U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) accused Senate Republicans on Sunday of squandering an opportunity to end President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, arguing that the GOP’s continued opposition to War Powers Resolutions has left American families to absorb the financial toll of a conflict now in its seventh month.
“If Republicans were serious about bringing an end to Trump’s war in Iran, they would have joined me this week in voting to end it. Instead, they chose to let this war continue and jack up your costs,”
Baldwin wrote in her post on X on Sunday, September 27, 2026, at 5:41 p.m.
Background
The Wisconsin Democrat’s post follows a Senate floor speech she delivered on September 24, 2026, ahead of a vote on her War Powers Resolution to end the war, in which she made the case that the conflict needed to stop immediately.
Nearly all Senate Republicans voted against that measure — the 13th time the chamber has rejected a resolution to halt the war since President Trump launched military operations against Iran on February 28, 2026.
The Cost of the Conflict
Baldwin’s floor speech came just days after the Pentagon estimated that the war has cost American taxpayers more than $45 billion, according to her office. She also cited record-high diesel prices in Wisconsin, which she said had climbed above $6.60 per gallon.
In recent weeks, Baldwin traveled across Wisconsin to speak with small businesses, farmers, restaurateurs, and working families about how the war’s economic fallout has affected their finances. She has also pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on what she has described as a lack of military preparedness that contributed to service member injuries and deaths.
A Sustained Campaign Since February
Baldwin’s opposition to the war dates to its opening days. Immediately after the initial U.S. strikes on Iran on February 28, 2026, she released a statement condemning the military action as unauthorized and demanding that Trump seek congressional approval before continuing.
She has since co-sponsored the No War Against Iran Act, which would bar the use of federal funds for military action against Iran without specific congressional authorization, and has repeatedly taken to the Senate floor in support of War Powers Resolutions aimed at reining in the administration.
At the roughly 60-day mark of the war, Baldwin argued that Trump lacked the constitutional authority to launch the campaign. “The President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to use military force if we are under attack, or imminent threat of attack. Nothing like that was present when President Trump decided to go to war in Iran,” she said.
In a press call reported by the Wisconsin Examiner, Baldwin called the conflict “yet another broken promise from this president who pledged to end foreign conflicts, not start them,” adding that “President Trump may have forgotten the lessons we learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Wisconsinites have not.”
Coalition of Democratic Senators
Baldwin has not pursued the effort alone. Since the war began, she and Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) have each introduced separate War Powers Resolutions, which are privileged under Senate rules and can be forced to a floor vote by any senator after ten calendar days of filing.
The group has pledged to continue forcing votes until Senate Republican leadership agrees to hold public hearings with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth under oath. In one joint statement, Baldwin said, “Donald Trump is breaking laws and breaking his promises to the American people. Instead of an affordable country at peace, costs are up and we are careening into another open-ended war.”
Ceasefire Instability
The senators’ push has intensified amid a fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran that has repeatedly come under strain. Ahead of one vote in April, Baldwin noted rising tensions in the Strait of Hormuz after U.S. forces boarded and seized an Iranian vessel, while Iran moved to close the strait to traffic.
“The ceasefire, which is being broken left and right, expires in less than two days, and Congress now must do its job to end this illegal war of choice before the President ramps it up again,” Baldwin said at the time, adding that 13 service members had been killed and hundreds more injured.
Democratic Colleagues Echo the Criticism
Baldwin is not the only Senate Democrat to frame the war as a broken campaign promise. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), reacting to the initial strikes on February 28, said that “too many Americans believed [Trump] when he promised that he would get our nation out of foreign wars and bring prices down for families,” adding that they “can clearly see with their own eyes that he was lying.”
Midterm Backdrop
Baldwin’s latest statement lands roughly six weeks before the 2026 midterm elections, in which control of both chambers of Congress is at stake. Prediction markets and polling averages compiled in recent weeks have shown Democrats favored to retake the House, with several forecasting models placing the party’s odds at roughly 85 percent, while the Senate remains a closer, seat-by-seat contest.
Analysts have pointed to rising costs, including gas and diesel prices tied to the war, as a central factor in that political environment, with House Democrats needing a net gain of only a handful of seats to reclaim the majority.
Outlook
With the war now more than seven months old and the Senate having rejected efforts to end it a baker’s dozen times, Baldwin has signaled that she and her Democratic colleagues intend to keep forcing votes. Her office has said the senators will continue doing so “until there are public hearings” on the administration’s handling of the conflict.
Whether that pressure campaign gains traction may depend on the political environment heading into November, as Republicans weigh the costs of continued military engagement against a midterm map that current forecasts suggest favors Democrats.