WASHINGTON – Minnesota’s Republican members of Congress are going to double down this week on their support for President Donald Trump’s military assault on Iran, while Minnesota Democrats are going to try to curb the president’s war-making power.
The conflict has already claimed the life of a Minnesotan, Nicole M. Amor of White Bear Lake, who was killed in a drone attack on Sunday in Kuwait. Amor, 39, was a soldier with the U.S. Army Reserve.
The administration’s decision to launch, with Israel, an open-ended, escalating military campaign called “Operation Epic Fury” is testing the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine.
So, the Senate on Wednesday will vote on a measure that would require that the president seek authorization from Congress before taking further military action against Iran. On Thursday, the House will follow with its own vote on a war-powers resolution.
Most Democrats, including those representing Minnesota, are expected to vote for the resolutions and most Republicans will vote against them. As House Majority Whip, Rep. Tom Emmer, R-6th District, has been lobbying House Republicans this week to defeat the resolution in the closely divided U.S. House.
But even if Democrats win those votes, Congress would likely need to override a Trump veto to pass the war powers measures, which requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers.
Rep. Betty McCollum, D-4th District, who called the attack on Iran “disastrous,” said she has little hope the resolutions would be able to survive a Trump veto. “We don’t have the votes,” she said.
James Lindsay, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said two arguments will play out in Congress this week. Democrats who want to rein in Trump’s warmaking powers will make the constitutional argument that only Congress can declare war.
Related: Over 250 Minnesota National Guard troops are in the Middle East
Meanwhile, those who support Operation Epic Fury will ignore all legal arguments and focus instead on Iran’s threat to Americans and that “it’s best to stand with the commander in chief and the brave troops.”
“The American people have endured nearly 50 years of Iranian aggression,” said Emmer in a social media post Monday. “There hasn’t been peace as long as the administration has been enabled and empowered by previous administrations’ weak leadership on the world stage. @potus campaigned on peace through strength and he is delivering.”
Like Emmer, Minnesota Republicans are expected to vote against the resolutions and the state’s Democrats to vote for them.
“I will be voting YES to stop U.S. involvement in another illegal forever war,” Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-5th District said on social media.
Trump’s core constituency
Polls show public support for the war is weak, the noninterventionist in Trump’s base – which includes right-wing influencers and podcasters – feel betrayed. Both the president and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth this week opened the door to American “boots on the ground” in the conflict.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former GOP lawmaker from Georgia who says Trump has betrayed MAGA ideals, called the administration “sick fxxxing liars” in one of many social media posts condemning the attacks.
Approximately 59% of Americans disapprove of the decision to strike Iran, according to a CNN poll released this week.
Yet those signs of trouble should not affect GOP lawmakers who support the mission, Lindsay said, because 77% of the Republican respondents of the CNN poll said they backed Saturday’s attack on Iran.
“(Trump) still has a core constituency with him,” Lindsay said.
Still, Lindsay said the president has not given a clear objective for Operation Epic Fury, putting forth a number of reasons for the military strike – from regime change to the destruction of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
On Tuesday, McCollum, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, joined other senior Democrats in writing to top Trump administration officials requesting information on the military operations against Iran. Those Trump officials – including Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio – will brief members of Congress on Wednesday.
The Democrats asked for the legal justification for initiating hostilities and about the imminent threats Iran posed to the United States.
They also asked the Trump administration officials what victory would look like, and with the assassination of Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “who is in control of the country today and who does the Administration expect to control key state institutions at the end of this conflict?”
“We need to know what the objective is,” McCollum said.
Lindsay said “there is no guarantee (Operation Epic Fury) would work out well.”
But even failure would not put GOP supporters of the war at too much risk, he said.
“There are plenty of ways to say you’ve changed your mind if events don’t go the way you want them to go,” he said.
