WAR POWERS RESOLUTION

On 2026-04-30, Senator Christopher Murphy (D-CT) delivered a floor speech titled "WAR POWERS RESOLUTION" in the Senate. The speech addressed healthcare and also covered taxes, the environment. It referenced legislation including S2153, S2156, S2154.

WAR POWERS RESOLUTION

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 76 (Thursday, April 30, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 76 (Thursday, April 30, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S2153-S2156] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] WAR POWERS RESOLUTION Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of Senator Schiff's War Powers Resolution to end President Trump's illegal war against Iran. Let's begin with a simple fact. We are now over 60 days into this illegal war. The war was started on February 28. A few days later, on March 2, President Trump and his administration submitted the notice to Congress. So even if you take the date of submission, tomorrow will be the 60 days. Of course, we don't want to create incentives for any administration to delay the submission of the notice. So the clock has run. But let's just be clear. Accepting their view of the world, tomorrow will be the 60th day--60 days since President Trump, together with Prime Minister Netanyahu, started this war against Iran--a war started without congressional authorization, without articulating any clear American interest, and without telling the American people the truth about what this war would cost. This war is making Americans less safe, and we are worse off because of it. The American people know that, which is why they overwhelmingly oppose this war and they want to see us bring it to an end now. Yet here we are over 60 days later. Fourteen American soldiers have been killed, hundreds of American troops wounded, thousands of civilians in the region killed, and at least $25 billion of taxpayer money already burned. We face even more regional instability in an already volatile part of the world. And we have an administration that cannot explain what it is they are trying to achieve. They can't explain it today. They couldn't explain it the day they started the war. In fact, over the last few weeks, President Trump has repeatedly pledged that the war would be resolved ``quickly''--a promise he has made and then broken many times. In fact, you may recall, colleagues, it was over a month ago that President Trump declared that we had won. He said: ``We won.'' Well, if we won, what the hell are we doing there? And the reality is we haven't won anything. Negotiations to [[Page S2154]] end it are off again. Then they are on. Then they are off. Of course, a big part of these negotiations is about reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which was open the day before this war started. And now, reportedly, the President is preparing for an extended blockade of Iran, prolonging a conflict that has already driven up prices daily in the United States. We just saw that average gasoline prices have reached a 4-year high in the United States. He has also kept American servicemembers deployed overseas for recordbreaking periods and expended a huge amount of munitions, creating shortages in our supplies elsewhere. So what is the plan? What is the plan? Just to pursue an open-ended blockade, costing taxpayers billions of dollars--in fact, $1 billion a day--and further jeopardizing the global economy, offering no clear path to ending the war? Sometimes, President Trump says that this war was to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Well, this is the President who tore up the Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA, that was negotiated by President Obama, which kept Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and had probably the most intrusive inspection regime in arms control history. And last year, before President Trump started this war, his own DNI said that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon. And, of course, after the military operations, in June of last year, against Iran's nuclear program, President Trump told the country that Iran's nuclear program was ``obliterated.'' I also think it is worth reminding people what Citizen Trump said back in 2011 because it is revealing as to the President's mindset. We know that this President often engages in projection. Here is what he said, back in 2011, about then-President Obama. He said: Our President will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective. So the only way he figures that he's going to get reelected--and as sure as you're sitting there--is to start a war with Iran. Citizen Trump back in 2011 about President Obama. Well, President Obama negotiated an agreement to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. President Trump, in his first term, tore it up. But here is Donald Trump, essentially telling us what he thinks. Obviously, Donald Trump couldn't negotiate a deal with Iran, and so he started a war with Iran, exactly what he was claiming that President Obama would do, because he claimed President Obama didn't have the skills to negotiate an agreement to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. So here we are. Just to recap, the President started a war to stop what he had called an ``obliterated'' nuclear program and to reopen an international waterway that was open before he started the war. And since he started this war, along with Prime Minister Netanyahu, the justifications have been inconsistent and ever-changing, zigzagging here and there. But the results are clear, which is that President Trump has led this country into a complete strategic mess, with no end in sight, and ever- rising costs that Americans have to bear, both in tax dollars expended and in higher prices at the pump and elsewhere. And the reason for so many weeks that this administration refused to have one of their decisionmakers testify in front of Congress was because what he heard behind closed doors revealed that there was no plan and no endgame. Now, in the last 2 days, we are hearing, finally, from Secretary Hegseth, and the American people can see in plain view that they have no plan. And yet this is the Secretary of the administration that is now asking this Congress to provide a $1.5 trillion defense budget. They just want to blow the roof off of the budget. And, of course, this is a Pentagon and Defense Department that have been unable to meet an audit. So what are we going to do at this point? We have got $25 billion gone. In fact, many people think that is a lowball estimate. But the reality is that we could put that money to much better use. We could use it to help our fellow Americans. But, no, Donald Trump said: We can't do that. We don't have the resources for that because we need the resources for this war--a war he said he would never start. In fact, what he said is--and I am quoting: It's not possible for us to take care of day care, [and] Medicaid, [and] Medicare, all these individual things [because] we're fighting wars. The wars he said he would never start. Well, maybe higher gas prices don't matter much to President Trump and his billionaire buddies and the biggest billionaire Cabinet in American history by far. Maybe they don't care about higher gas prices. But, I can tell you, Americans who are going to fuel their cars at the pump, they care. They are the ones bearing the burden here in America of this illegal Trump war. And we also know that we are burning through our munitions at a very rapid rate, munitions that should have been reserved for real national emergencies that we might face elsewhere in the world. We also heard something very disturbing again from Secretary Hegseth, when he testified in the House yesterday, which is his utter contempt-- his utter contempt--for the guardrails we put in place to prevent civilian harm in war. That is why I led nearly the entire Democratic caucus, a few weeks ago, in demanding answers and accountability on the U.S. airstrike that hit an elementary school in Iran, killing over 175 people, most of them children. But Secretary Hegseth, he is dismissive of all of these concerns. In fact, he said that the rules of engagement were ``stupid''--rules designed to prevent innocent people from getting killed in war. He should never have been nominated. He should never have been confirmed, and he should be relieved of duty today. And how can we trust an administration with additional funds when they so brazenly say they don't want to comply with rules designed to prevent civilian harm which, in the long run, are also designed to help protect the lives of our troops? And yet they are asking for more money and more resources, and all without any congressional authorization to go into this war. Now, I want to just say something about the War Powers Resolution here because, as I cited at the top of my remarks, we are now 60 days into this war, yesterday, or if we accept the administration's interpretation, tomorrow--60 days. Now, under the War Powers Resolution, the President doesn't have the authority to start a war and fight a war for 2 days, 3 days, 4 days-- let alone 60 days. But that is what President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu did. They started the war. The idea behind the War Powers Resolution is, if the United States faces an imminent threat that requires the President to engage in hostilities overseas, that we will have a clock to make sure that Congress, as representatives of the American people and given the power in the Constitution to declare war, has time to consider and debate. And it says you have 60 days, even if you are fighting a war that somebody else started. So we are hearing that the Trump administration--the President--may exercise the ability under the War Powers Resolution for another 30 days, on top of the 60 days. So that gives you 90 days. But here is the thing. The War Powers Resolution is very clear. That additional 30 days is not to ramp up a war. It is to ramp down a war. It is to bring American troops who are in hostility safely home. And yet here we are, around the 60th day, and President Trump, reportedly, is contemplating upping the tempo of the war, increasing strikes against Iran. That is a gross violation even of my Republican Sena