has come for those lawmakers to cast a yes or no vote to end the war, they have voted to continue it.
Can voters trust Jeffries and the Democrats to act differently than Republicans who say the war should end but who then enable its continuation through their actions?
Voters have heard promises about Iran before. Trump campaigned on ending forever wars and avoiding another war with Iran, only to do the opposite. Biden promised to restore the Iran nuclear agreement ripped up by Trump, but then pursued a different strategy that failed to produce a deal and helped pave the way for the war. These broken promises are precisely why Democrats should understand that another open pledge to “end the war” will not be enough.
To their credit, Congressional Democrats have forced – alongside a very small but growing number of Republicans – nearly two dozen votes in the House and Senate on war power resolutions to end the conflict, despite being in the minority. And their efforts have been historic – for the first time in history, both chambers of Congress passed a war powers resolution mandating the President terminate a war.
But now, the Iran war powers resolution risks withering on the vine of legal uncertainty. The President has ignored it and executive branch officials assert that the measure is not binding. Congressional efforts to challenge the White House’s interpretation in court remain nascent.
The war powers votes have been rightly applauded by activists, but most Americans still have no idea that Democrats forced passage of legislation to end the war. Voters can’t pay for gas with symbolic resolutions or buy groceries with stirring rhetoric.
Some believe that Democratic leadership unnecessarily dragged its feet on the war powers resolutions and were more eager to see Trump suffer politically from an ongoing war than actually using their power to end it. As the adage goes, “when your enemy is falling on his sword, get out of his way.” Others saw Jeffries and would-be Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer attacking Trump’s early diplomatic efforts with Iran and broad Democratic criticims of the short-lived Memorandum of Understanding to end the war, and have been left with the impression that the anti-war rhetoric is political opportunism by lawmakers who are still beholden to pro-war groups like AIPAC.
It doesn’t help that certain senior officials from the previous Democratic administration have said Biden may have also attacked Iran if he got a second term and that a future Democratic successor to Trump will likely continue the war.
Senator Mark Kelly’s recent suggestion that Democrats will use the power of the purse to end the war is the best way to break this cycle, and this commitment should be publicly embraced by every Democratic candidate as well as anyone hoping to lead the party in the next Congress.
In the early days of Trump’s second term, Hakeem Jeffries infamously pushed back on activists demanding Democrats stand up to the President. “What leverage do we have? Republicans… control the House, the Senate and the presidency. It’s their government,” he said. Voters need to know that if Democrats win back the Congress, they will actually use the significant leverage at their disposal and put their money where their mouth is by cutting off funding and end, decisively, this catastrophic war.