Five days into the United States-Israeli war on Iran, Senate Democrats attempted to advance a resolution that would have required President Donald Trump to seek congressional approval for any further action.
The effort failed, almost entirely along party lines. The vote was 47-53, with John Fetterman (D-PA) opposing the measure and Rand Paul (R-KY) joining the Democrats.
“Trump is lying to the American people as he launches an illegal, regime-change war against Iran,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) in a statement before the vote. “This is endangering American lives and has already resulted in mass civilian casualties. This is not making us safer and only damages the U.S. and our interests.”
Republicans are using the war to push their Department of Homeland Security funding bill, which got stalled in the Senate after ICE agents murdered multiple people, but it’s unlikely that Democrats will suddenly support the legislation.
“It’s the same lousy, rotten bill that does not put any guardrails or constraints on ICE or CBP after federal agents shot American citizens in the street,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA.)
However, lawmakers who attended classified briefings say they believe the Trump administration will seek emergency funding from Congress to pay for the war.
“I think there will be a supplemental coming,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told reporters. “We’ll have to approve that.”
Will Democrats collaborate and approve the funding?
Multiple Democrats are signaling it could happen.
“Before you can feel satisfied about a supplemental — and I haven’t seen it — you have to know what the real goals are and what the endgame is,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told reporters that Democrats will “make sure we are making all the investments we can” to keep the U.S. military safe.
“I need to know the goals and the plan. … I don’t rule anything out,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) told Politico. “I mean, we’re in it.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) insists that Trump won’t have the votes to overcome a filibuster.
“What Democrat is going to vote to fund an illegal war?” he asked rhetorically. “I don’t think — with the exception of one Democrat — there will be any votes for it.”
These battles will undoubtedly factor into the midterms.
Axios reports that progressive groups are prepared to primary any House Democrat who rejects the War Powers resolution vote in that chamber.
“Any Democrat voting against this resolution is really voting against the base of the party, and it will be a very politically perilous vote,” a senior progressive House Democrat told the website.
“They’re already preparing,” they said, referencing progressive organizations. “If the filing deadline has passed, they’ll do it in ’28. It’s basically inviting a primary challenge.
“My understanding is that if they’re doing that level of organizing now, they’re going to hold them accountable,” said a progressive House member. “As they should.”
Foushee’s win, Newsom’s about-face
Democratic Rep. Valerie Foushee held onto her seat in North Carolina’s 4th district, narrowly escaping a progressive primary challenge from Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam.
Allam was backed by the newly launched American Priorities PAC, created specifically to counter AIPAC’s election influence.
On Twitter, AIPAC celebrated Foushee’s win.
“Allam and her allies spent millions attacking Israel and demonizing pro-Israel Americans,” tweeted the group. “And lost.”
This is a pretty funny race for AIPAC to take a victory lap on. Foushee took more than $2 million from the lobbying organization in 2022, but this time around, she had to reject the group’s money and publicly criticize them in order to prevail.
Since facing backlash over her AIPAC connections, Foushee has voted against further military aid to Israel, skipped Netanyahu’s congressional address, and become a cosponsor of the “Block the Bombs” act. She recently declared she will do everything in her power to stop Trump’s “illegal war with Iran.” These moves certainly helped her eke out a tight victory over a candidate running to her left.
Despite AIPAC’s dunk attempt, it’s clear which way the wind is blowing.
Just look at Texas, where pastor Frederick Haynes III won the Democratic primary to fill the open House seat left by (pro-Israel) Rep. Jasmine Crockett.
In October 2023, while nearly every Democrat was pledging their unfettered support for Israel, Haynes was delivering a different kind of sermon.
“I recognize that we’ve got to be pro-Israel… or we get in trouble,” he told the church. “Well, I’m coming to get in trouble.”
Here’s a portion of that sermon:
The Palestinians… don’t have the weaponry of Israel, the Palestinians don’t have the financial backing from the United States that Israel has. And so they throw their rocks and shoot their arrows, and Israel is able to bomb them and kill them. Watch in the news the disparity between Palestinians being killed and Israelis being killed. It is totally unfair. But this country is going to stand on the side of apartheid because that’s its track record.
Or look at California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has a well-documented pro-Israel record, and just signed a bill that attacks pro-Palestine speech at the state’s schools. He’s obviously positioning himself to run for the Democratic nomination in 2028, and he’s smart enough to know that Israel’s reputation is in the toilet with no signs of recovering.
At an event with the “Pod Save America” hosts this week, Newsom questioned U.S. military support for Israel and referred to the country as an “apartheid state.” Of course, this came with some caveats. He said these facts “break his heart” and singled out the Netanyahu regime as an unfortunate aberration, but the shift is notable nonetheless.
If Newsom gets the nomination (and Trump doesn’t declare himself Emperor), he could be facing off against JD Vance. Sources close to the Vice President are telling reporters that he was actually against the Iran strikes. This feels like a clear, preemptive strategy to eventually distance himself from Trump’s war if his time in the administration ends up becoming an even bigger liability.
After all, he just watched a vice president lose an election after failing to distance herself from her boss’s foreign policy.
Odds & Ends
🇮🇱 Netanyahu finally gets his war on Iran
🇮🇷 Debunking the lies of the Iran War
🇺🇸 It’s time for America to break up with Israel
🤝 Rubio confirms the heresy: the U.S. went to war in Iran because of Israel
📺 The U.S. media goes to war on Iran
🎬 Lies, distortions, and propaganda: how the U.S. mainstream media coverage on Iran hides the truth
⚖️ Understanding the U.S. and Israel’s illegal war on Iran
✝️ Responsible Statecraft: Israel launches Bible study program targeting US evangelicals
🏛️ Drop Site News: Hakeem Jeffries Whipping Votes Against Trump’s So-Far-Unbridled War on Iran
📊 Electronic Intifada: US, Israel launch war on Iran as public support collapses
🏃 Politico: Inside the Trump administration’s scramble to support its own war
📁 Common Dreams: After Classified Iran Briefing, Dems More Convinced Trump Wants Ground Invasion and Forever War
✈️ Zeteo: Trump Has Left Many Americans Stranded Amid His War on Iran
✌ Counterpunch: The US/Israeli Attack Was to Prevent Peace Not Advance It
🇹🇯 Al Jazeera: Is the CIA planning to arm Kurdish forces to spark an uprising in Iran?
💰 March 5th statement from the Eject Elbit campaign:
Over 50 activists blocked traffic this morning at Capital One headquarters in protest of the bank’s continued loan to Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. Protestors ripped up cardboard signs representing Capital One credit cards while the crowd cut their real Discover and Capital One-branded credit cards into pieces, after Capital One CEO Richard D. Fairbank refused to meet to hear their demands to terminate the company’s involvement in a $545 million, five-year loan to Elbit Systems...
The protestors flooded a main intersection on Capital One’s campus holding cardboard missiles and surveillance cameras reading “Elbit Kills” and “Funded by C1”. Today’s action follows a similar protest in January where activists locked themselves to ladders and a wheelchair to completely snarl traffic around the campus as Capital One staff were arriving to work.
“Capital One refused to take action and drop their loan to Elbit Systems, even after we blocked their traffic for over 90 minutes last month,” said Elm, one of the organizers at the action. “This time, we needed to make sure they couldn’t ignore us, so we quadrupled our numbers and made sure Richard Fairbank knew we were there.”
Additional reading: the American Prospect collects all the reasons for divorcing Israel in one convenient spot:
Time to End the American-Israeli Alliance.….
Israeli officials meddle much more blatantly than that in American elections all the time. Netanyahu all but openly campaigned for Mitt Romney in 2012…
Israeli spies also have conducted the most serious espionage against the American government of any supposed ally…
From a perspective of protecting Jews, Israel is arguably doing more harm than good—particularly for American Jews, who constitute the largest Jewish population outside Israel itself. Israel and its apologists have for decades cynically leveraged the taboo against antisemitism to shut down any criticism of its behavior. This became a full-blown frenzy after October 7th, as Israel partisans desperately tried to muffle criticism of its inarguably genocidal attacks on Gazan civilians….
It is a sad irony that Zionism, in its current form at least, has turned out to be quite similar to other ultranationalist projects around the world, from Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia to Action Française in France….
Time to End the American-Israeli Alliance