House Passes Third Iran War Powers Resolution, GOP Defections Grow to Seven

Since President Trump launched military operations against Iran on February 28, the House has now voted three separate times to try to force him out of the conflict. Tuesday's vote passed 220-204, according to CBS News, with seven Republicans crossing over, the largest GOP defection of the three attempts.

Four Republicans, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, had already backed the earlier resolutions in June and July. Tuesday added three new names: Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who is not running for reelection, and Iowa's Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, both of whom hold competitive seats, according to CNN and CBS News.

Nunn explained his vote on X: "I will not support another open-ended war. We can defend Americans, pressure Iran, and pursue peace while ensuring Congress fulfills its constitutional responsibility."

The resolution, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, directs Trump to remove U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran. It has no binding effect unless the Senate passes it too and Trump doesn't veto it, which he would almost certainly do. A version passed both chambers in June, but the White House disputed its validity. A July version passed the House and has sat untouched in the Senate since. Democrats plan to try again in the Senate later this week, though it's unclear if they have the votes after a GOP senator switched his position under White House pressure the last time it came close.

The Money and the Casualties

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report Tuesday putting the direct cost of the war at roughly $38 billion between February 28 and August 1, with ongoing costs running $2 billion to $3 billion a month, according to CBS News and Al Jazeera. The CBO projects the war will add 0.5 percentage points to inflation in the first quarter of 2027.

Diesel prices have climbed past $6 a gallon and gasoline is above $4.25, according to a statement from House New Democrat Coalition leadership, which also said 18 U.S. servicemembers have been killed and more than 800 wounded over the course of the conflict.

Trump initially predicted the war would last four to five weeks. Seven months later, the Pentagon says its initial strike campaign, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, ended in May, but the two countries have kept exchanging fire, and a ceasefire collapsed in July. Trump said last week the war will end "immediately after the election."

Republicans have been trying to push through up to $73 billion in additional war funding via the reconciliation process, but that effort stalled in the Senate over an unrelated fight involving Trump's SAVE America Act voting rules, according to CBS News.

The Other Side of the Argument

Not every Republican sees this as a war without justification. Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued during floor debate that Trump is ending, not starting, a forever war, according to Al Jazeera. "They are a continuous ongoing threat to the United States," Mast said of Iran. "Enough is enough." Mast pressed Democrats on which military resources they'd actually want withdrawn from a region he says still poses a direct threat.

The argument that walking away now would squander whatever military pressure has been applied and leave the region less stable is the core case war supporters have made all year. It reflects a legitimate strategic disagreement, even if 204 House Republicans voting against a withdrawal resolution doesn't mean all 204 agree with Mast's framing. Some simply won't cross Trump on a vote he's called a loyalty test, according to CNN.

Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on Foreign Affairs, countered that "the administration has yet to demonstrate that seven months of war have produced a lasting strategic resolution to the threats posed by Iran."

A CNN poll taken over the summer found 67% of respondents said Trump's Iran decisions have hurt the country.

Money Moving Elsewhere

While lawmakers argued over the war, Trump's political operation has been busy elsewhere. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that groups tied to Trump's $400 million super PAC, MAGA Inc., have reserved nearly $138 million in ads, mail and texts over the past ten days to defend Republican midterm candidates, spending heaviest in Senate races in Michigan, Ohio and Alaska and House races in New York's 17th District, Florida's 25th and Michigan's 4th. Two of the three groups involved were formed on September 1 by GOP operative Charles Gantt and have not yet had to disclose their donors.

None of the three super PACs' filings mention the Iran war specifically. But the spending arrives as Republicans head into the final stretch of the midterms carrying a war that polling shows a majority of the public blames Trump for making worse, and as more of his own party members peel away on the House floor than at any point since the fighting started.

The unresolved question is whether the Senate takes up this week's resolution at all, and whether the $73 billion reconciliation package for the war moves before Election Day or dies with the current Congress.