Some congressional Democrats say they will not vote for a government funding bill that pays for the war in Iran, weighing whether to use the Dec. 11 funding deadline to force an end to the conflict before their party takes control of Congress in January.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) wrote on social media on Nov. 10 that he will not support a government funding bill unless it defunds the war.
“The American people have spoken loud and clear: They want us to end Trump’s illegal and senseless war,” he wrote.
Current government funding runs out on Dec. 11. Republicans hold 53 Senate seats until the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3, so they would need at least seven Democratic votes to pass a funding bill to overcome any filibuster.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the vice chair and top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a floor speech on Nov. 10 that a Democratic Congress means President Donald Trump “is absolutely not getting his $1.5 trillion war budget, or the nearly $70 billion he wants to bankroll the Iran war.”
She also cautioned that the war would not end quickly.
“We can end Trump’s war with Iran, but not with a snap of our fingers,” Murray said.
In an interview with Seattle public radio station KUOW the same day, Murray said Democrats would “look at every way that we can use every tool that we can to end this war.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the war “one of the greatest foreign policy fiascos in all of American history” at a news conference on Nov. 10, and said he supports a Senate trial for War Secretary Pete Hegseth. Schumer did not say whether Democrats would withhold votes on the December funding bill.
Asked whether he had spoken with Van Hollen, who has not ruled out challenging him for leader, Schumer said the two are “united in lowering costs and united in ending this damn war.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who was reelected on Nov. 3, said Democrats should refuse to vote for a funding bill that keeps paying for the war.
“Absolutely. Period,” Shapiro said when asked at Crooked Con, a left-leaning political conference hosted by Crooked Media in Washington on Nov. 7. He said members of Congress would decide the mechanism, but that “this is a moment where our party needs to stand firm and use the power of the purse strings to stop them from going forward here.”
Former Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-S.C.), who was a member of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition in Congress, told The Epoch Times on Nov. 11 that he does not think he would have voted for the war in the first place.
“I’ve never been for shutting down the government, but I would definitely fall in the category of not supporting any additional funding,” Cunningham said.
The 44-year-old said he sees the fight over war funding as generational rather than ideological, and that people his age are tired of wars in the Middle East that have gone on for most of their adult lives.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who was reelected as Republican leader on Nov. 10, listed funding the government among the Republican majority’s priorities before it hands over power in January, along with confirming judicial and executive branch nominees.
Thune said the election “was largely about the war in Iran and the economy, inflation, most specifically fuel prices,” and that the administration “is going to be clear-eyed about and focused on” that issue.
He said Democrats will have to decide whether they want to work with Republicans on affordability “or whether they want to pursue the DSA [Democratic Socialists of America] fantasies that some of their candidates were espousing on the campaign trail.”
“Where we can, we’ll work with Democrats, and where we can’t, we will clearly fight for those principles,” Thune said.
Joseph Lord contributed to this report.
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