[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 15, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4098-S4100]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                  Iran

  Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, Donald Trump is dragging us back into war 
again, and no one is exactly sure why. He achieved almost none of his 
objectives that he set out at the beginning of war, while spending 
tens--if not hundreds--of billions of dollars and forcing Americans to 
pay more for everything, especially gas and groceries. It has been only 
a few days since the fighting resumed, and gas is already up to $4.89 
nationally and $5.44 in Hawaii. And the President can't be bothered to 
explain why we are at war again and what we are supposed to be getting 
out of it.
  So let's just go through his own stated objectives at the start of 
the war and see where we stand today.
  No. 1, regime change: ``There will be no deal with Iran except 
UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER''--all caps--Donald Trump said in the first 
week of war.
  He told the Iranians:

       When we are finished, take over your government. It will be 
     yours to take.

  How did that work out?
  The regime is intact. The regime is led by a younger ayatollah with 
the same last name, emboldened by the knowledge that they survived 
months of war against the world's greatest superpower. The Iranian 
opposition is weaker than it was before the war, and the Iranian people 
are no freer today.

[[Page S4099]]

  Look, regime change wars rarely ever end well. And the idea that 
Trump was going to be able to go in and quickly topple the regime, much 
like he did in Venezuela a month earlier, was always absurd. But he did 
it anyway.
  OK. Goal No. 2, no nuclear weapons: ``We will ensure that Iran does 
not obtain a nuclear weapon. . . . They will never have a nuclear 
weapon,'' Trump said on the day he launched the war.
  Now, it is true that heavy strikes last summer and the first phase of 
the war this spring have set back Iran's nuclear program. It is also 
true that in the memorandum of understanding--that has since fallen 
apart--Iran agreed to the same thing it agreed to under the JCPOA.
  Under the Obama nuclear agreement, we got all of this without having 
to go to war. And the criticism of the Obama agreement--and I was on 
the floor defending it--was that it didn't last long enough--not that 
it wasn't any good, but that it didn't last in perpetuity; that it was 
only good for 10 years.
  Now we have got nothing. Now we have got nothing.
  To that point, having repeatedly ruled out allowing any uranium 
enrichment and demanding that Iran turn over its uranium stockpile, 
Trump has changed his tune on both: ``It is a little hard''--``it is a 
little hard''--``when other people have it, other adjoining states have 
it, and you're not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and 
things like that.''
  This is Trump on uranium enrichment.
  On acquiring stockpiles, he said:

       You could make the case, why even bother? It's not very 
     valuable stuff.

  Why even bother?
  And that is the story of this war in a nutshell. Trump sets before us 
an impossible goal. And when it fails, he then moves the goalposts or 
backs down completely.
  The next goal, obliterating Iran's missiles:

       We're going to destroy their missiles and raze their 
     missile industry to the ground. It will be totally . . . 
     obliterated.

  He said that on February 28. But according to press reports, U.S. 
intelligence Agencies estimated that roughly 70 percent of Iran's pre-
war missile stockpile was still intact as of May. And just this week, 
Iran started firing missiles again at tankers in the Strait of Hormuz 
and at military bases across the Middle East, demonstrating both its 
leverage and its ability to continue fighting.
  OK. Well, what about the goal of cutting off Iran's funding for proxy 
groups?
  The administration has mostly stopped talking about it, and there was 
no mention of Iran's support for Hezbollah or other groups in the MOU. 
In fact, the MOU allowed Iran to sell its oil freely, even though 
Trump's own State Department told Congress that oil exports are a 
primary revenue source for Iran's financing of proxies.
  So all of the stated objectives of this war have not been met.
  Finally, how are they doing on keeping the Strait of Hormuz open and 
free?
  Well, it is closed again, and Trump and Iran are back and forth going 
at it over who gets control and who gets to charge tolls. To be clear, 
this was never a problem prewar. And so now the objective in ending 
this war is just to get to the status quo before the war.

  We went to war to eliminate their ballistic missile capability--not 
on the nuclear side. Not a success.
  We went to war to change the regime. Not only not a success, but a 
terrible failure. We have got a younger and more radical and entrenched 
Ayatollah in the regime of Iran. And now they know they can withstand 
our best hit.
  We went to war to eliminate their nuclear program; and not only did 
we not do that, but Donald Trump himself is kind of characterizing it 
like it is no big deal.
  And so now we are negotiating not for any of the reasons that were 
stated to put our servicemembers in harm's way and to spend tens of 
billions of dollars of taxpayer funding for this war and to raise the 
price of gasoline by a buck, buck fifty a gallon, to raise the price of 
fertilizer and plastics and natural gas and electronics--to raise the 
price of almost everything.
  We met none of our objectives, and now our objective is just to keep 
sea lanes open. Sea lanes were open. Sea lanes are always open. That is 
not a foreign policy objective of the United States of America in the 
sense that we have to work really hard to do it. Freedom of navigation 
is a basic principle that we enforce around the world, but we don't 
have to bomb anybody to get it.
  And so now the endgame is: Let's try to get the strait open and 
pretend that the reasons that we went to war were not the reasons that 
we went to war.
  And I think what is the most disgusting about all of this--you know, 
someone used to say: Armies don't go to war. Countries go to war. Now, 
why does that matter? You cannot go to war without the support of the 
American public. You cannot go to war without explaining to the 
American public what you are up to.
  And what happened many months ago was Donald Trump woke up one 
morning and said: I guess we are taking kinetic action against Iran. 
And people are finding: OK, sorry, what? What exactly are we doing and 
why?
  There was no buildup; there was no explaining; and most importantly 
for us as U.S. Senators, there was no vote on the authorization of the 
use of military force.
  Now, they are going to say that under the War Powers Resolution, they 
have this ability to basically take military action if there is an 
imminent threat to the safety of the United States of America. And then 
they would have 60 days, and it is kind of complicated exactly how it 
works.
  But what they have said now is that ``No, this isn't a war.'' That is 
No. 1.
  ``Oh, yeah. Sorry. It is a war, but we have 60 days.''
  ``Oh, the war is off because the MOU for the cease-fire is now being 
implemented.''
  And now the war is back on, and they are acting as if, as a legal 
matter, this new kinetic engagement is a second and separate war and 
the clock starts again and you have got 60 days again to delay Congress 
from weighing in.
  And this is not some procedural nicety. This isn't me as a 
politician, like, protecting my prerogatives. The reason this matters 
is the people's representatives in the Congress have to vote before we 
go to war. And there are some narrow exceptions. If we are in danger, 
you don't want to have to, like, assemble Congress if we are in 
immediate danger. Fine. We are not in immediate danger. We were never 
in immediate danger.
  If you want to claim that the ICBM array that the IRGC had was a 
danger to the United States, come down, at least testify before the 
Foreign Relations Committee and the Armed Services Committee, and then 
at least have a debate on the damn floor of the U.S. Senate.
  And it is worse than that because to the extent that we have had any 
votes at all, we actually have prevailed. A majority of Members of this 
body have said that this war should come to a conclusion.
  And so my Republican colleagues are saying: Hey, why don't we pass 
the Defense authorization? After all, it is a big bipartisan bill, and 
we always do it. That is true. We always do it.
  And I think 13 out of 14 years or 12 out of 13 years, I voted for the 
National Defense Authorization Act. And the reason I voted no yesterday 
is because I am not voting for a defense bill until this war is over, 
and I am not voting for a defense bill until we get to debate the most 
important thing happening in terms of our national defense. We are at 
war, and we are being prevented from even overseeing it. We are just 
asked to fork over tens and tens of billions of dollars without so much 
as weighing in on this is an authorization of the use of military 
force.
  The President, as the Commander in Chief of our military, may engage 
kinetically with another country. We have decided that. We have been 
elected. We have decided that.
  None of that happened. Why? Because they don't have the votes for 
that. Why do they not have the votes for that? Because this war is 
stupid, and the public knows it.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schmitt). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.

[[Page S4100]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.