Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp tracks the historic concurrent war powers resolutions

Curtis Blankinship: This is Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp from antiwar.com. 

Presenter: From the Antiwar News for June 21, Dave DeCamp:

Dave DeCamp (Antiwar.com): ‘House Votes This Week on Ending Support for Israel’s War on Lebanon.’

So the House is expected to vote this week on a war powers resolution to end U.S. support for Israel’s war in Lebanon, which has been a major impediment to ending the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. 

So the bill introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib would end any U.S. participation in the war that has not been authorized by Congress, which would apply to U.S. intelligence sharing and other coordination regarding Israel’s occupation of Southern Lebanon and its attacks across the country.

According to just foreign policy, a memo from Tlaib’s office said that the Trump administration is violating the 1973 War Powers Act by personally approving and rejecting specific Israeli military operations in Lebanon and U.S. forces have been sharing intelligence used in military attacks and coordinating with the Israeli military throughout their war effort, as we have seen.

And, you know, the U.S. is deeply involved in this war, and it would apply to the things under the War Powers Act. I think it’s probably going to get less support than the Iran War Powers resolution, at least at the moment, just because this is an Israeli war and you know how much Congress loves supporting Israel’s wars here.

And you know, I can’t see Republicans voting for this besides Thomas Massie. And I could see some Democrats potentially opposing it. 

Presenter: From the Antiwar News for June 22, Dave DeCamp: 

Dave DeCamp: ‘Poll Says That Americans Want Iran War Over.’ 

So this is just an article from Newsmax here that they wrote up this CBS news poll, and it found that 78% of Americans want the war ended. Now, the war with Iran, compared to 22% who want the conflict to continue, despite the Trump administration’s stated goals in launching the war only 31%. The U.S. has permanently, only 31% believe that the U.S. has permanently halted Iran’s nuclear program.

The poll found that only 32% believed the war prevented Iran from invading other countries, 26% believe that it made the Iranian people safer and freer, and 21% believe it made Iran’s leadership more pro-U.S. I mean, how can anybody think that? But anyway, it’s just interesting because, so you have the vast majority here saying that they want the war to be over.

And also the majority of people don’t believe the U.S. achieved any objectives in this war. And it just goes to show that these, you know, objectives that Trump initially stated just weren’t, are not important to your average American. 

So it’s just kind of a, you know, the polling has shown such strong opposition to this war since it started, which is very different from, you know, previous conflicts that we’ve seen, like the Iraq war, ’cause there was a sophisticated propaganda campaign and everything. 

But this (war), the polling has just shown again and again that this war is extremely unpopular. And Americans just want it to be over. And it says that 69% of respondents do not believe that the war was worth the costs to the U.S., including higher gas prices, while many said that it was unsuccessful in advancing U.S. strategic or economic interests. 

Presenter: From the Antiwar news for June 23:

Dave DeCamp: Hey, this is Dave DeCamp from Antiwar.com and welcome to Antiwar News. And the first story at the top of Antiwar.com, Congress passes a war powers resolution to end the war with Iran.

So the Senate on Tuesday approved a House-passed concurrent war powers resolution directing President Trump to end hostilities against Iran, marking the first time Congress has approved a concurrent resolution under the 1973 War Powers Act, directing the termination of an unauthorized war. So this is actually very significant.

The media is not covering it properly. And we have seen in previous years where Congress has passed joint resolutions, joint war powers resolutions, which were then vetoed. 

The one that I have in mind was back in 2019 when Congress passed one to end U.S. support for the Saudi War in Yemen, the brutal, horrific war that was happening there at the time. And that was vetoed by President Trump. 

But this is a concurrent resolution, which is the specific legislative mechanism that is supposed to be used under the War Powers Act to reassert Congress’s war powers over the executive. 

And again, this really just does not get covered properly in our media. You always see even in the headlines saying that this is symbolic, that it’s non-binding, but this is what the War Powers Act says. 

It states that ‘at any time that United States armed forces are engaged in hostilities outside the territory of the United States, its possessions and territories without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization, such forces shall be removed by the president if the Congress so directs by concurrent resolution,’ 

So under U.S. law, if Congress passes one of these things, then the President is required to withdraw forces from unauthorized hostilities. And now—

Well, first we’ll get into the vote here. So the bill passed in a vote of 50-48. Four Republicans—Senators Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and Bill Cassidy—all supported it. John Fetterman, the only Democrat who voted against it, he has opposed every effort to end this war with Iran. 

So now of course, Trump administration officials will claim that this is meaningless, that this vote doesn’t mean anything for a few reasons. You know, they’ll make this claim. And one of them is the fact that there’s a ceasefire and negotiations happening. 

But proponents of the war powers effort here say that the passage of this concurrent resolution means that the administration is now legally bound not to restart the war without congressional authorization. So this, you know, this is again, a significant step here.

Of course, it would’ve been nice if they passed this a few weeks ago, a few months ago when this thing was really raging.

And it is interesting that it passed 50-48. Two Republicans were absent, Mitch McConnell and Dave McCormick. If they were there, it probably would’ve been a tie that would’ve been broken by J.D. Vance, but it was able to go through and while again, it’s not really getting much media coverage and the media coverage that it is getting is not representing this properly, this is a historic vote. 

This is the first time since the 1973 War Powers Act was passed that Congress passed a concurrent resolution that according to U.S. law requires the President to end whatever war they passed the resolution about. In this case it’s Iran and, while we have seen these negotiations and everything happening, and Trump really changing his tune. 

He still has been making threats to restart the war or reimpose the blockade on Iran, which, of course, is ‘hostilities.’ And there is the chance of all of this falling apart. So I think it’s good that this happened. I think that this could add to the pressure on the administration to, to actually end this war. 

Unfortunately, one thing we’re seeing from the Democrats is now they’re all attacking Trump for not achieving any of his goals, which I mean is a fair criticism, but they’re, they’re clearly using it to try to, they’re, they’re just attacking him for deciding to end the war basically. so. You know, and that’s really not helpful.

But at least we saw this pass here. And, and even though again people don’t seem to really be taking note of this, I think it is very significant. and I saw, you know, Ro Khanna who sponsored the bill in the House earlier this month, he’s made the argument that, you know, if this war powers resolution has passed, he said that he’s going to urge leadership to bring a court case to enforce the Iran war powers resolution. 

So this gives the Congress a lot of legal ability here to force an end to the war, say if it restarts, or to prevent Trump from starting it in the first place. 

Presenter: From the Antiwar News for June 25:

Dave DeCamp: All right, so the next one here, ‘Massie Moves To Strike $3.3 Billion In Israel Aid.’

So this article is from Annelle Sheline at Responsible Statecraft, and she was actually one of the State Department officials to resign from the Biden administration over the genocide in Gaza. 

So the House Rules Committee has advanced an amendment by Rep. Thomas Massie to strip $3.3 billion in funding for the Israeli Defense Forces from the federal budget.

So trying to strip military aid for Israel. and obviously this doesn’t have a chance of passing, but, it’s great that he’s doing this because and apparently there’s a lot of debate among Democrats about what they should do because they know that their voter base would want them to vote in favor of cutting off the Israeli military aid. and so it’ll be interesting to see the vote putting everybody on record, you know, after all these atrocities that this military aid has supported in recent years. 

Where are you going to vote? And when it just comes up for a simple yes or no, do you want to keep giving it to them? And you know, I think for some of the Democrats worried about reelection and things, you know, we might see more vote in favor of this than, than we would expect.

Presenter: From the Antiwar News for June 28: 

Dave DeCamp: Rep. Ro Khanna, Democrat from California, said on Saturday that President Trump’s renewed strikes on Iran are a violation of the war powers resolution that has been passed by both the House and the Senate.

This is what he wrote on X: “These strikes are a blatant violation of the war powers resolution that we passed. Trump must stop this war now, or we will take him to court to compel him to do so. 

So last week, as I covered, the Senate passed a war powers resolution, a concurrent resolution. The details might be confusing, but it’s important to understand that there’s two types of war powers resolutions, concurrent and a joint resolution. 

And Congress has passed joint resolutions before in 2019 to end U.S. involvement in Yemen. And then in 2020 after Trump killed Soleimani to prevent a war with Iran and Trump vetoed both of them. 

A concurrent resolution does not require the president’s signature and the 1973 War Powers Act states that if Congress passes a concurrent war powers resolution, the president must remove forces that are engaged in unauthorized hostilities, you know, right when that happens. 

So, according to U.S. law, this thing was passed. Trump has to remove forces from hostilities with Iran. And he just bombed them. So it’s a clear violation of this war powers resolution. The problem is not enough members of Congress are pushing this and one thing that Trump did, so, and he’s thoroughly confused everybody.

‘Cause I heard from a few people saying, but didn’t they vote against, didn’t they then vote against it? The Republicans flipped their vote. So two days after this concurrent resolution that passed through the House, it was passed through the Senate. The Senate voted again on another war powers resolution.

This was actually a joint resolution and, and they killed it in a vote of 47 in favor to 50 against. And Trump got Rand Paul and I believe one other Republican to flip their vote, you know, saying, ‘Oh, you know, we’re going to give President Trump space to negotiate.’ 

But them voting against that war powers resolution does not negate the concurrent resolution that was passed. You know, they’re trying to play a game here. But this concurrent resolution was passed and under the law it should be enforced. It should be enforceable. Congress should be able to take the president, the executive, to court and force him to end this war.

You know, unfortunately with the Democratic leadership, a lot of this is just optics. They want to oppose Trump, but don’t really want to oppose the war. They know that it hurts him politically. They know that, you know, a lot of them are also just like Chuck Schumer, very pro-Israel and want to do this war because that’s what Israel wants.

So hopefully more members of Congress get on board with this. And a big problem is the way the media does not cover this correctly at all. They say this is just symbolic, which it’s not, under the law. The wording is very strong and very clear of what a concurrent war powers resolution should do. 

Presenter: From the Antiwar News for June 29, Dave DeCamp:

Dave DeCamp: So the House is expected to vote on a war powers resolution on Tuesday meant to end U.S. support for Israel’s war in Lebanon, which continues despite several announcements of a ceasefire and a recent agreement signed between Israel and the Lebanese government.

It is H. Con. Res. 108 to end U.S. involvement in the war, which has killed more than 4,200 people in Lebanon since March 2. And it’s one of the main threats to the implementation of the MOU, though there’s a lot of other issues at this point now. 

So earlier this month, the House did vote on a Lebanon war powers resolution that was introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Democratic leadership did not support it. They had a problem with the language suggesting that it could impede U.S. support for Lebanon’s military and, you know, the U.S. presence at the embassy, the huge embassy compound in Beirut. So that one failed in a vote of 92 to 324. 

Ninety-one Democrats and Thomas Massie voted in support of it, but now this one has the support of the House leadership, and this would direct President Trump to remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities in Lebanon, and it states that nothing in the resolution may be construed to prevent or limit security cooperation with the Lebanese armed forces or the protection of diplomatic facilities.

That’s the language that the Dem leadership wanted, and this is another concurrent resolution, which means it doesn’t require the president’s signature. 

So this will be interesting vote to see, and hopefully, you know, I think it has a chance, but I’m more skeptical of this than the Iran war powers resolution passing, just because this is an Israeli war and these, you know, these people love supporting Israeli wars.

And, I mean, I know the war with Iran was as well, but even the Democrats who were opposing that kind of to oppose Trump, this is more explicitly an opposition to something Israel is doing. But hopefully—hopefully it passes. 

Presenter: From the anti-war news for June 30, Dave DeCamp.

So the House voted on Tuesday on the War Powers Resolution and U.S. support for the war in Lebanon. And it failed, but it got a lot more votes than the last one. It failed in a vote of 189 to 235. The last one, I think just got 92 votes in favor, so a big swing.

And as I said yesterday, this is a vote explicitly against an Israeli war. And I think there’s members of Congress that are much less likely to vote against an Israeli war than vote against a U.S. war, even though this is a U.S. war, to some extent, obviously.

But so only two Republicans voted in favor of it. One was Thomas Massie, who consistently votes yes on bills to end wars, and the other one was Lauren Boebert from Colorado.

And when I saw her name, I said, ‘Oh, wow, maybe she’s going to start voting good on these things.’ But then I saw a reporter named Caitlyn Kim, who’s a reporter for CPR News, which is a Colorado outlet, Boebert’s from Colorado. According to her, Boebert said that her vote was a mistake and that she meant to vote ‘No.’ So. I guess she’s not changing her position after all.

And then 22 Democrats voted against it even though this bill was actually supported by Democratic leadership, ’cause they changed the language of the one that Rashida Tlaib introduced earlier this month that got only the 92 votes.

So they lost, which is kind of what I expected, but there was more ‘Yes’ votes than I expected.

So, the thing that I’m really looking forward to this week, I’m not sure what day it’s going to happen, is a vote that Massie, the amendment that he tacked onto the NDAA though actually now I don’t, I don’t know if that vote’s going to happen ’cause the NDAA has been delayed.

But, anyway, it’s a vote on Israel aid—on cutting off $3.3 billion to Israel. And I know the Democrats are really sweating that because, I mean, you look at the polls among Democratic voters, like, there’s just no support for Israel. It’s just totally gone, like a very small percentage.

But you know their donors, a lot of them still want them to support, you know, their big donors, and in a lot of cases still want the Democrats to support Israel. So it’ll be interesting to see the results of that vote when it happens.

So that is it for the news for today at antiwar.com, antiwar.com/donate. Let’s pray for peace and hope for some good news. Thanks for listening.

Curtis Blankinship: For KEPW News, I’m Curtis Blankinship.

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