Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Tuesday that the U.S. Senate had finally fulfilled its constitutional duty after lawmakers voted 50-48 to direct President Donald Trump to end U.S. military action against Iran, marking the first time in the history of the War Powers Act that both chambers of Congress have passed a resolution ordering a sitting president to halt hostilities.
In a post on X published at 5:14 p.m. on June 23, 2026, Sanders wrote that “Congress finally did what should have been done months ago: voted to demand Trump end his war with Iran.” He added that “the Constitution is clear: Presidents cannot unilaterally take us to war. That’s the responsibility of Congress,” before concluding, “About time Congress finally accepted its responsibility.”
The Senate vote followed the House’s passage of the same resolution earlier this month by a 215-208 margin, with four Republicans joining every Democrat in favor. In the Senate, Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska crossed party lines to support the measure, while Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania voted against it. Republicans Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and David McCormick of Pennsylvania did not vote.
A Position Sanders Has Held Since the War Began
Sanders’ Tuesday statement was consistent with a position he has staked out since the conflict erupted. On February 28, 2026, the day the United States and Israel launched their initial strikes on Iran, Sanders released a statement declaring that “President Trump, along with his right-wing extremist Israeli ally Benjamin Netanyahu, has begun an illegal, premeditated and unconstitutional war,” and argued that “the U.S. Constitution is clear. It is the Congress that declares war, not a president acting unilaterally.” He called at the time for the Senate to “reconvene immediately and vote on a pending War Powers Resolution,” which he said he would “strongly support.”
Sanders followed that statement with direct legislative action. On June 16, 2026, he introduced the No War Against Iran Act alongside Sens. Peter Welch, Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley, Chris Van Hollen, Ed Markey, Tammy Baldwin and Tina Smith, a bill intended to prohibit the use of federal funds for military force in or against Iran without specific congressional authorization. “Our Founding Fathers entrusted the power of war and peace exclusively to the people’s elected representatives in Congress, and it is imperative that we make clear that the President has no authority to embark on another costly war without explicit authorization by Congress,” Sanders said in a statement announcing the bill. He added that “another war in the Middle East could cost countless lives, waste trillions more dollars and lead to even more deaths, more conflict, and more displacement,” and pledged to “do everything that I can as a Senator to defend the Constitution and prevent the U.S. from being drawn into another war.”
Sanders has a long history of pairing with Republican colleagues on war powers efforts predating the Iran conflict, having partnered with Sen. Mike Lee of Utah on the 2019 War Powers Resolution that sought to end U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen — a measure that passed both chambers of Congress before being vetoed by Trump during his first term.
A Largely Symbolic but Historic Rebuke
According to Reuters, Tuesday’s Senate vote represented the first time both chambers of Congress had passed a resolution directing a president to remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities since the War Powers Resolution was enacted in 1973. While the measure is widely expected to remain largely symbolic, it amounted to a significant setback for Trump, who had previously enjoyed near-unanimous support from congressional Republicans.
The vote arrived as the Reuters/Ipsos poll released the same day found that only one in four Americans believe the war against Iran was worth its costs, and a majority of respondents expressed doubt that a ceasefire with Tehran would hold.
Under the 1973 War Powers Act, the concurrent resolution does not require the president’s signature, since lawmakers in 1973 designed the mechanism specifically to compel an end to military operations without presidential involvement. However, legal experts have noted that the constitutional standing of such resolutions remains unsettled, as no prior war powers measure had passed both chambers before, and a 1983 Supreme Court ruling held that similar resolutions generally must be presented to the president for signature or veto to carry legal force.
White House Pushes Back, Trump Calls Vote “Meaningless”
The White House moved swiftly to undercut the resolution’s significance. A White House official said Tuesday that the Senate vote carries no legal weight because such resolutions do not go to the president and have no force of law, adding that the measure passed only because two Republican senators were absent. The official also argued that the resolution’s directive to remove forces from hostilities is moot, since the administration maintains that hostilities were terminated by a ceasefire ordered on April 7, 2026.
Trump addressed the vote directly in a Truth Social post published Tuesday night at 9:39 p.m., writing in part that he had Iran “on the ‘ropes,'” and that the Senate’s vote was “poorly timed and meaningless.” He wrote that the vote told “the Number One Sponsor of Terror in the World that the United States doesn’t like what I am doing to them, and I must stop,” which he said “provided aid and comfort the Enemy.” Trump singled out the four Republicans who voted for the measure, calling them “Four Republican Losers” who “voted with the Dumocrats,” and said the vote “made my job more difficult, but I will get it done, one way or the other, because I always get it done.”
Democrats Frame Vote as Constitutional Duty
Other Democrats echoed Sanders’ framing of the vote as an overdue assertion of legislative authority. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who has led several of the chamber’s war powers efforts this year, said in a floor speech urging support for the measure that “Congress has to own this responsibility.” Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, who sponsored the House version of the resolution, said he views the measure as binding on the administration and would pursue “all legal avenues” to ensure compliance.
Scott Anderson, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and senior editor of the legal publication Lawfare, said the broader legal question is likely to be resolved in the courts rather than through the resolution itself, noting that “the executive branch will likely ignore it on constitutional grounds” and that it remains unclear who would have standing to sue to enforce it.
What Comes Next
Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said Tuesday that he expects Congress to review and vote on any eventual Iran peace agreement, a process separate from the war powers resolution that would be triggered under a 2015 law passed during the Obama administration’s negotiation of the original Iran nuclear deal. Democratic lawmakers have also signaled they intend to force additional war powers votes in the weeks ahead, with the stated goal of compelling more Republicans to go on record on the conflict ahead of the November midterm elections.
The vote comes as the Trump administration is also expected to ask Congress to authorize tens of billions of dollars to fund the broader war effort, a request that is likely to reignite the same partisan and intraparty tensions that shaped Tuesday’s vote.