Democrats Win Congress, Target Trump’s Iran War — SkimNews
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- Democrats won House and Senate majorities in Tuesday's midterm elections with "stunning upsets in races nationwide," taking control of the appropriations committees in both chambers and the powerful oversight committees after the new Congress is sworn in early next year.
- Brian Finucane, a senior advisor at the International Crisis Group, said attaching a funding prohibition to a must-pass appropriations bill is the most effective "mechanism for forcing an end" to the Iran war or the "lawless boat strikes," pointing to the 1973 near-government-shutdown over Nixon's bombing of Cambodia as a model; experts and leading congressional Democrats say those boat strikes are illegal under domestic and international law.
- Joshua Shifrinson, a University of Maryland professor, said U.S. bases in the Gulf "are going to need to be rebuilt or moved elsewhere" because they have been "heavily hit by Iran," and that the appropriations process gives Democrats leverage over Trump's plans to cut the U.S. military footprint in Europe and Ukraine aid; Senate Democrats can also block or delay national security nominees.
- Robert Garcia, set to become chair of the House Oversight Committee, pledged to investigate the Trump family for alleged crimes and issued a blunt warning: "Lawyer up."
- Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, sits at the top of the list of possible targets for impeachment proceedings, with hearings on the decisions and failures surrounding the Iran war putting both the administration and the Republican Party in the spotlight ahead of the 2028 election.
- War Powers Resolution — the 1973 law — "unfortunately failed to stop Trump from embarking upon this military misadventure" with Iran, according to Finucane, who said Democrats need to lay the groundwork for structural reform even though such legislation would likely be vetoed.
- Trump has said he will veto Democratic legislation and has continued leaning on executive orders even under Republican control, and the two-thirds supermajority needed to override a veto is unlikely to materialize; he also conceded the Iran war was "a piece" of why the GOP lost.
Why it matters: Democrats now hold the appropriations committees in both chambers, the same lever congressional Democrats used in 1973 to nearly shut down the government over Nixon's bombing of Cambodia. Trump has conceded the Iran war was "a piece" of why Republicans lost, giving the new majority concrete grounds to attach a funding ban to must-pass legislation.
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