House Republican leaders canceled a scheduled Thursday vote on a Democratic war powers resolution that would have compelled President Trump to withdraw from the conflict with Iran, a move that came only after GOP whip counts showed the resolution was on track to pass, the Associated Press reported.
The delay pushes the vote into June and buys Republican leadership time to shore up its ranks. But it also exposes a widening rift inside the House majority over the constitutional limits of presidential war-making, a rift Democrats are eager to exploit heading into Memorial Day weekend.
House Republican Leader Steve Scalise told reporters the vote was delayed to give absent lawmakers a chance to participate. House Speaker Mike Johnson offered no explanation at all, walking past reporters without answering questions as he left the chamber. The contrast between the two responses tells its own story: leadership knew the numbers weren't there, and the only option was to buy time.
The war powers resolution, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, would compel the president to withdraw from the Iran conflict. Lawmakers have said the concurrent resolution would take effect without Trump's signature if both chambers passed it.
Last week, a similar House resolution nearly passed, falling only on a tie vote. Three Republicans crossed the aisle to vote in favor. This time, Democratic Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, who voted against the resolution last week, said he would switch to supporting it, a shift that effectively tipped the math against Republican leadership.
The pattern in the Senate has been similar. Earlier this week, the Senate advanced its own war powers resolution to a final vote, with four GOP senators voting in favor and three others absent. Republicans have been working to delay the Senate's final vote into June as well, hoping to prevent a bipartisan rebuke of the president's military authority.
At the center of the dispute is the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the Vietnam-era statute that gives presidents 60 days to engage in military conflict before Congress must either declare war or authorize the use of military force. Trump launched the Iran campaign more than two months ago without congressional approval. Republicans who back the resolution argue the statutory clock has expired.
Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania made the point plainly:
"We're past 60 days so it's got to be brought to us to vote on. We're following the law."
Fitzpatrick said he plans to vote for the war powers resolution. He is not alone among Republicans who see this as a matter of legal obligation rather than political opposition to the president.
The Trump administration has pushed back, arguing the requirements of the 1973 law no longer apply because of a ceasefire with Iran. Trump himself has argued the statute is unconstitutional, a position held by presidents of both parties over the decades but never fully resolved by the courts. That legal ambiguity is what makes the current standoff so consequential. If both chambers pass the resolution and the White House refuses to comply, the dispute could land in federal court.
Trump has previously notified Congress that Iran hostilities had ended, an assertion that critics say was designed to sidestep the war powers deadline entirely.
Democrats wasted no time framing the canceled vote as an act of political cowardice. Meeks accused Republican leaders of playing games with the schedule to avoid an embarrassing floor loss.
"We had the votes without question and they knew it, and as a result they're playing a political game."
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and other caucus leaders issued a joint statement tying the delay to Memorial Day:
"Even as we prepare to recognize our nation's fallen heroes on Memorial Day, House Republicans refuse to show up and be accountable to the brave service members that have been recklessly put in harm's way."
Democratic Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state argued that public opinion was shifting against the war and pulling Republican members with it. "People are beginning to finally listen to the American people who don't support the war in Iran," Smith said, "and I think there's a growing number of Republicans who see how devastating the war has been for our country."
On Wednesday, Democratic senators rallied outside the Capitol alongside VoteVets, a left-leaning veterans' advocacy group. They placed signs on the Capitol lawn highlighting the nationwide average gasoline price: $4.53 a gallon. The stalemate in the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted global shipping, and Democrats are betting that pain at the pump will do more to erode Republican support for the war than any floor speech.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat and Iraq War veteran who served in the Air National Guard, put it bluntly: "Trump started a war, and he's made things worse than before."
Not every Republican is wavering. Rep. Brian Mast, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, defended the president's decision to strike Iran and showed no appetite for retreat.
"I'm an American. I don't believe in getting hit and walking away and pretending as though it didn't happen."
That sentiment reflects the view of most House Republicans, who have consistently backed Trump's military posture. Earlier in the conflict, both the House and Senate rejected war powers resolutions, giving the president broad latitude. The fact that the same body now appears ready to reverse course shows how quickly the political ground has shifted as the conflict drags on and gas prices climb.
The Senate has followed a parallel track. Republicans there have repeatedly blocked war powers resolutions aimed at halting Trump's Iran operation. But the margins have narrowed each time, and the four GOP defections this week suggest the firewall is thinning.
Even Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who voted against the war powers resolutions, expressed frustration with the administration's handling of the conflict. Tillis directed his criticism squarely at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: "The current status quo, Pete Hegseth demonstrates how incompetent he is." Tillis added that he would be willing to vote for a formal authorization for the use of military force, a signal that some Republicans want Congress to assert its war-making authority without necessarily ending the campaign.
The president's own messaging has complicated the political picture. Earlier this week, Trump said he was an hour away from ordering another strike on Iran but held off because Gulf allies said they were engaged in negotiations to end the war. He has set deadlines for Tehran and then backed off from them.
At the same time, Trump posted on social media that the United States should "be prepared to go forward with a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment's notice, in the event that an acceptable Deal is not reached." The oscillation between restraint and escalation has left members of his own party uncertain about the administration's endgame, and increasingly willing to assert Congress's constitutional role.
Iran's willingness to put a chokehold on commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has compounded the economic pressure. With gas prices at $4.53 and no clear resolution in sight, the political incentives for Republican defection grow by the week.
Republican leaders now face a June deadline they created for themselves. The delay buys a few weeks, but it does not change the underlying math. If Golden follows through on his pledge to switch his vote, and if the same three Republicans who crossed party lines last week hold firm, the resolution passes the House.
In the Senate, Republican leadership is working to dismiss the resolution before it reaches a final vote. But with four GOP senators already on record in support and three others absent from the last count, the outcome is far from certain. A string of prior Democratic attempts to restrict Trump's war powers failed in the Senate, but each successive vote has drawn more Republican support.
If both chambers eventually pass the concurrent resolution, the legal and constitutional questions become unavoidable. The White House has signaled it considers the 1973 statute unconstitutional. Congress would argue the resolution takes effect without a presidential signature. The result could be a separation-of-powers confrontation with no modern precedent.
For now, the canceled vote is a tactical retreat, not a resolution. Republican leaders avoided a floor loss on Thursday. They did not avoid the underlying problem: a war that has stretched past its legal window, gas prices that keep climbing, and a growing number of their own members who believe the Constitution means what it says about who gets to authorize a fight.
Congress wrote the War Powers Resolution for exactly this kind of moment. The question is whether enough members of both parties have the nerve to enforce it, or whether delay is the only strategy leadership has left.