House votes to limit Trump's power to strike Iran for 3rd time
Caitlin Yilek
Updated Tue, September 15, 2026 at 10:46 PM EDT
Washington — For the third time, the House voted Tuesday to block President Trump from taking further military action against Iran, with seven Republicans breaking with the president.
The vote ended in a 220 to 204 tally, marking a symbolic rebuke of the president over the largely unpopular war.
Tuesday's resolution drew more GOP support than the previous two efforts to limit Mr. Trump's war powers in June and July.
Three new Republicans voted yes — Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, plus Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn of Iowa — in addition to the four who supported the prior resolutions: Reps. Tom Barrett of Michigan, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
It's unclear whether the Senate plans to take up the measure in its last two scheduled weeks of session before the November elections. A war powers resolution that cleared the House in July has yet to see any movement in the Senate. Both chambers adopted another resolution in June, though the White House has argued against its validity.
The resolution, introduced by Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, directs the president "to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities with Iran."
Aug. 28 marked six months since the war began, and the Trump administration has yet to lay out an exit strategy as it seeks tens of billions in additional funding for the conflict that Mr. Trump initially predicted would last four to five weeks. The Pentagon has said Operation Epic Fury — the military's term for the initial strikes against Iran — ended in May, but the U.S. and Iran have continued to exchange fire for months, and a ceasefire intended to bring the war to an end fell apart in July. Oil shipments from the region are still constrained, keeping global energy prices high.
Mr. Trump has defended his strategy in Iran, arguing the conflict has degraded the country's military and predicting last week "the war will end immediately after the election."
Republicans are trying to provide up to $73 billion in new funding for the war through the party-line reconciliation process. The House adopted a budget blueprint in July to initiate the process, but it stalled in the Senate over the inclusion of funding for Mr. Trump's voting regulations bill known as the SAVE America Act.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released an analysis Tuesday that estimated the war with Iran could cost approximately $2 billion to $3 billion per month for as long as it continues. Between Feb. 28 and Aug. 1, the war is estimated to have directly cost the U.S. about $38 billion.
"The administration has yet to demonstrate that seven months of war have produced a lasting strategic resolution to the threats posed by Iran," Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said during floor debate Monday night.
Iranian strikes have damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings and other structures at bases across the Middle East, and caused about $184 million worth of damage at U.S. diplomatic facilities, according to a Pentagon watchdog report.
The inspector general's report to Congress on Operation Epic Fury - the Trump administration's name for the war with Iran - also details the extent of U.S. munitions shortages, in the first comprehensive public accounting of the war, which is now in its seventh month.
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The report, released Monday, covers operations through June 30. It contains input from the departments of Defense and State and other agencies to provide the most complete picture yet of the cost and military impact of the ongoing conflict.
Buildings and other structures at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan were damaged or destroyed in the war, the report stated, adding that U.S. diplomatic facilities in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also sustained damage.
The mounting costs of the war and impact on U.S. munitions stockpiles has already come under scrutiny. In July, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Senate hearing that the war has cost $37.5 billion and defended the administration's request for a further $67 billion to restock the Pentagon's arsenal and avoid looming budget shortfalls.
The latest report details how the war has "resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls" of munitions and "revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply."
It said the Defense Department is working to "streamline" procurement and production processes, as well as stockpile critical materials, components and munitions to mitigate the shortage. But while these efforts have begun, the defense industrial base requires "significant lead time" to expand production.
"The most persistent bottlenecks remain in the production of solid rocket motors, the availability of high-grade explosives and propellants, and the recruitment of skilled manufacturing labor," it states.
The expenditure of U.S. munitions is increasingly worrying U.S. allies and Pentagon officials in the Indo-Pacific region who fear the war in Iran could undermine readiness for a potential conflict with China. The weapons drain has become a source of tension between President Donald Trump and Hegseth, though Trump has denied U.S. weapons are running low.
On Monday, Trump touted U.S. weapons stockpiles in a post on Truth Social, saying he had received a report noting the U.S. is producing "more Exquisite and Elite Weapons than at any time in our History" that were being delivered to U.S. forces.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Tuesday in an emailed statement that the U.S. military has "more than enough munitions, ammo, and stockpiles to serve all of the Commander-in-Chief's strategic goals and beyond."
The Defense Department disputed the inspector general's findings and said the office did not have access to all relevant information. "We possess the full range of capabilities needed to project power and strike decisively whenever and wherever the President directs," the department said in a statement Tuesday.
The Washington Post reported in May that the U.S. had depleted much of its inventory of advanced missile-defense interceptors, using up roughly half of the Pentagon's total inventory of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, interceptors. The U.S. military also fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles in the first four weeks of war, a rate that has alarmed some Pentagon officials.
The extent of the munitions the U.S. has used during Operation Epic Fury illustrates the "magnitude and complexity" of the challenge posed by Iran, the report said, noting Iran's large armed forces, extensive underground facilities and decades of building a domestic defense industry.
The U.S. launched Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28 in joint strikes with Israel that killed Iran's leader at the time, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The war has now entered its seventh month, with Iran retaining leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for oil and gas flows from the Persian Gulf. A recent lightning offensive by Houthi rebels in Yemen, supported by Iran, has threatened to further imperil shipping through the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Dozens of U.S. aircraft have been damaged or destroyed during the operation, including four F-15E fighter jets, one F-35A damaged in enemy fire over Iran and several other aircraft and helicopters, the report said.
More than 50,000 U.S. service members have been deployed throughout U.S. Central Command's area of responsibility in support of the operation, the watchdog report said. A total of 18 have died, the report said, including several in July. It said 417 service members were wounded between Feb. 28 and June 30.
The State Department has also incurred about $113 million in costs, including nearly $80 million responding to events such as the evacuation of U.S. citizens and State Department personnel, the report said, adding that about 9,000 Americans have left the region on charter flights and buses.
The war has also had an "immediate negative impact" on U.S. assistance across the Middle East, including agriculture, food, health, nutrition and water sanitation, because of the departure of embassy staff, the report said.
Link:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/house-votes-limit-trumps-power-024634580.html