Democrats Take Both Chambers, Gain War-Powers Leverage — SkimNews
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Democrats won majorities in the House and Senate in Tuesday's midterm elections, with "stunning upsets" in races nationwide, and will control the appropriations committees in both chambers — which draft the annual military and foreign aid spending bills — once the new Congress is sworn in early next year.
- Brian Finucane, a senior advisor at the International Crisis Group, says attaching a funding prohibition to a must-pass funding bill is the most effective "mechanism for forcing an end" to either the Iran war or the boat strikes, pointing to 1973, when Congress nearly forced a government shutdown to end Nixon's bombing of Cambodia.
- Boat strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels near Latin America are illegal under both domestic and international law, according to experts — an assessment shared by leading congressional Democrats.
- Joshua Shifrinson says U.S. bases in the Gulf, heavily hit by Iran, will need to be rebuilt or moved elsewhere — "an appropriations issue 101" — and that the same funding lever applies to Trump's plans to reduce the U.S. military footprint in Europe, a cut Democrats oppose alongside the White House's weak support for Kyiv and steps to ease penalties on Moscow.
- Robert Garcia, set to become chair of the House Oversight Committee, has pledged to investigate the Trump family for alleged crimes and issued a blunt warning: "Lawyer up." Shifrinson expects hearings on Iran war oversight and foreign influence over U.S. policy, and Finucane says the administration's Venezuela dealings, including the oil sector, face particularly aggressive oversight.
- Pete Hegseth sits at the top of the list of administration officials Democrats may target with impeachment proceedings; Iran war hearings would spotlight the administration and Republican Party, and Trump has conceded the war was a "piece" of why the GOP lost.
- Trump has said he will veto Democratic legislation and is expected to keep leaning on executive orders; overriding a veto requires a two-thirds supermajority in both the House and Senate, which Democrats are unlikely to assemble amid the country's political divide.
Why it matters: With both chambers' appropriations committees under Democratic control, a funding rider on must-pass legislation — the 1973 shutdown tactic aimed at Nixon over Cambodia — becomes a live lever on the Iran war and boat strikes. Trump can still veto legislation, and overriding him needs a two-thirds supermajority in both chambers, so this is bargaining power, not command.
Ask SkimNews
