[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 39 (Monday, March 2, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S736-S737]
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 support of Senator 
Kaine's War Powers Resolution to halt Donald Trump's unjustified, 
illegal, regime-change war against Iran.
  We have a lawless President who is shredding our Constitution and 
attacking our democracy right here at home. And that same lawlessness 
and recklessness has pervaded our foreign and national security policy, 
now putting American troops in harm's way in Donald Trump's war of 
choice.
  Let's not forget, colleagues, what Donald Trump and JD Vance promised 
the American people. Think back to all the times that they looked the 
American people in the eye and said they would not drag America into 
another war, especially another war in the Middle East. They said it 
over and over. They called themselves the ``pro-peace'' ticket.
  Vice President Vance wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 2023 making 
the case for Trump's 2024 Presidential candidacy. The headline of his 
op-ed: ``Trump's Best Foreign Policy? Not starting Any Wars.'' That is 
what JD Vance promised would come from a Trump-Vance White House.
  The Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard sold ``No War 
with Iran'' shirts in 2020. Four years later, she declared:

       A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to end wars, not start 
     them.

  That is our current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
  Donald Trump even calls himself now ``the peacemaker'' and on 
election night in 2024, he said:

       I'm not going to start wars, I'm going to stop wars.

  That was Donald Trump at the end of his campaign repeating what he 
had said throughout his Presidential campaign. Well, they broke their 
promises. They lied directly to the American people.
  President Trump has already ordered more military strikes against 
more countries than any President in the modern era, including against 
countries that have never been targeted by the U.S. military. And now, 
Trump has launched an all-out illegal regime-change war of choice 
against Iran.
  Let's be clear: This is not a war to make us safer. What the 
President has done is to make the world less safe for Americans, and he 
has chosen to put American service men and women at risk for a war that 
he said he would never start; that he promised he would never start.
  As of today, we have lost six brave American servicemembers to this 
war. I pray for them and their families. They should still be with us 
today. In response to their deaths, President Trump said just yesterday 
that ``sadly, there will likely be more. . . . That's the way it is.''
  That is how Donald Trump responds to American troops killed in this 
war of choice that he started. He said:

       That's [just] the way it is.

  Really, colleagues? We should not send our sons and daughters to 
fight and die. We should not spend billions of dollars of taxpayer 
money for a war that is not in our interests and has no end in sight. 
No one--no one--in the Trump administration, including the President, 
has made a credible argument why it is in America's interest to start a 
war against Iran. They haven't because there isn't.
  Donald Trump and his administration have spent the last 48 hours 
telling different reporters and news agencies a whole host of different 
objectives and a whole set of different timelines. One claim that has 
been thoroughly debunked was that Iran was going to strike America 
first. That is a lie. It is a proven lie.
  So now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is spinning another version of 
this. He said we had to strike Iran first because Israel launched an 
attack on Iran. And here is his twisted logic. Israel was going to 
strike Iran, and, of course, we knew nothing about that, but we knew 
that if Israel struck Iran, that Iran would strike us, so we had to 
strike Iran first.
  The deception is deep, and it is sickening. This administration lied 
to the American people during the campaign before they were in office, 
and they are lying now.
  Another objective that has been cited was to end Iran's nuclear 
weapons capability. But we know that Iran does not have a nuclear 
weapons capability. That is also a lie. And, of course, we know that 
President Trump told the country that American and Israeli strikes last 
year had completely obliterated the Iranian nuclear weapons program. 
Remember that? And, of course, this is the President who in his first 
term, ripped up the agreement between the United States and Iran to 
prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons.
  We also know from the Omani intermediaries, including the Foreign 
Ministry of Oman, that Iran was willing to

[[Page S737]]

put much tighter restraints on any future possible nuclear enrichment 
programs. But apparently, the Trump administration had already decided 
to go to war.
  Another reason we heard from members of the administration--they are 
constantly shifting rationales--has been Iran's ballistic missile 
program. But Iran has zero missiles that can reach the United States. 
Not even close. None.
  So in yet another interview, Donald Trump said the aim is ``freedom 
for the Iranian people.'' In other words, regime change--regime 
change--the regime change he promised he would never undertake if he 
became President.
  Colleagues, we all know, every one of us, that the Iranian Government 
is a terrible regime, brutal to its own people, dangerous to the 
region. But we also learned from history that bombs don't turn 
dictatorships into democracies. And already, the Israeli and American 
strikes on Iran have produced mass civilian casualties. We have already 
seen reports of hospitals being bombed. In one strike alone, at least 
175 civilians were killed at an elementary school, most of them 
schoolgirls, which has the hallmarks of a war crime.
  These killings should not be a surprise, especially when Secretary 
Hegseth said this morning that the operation would have ``no stupid 
rules of engagement.'' That is what the Secretary of Defense said--
anything goes.
  This is not a way to bring solidarity and support from the Iranian 
people. When we and the Israelis take out a country's leadership, we 
have no idea what will emerge next. In fact, back in 1953, the United 
States and the United Kingdom backed a coup against a democratically 
elected leader in Iran that enabled the Shah of Iran to consolidate 
power in the country. Some people thought that served American 
interests at the time. Instead, it became one of the primary drivers of 
the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the creation of the Islamic Republic 
and its ideology.
  So beware what you ask for. Indeed, according to public reports, the 
CIA assessed that the most likely scenario if the Supreme Leader were 
killed was that more radical elements of the IRGC would take power in 
Iran.
  This does not advance America's interests in the region or the world. 
It will not make us safer. It will make the world less safe for 
America.
  And is it now the policy of the United States to go to war against 
every regime we hate? Colleagues, that is going to cost a lot of 
American lives and treasure. And that is presumably why Trump and Vance 
had previously been opposed to regime change and wars of choice.
  So beware what we ask for when we open up Pandora's box. Have we not 
learned the lessons of Iraq? The Iraq war cost the lives of 8,000 
American soldiers and contractors. It cost trillions of dollars in 
taxpayer money. The war upended the region, killed hundreds of 
thousands of Iraqi civilians, and helped spawn ISIS. It was the worst 
U.S. foreign policy blunder in a generation.

  The big winner from the war in Iraq? Iran. Iran was the big winner.
  So now Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says this war against Iran is 
something he has ``yearned to do for 40 years.'' Well, he got the war 
he wanted from Donald Trump. But there is a reason past Presidents have 
not started wars against Iran, and that is because they have refused to 
risk American lives and open Pandora's box for a regime change war when 
they had no idea how it would end.
  This war is rapidly turning into a conflict that we feared--a 
widespread, escalatory regional war with no end in sight. Iran has 
retaliated to U.S. and Israeli attacks by attacking U.S. assets and 
bases in every Arab country in the Persian Gulf, as well as targets in 
Israel, resulting in a further loss of lives. This includes drones and 
missile strikes on civilian infrastructure throughout the region. And 
just last night, Hezbollah joined the fray, launching missiles into 
Israel, prompting airstrikes from Israel into Beirut and across 
Lebanon.
  This is not ``America First,'' and we have no idea where it is going. 
What we do know is that the Framers of our Constitution never 
envisioned this to be allowed under our system of government. It is why 
the Framers, in our Constitution, gave Congress the power to declare 
war. They didn't want to give that power to one person. They didn't 
want to give that power to somebody like Donald Trump, who has said 
publicly that the only thing constraining his power is ``my own 
morality, my own mind.'' That is what Donald Trump has said.
  Colleagues in the Senate, you must understand that that is not what 
the Constitution requires. The Constitution requires Congress to act to 
declare war. So it is more important than ever that Congress stand up 
for the Constitution and that Congress insist that the President cannot 
continue these hostilities without approval from Congress. He shouldn't 
have started them without the approval of Congress.
  So the resolution before us asks a simple question: Do you support 
the Constitution of the United States and the role it gives to the U.S. 
Congress--that role to declare war?
  Do you believe that we, the people's elected representatives in the 
House and Senate, should have a voice in whether American lives--and 
specifically the lives of the members of our Nation's Armed Forces--are 
put at grave risk?
  Do you believe that this regime change war of choice that Donald 
Trump promised he would never launch serves American interests or makes 
our Nation safer?
  The American people do not want this war, and the Constitution 
entrusts the power to declare war with the U.S. Congress. Let's not 
surrender that responsibility.
  I urge my colleagues to support the War Powers Resolution and vote 
yes.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.

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