{"id":115845,"date":"2026-05-15T21:05:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T21:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/115845\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T21:05:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T21:05:30","slug":"lisa-murkowski-nearly-handed-democrats-key-iran-war-powers-vote-in-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/115845\/","title":{"rendered":"Lisa Murkowski nearly handed Democrats key Iran war powers vote in Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some GOP senators side with Dems on war powers vote<\/a> <\/p>\n

Former White House speechwriter and Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen discusses five Republican senators who voted with Democrats to limit President Donald Trump’s military authority in Venezuela on \u2018America Reports.\u2019<\/p>\n

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!\n <\/p>\n

The Senate was two votes away from taking a step toward handcuffing President Donald Trump’s<\/a> war authorities in Iran this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the closest Senate Democrats have come<\/a> to trying to reassert Congress\u2019 authority on the matter, and was nearly successful thanks to one Senate Republican known for an independent streak: Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That vote, in particular, came after Congress had sprinted past the 60-day deadline to either authorize or halt Trump\u2019s war. Murkowski argued that she hoped the administration would give more clarity on next steps, but so far hadn\u2019t received such information.\u00a0<\/p>\n

SENATE DEMOCRATS FINALLY CRACK GOP UNITY ON TRUMP’S IRAN WAR AS MURKOWSKI FLIPS<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Sen. <\/p>\n

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voted with Democrats to handcuff President Donald Trump’s war authorities in Iran. It’s not the first time she’s broken with the president. (Kayla Bartkowski\/Getty Images; Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“So I felt that it was now time to advance a discharge so that we can discuss our responsibilities through the War Powers Act,” Murkowski said. “So it’s \u2014 we’re in a different place than we were last time we voted on this.”<\/p>\n

Many of her votes for or against any given piece of legislation are determined by a simple principle: how will this vote affect Alaska?\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Senator Murkowski approaches every decision thoughtfully, always asking what is best for Alaska,” Joseph Plesha, a spokesperson for Murkowski, told Fox News Digital. “When she believes a policy advances those priorities, she supports it, regardless of party or politics.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

That style of decision-making was on full display last year, when Murkowski cast the deciding vote for the president\u2019s “big, beautiful bill,” his most significant legislative accomplishment of his second term to date.<\/p>\n

\"Sen. <\/p>\n

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, speaks during the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on July 11, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Jemal Countess\/Getty Images for JDRF)<\/p>\n

But at the time, Murkowski described the decision as “agonizing,” and one that she came to only after securing a spate of wins for Alaska.<\/p>\n

“I had to look on balance, because the people in my state are the ones that I put first,” Murkowski said. “We do not have a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination. My hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we\u2019re not there yet.”<\/p>\n

Murkowski had hoped that the Senate and House would go into conference to iron out a better product, but that never came. After the upper chamber advanced the package, the House passed it several hours later to adhere to Trump\u2019s July 4 deadline.<\/p>\n

SENATE PASSES TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ AFTER MARATHON VOTE-A-RAMA<\/a><\/p>\n

Just a few weeks later, she bucked Trump and Republicans on a package designed to claw back billions in funding to public broadcasting and “woke” international aid<\/a> programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Murkowski, an appropriator, argued that instead of legislating, “what we’re getting now is a direction from the White House<\/a> and being told, \u2018This is the priority we want you to execute on it. We’ll be back with you with another round.\u2019”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I don’t accept that,” she said at the time.<\/p>\n

She also went against Trump\u2019s actions in Venezuela earlier this year, joining Democrats on a successful procedural vote that was ultimately later struck down after a heavy lobbying campaign from the White House and top Trump officials flipped key votes against the war powers resolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similar to her reasoning on the Iran war powers vote, Murkowski contended that while the administration argued that the Venezuelan government was complying after the capture of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, there had been “no meaningful end state” given by Trump officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n

REPUBLICANS FAIL TO ATTACH SAVE AMERICA ACT TO PARTY-LINE FUNDING PACKAGE<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Senator <\/p>\n

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, speaks to reporters outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 3, 2025. (Graeme Sloan\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

And on the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, Murkowski once again went against<\/a> the president.<\/p>\n

She teed up her resistance to the voter ID and citizenship verification legislation early, weeks before Republicans launched a campaign on the Senate floor to debate the doomed bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Murkowski noted that when congressional Democrats “attempted to advance sweeping election reform legislation in 2021, Republicans were unanimous in opposition because it would have federalized elections, something we have long opposed.”<\/p>\n

“Not only does the U.S. Constitution clearly provide states the authority to regulate the \u2018times, places, and manner\u2019 of holding federal elections, but one-size-fits-all mandates from Washington, D.C., seldom work in places like Alaska,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perhaps Murkowski’s biggest break from Trump came as he was exiting office shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, riots on Capitol Hill.<\/a><\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP<\/a><\/p>\n

Murkowski was one of a handful of Republicans who voted to convict Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“If months of lies, organizing a rally of supporters in an effort to thwart the work of Congress, encouraging a crowd to march on the Capitol, and then taking no meaningful action to stop the violence once it began is not worthy of impeachment, conviction, and disqualification from holding office in the United States, I cannot imagine what is,” Murkowski said in a statement at the time.<\/p>\n

Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some GOP senators side with Dems on war powers vote Former White House speechwriter and Fox News contributor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[467,26419,34,81,1288,32670,735],"class_list":{"0":"post-115845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-congress","9":"tag-democrats-senate","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-politics","12":"tag-republicans","13":"tag-senate-elections","14":"tag-war-with-iran"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116580629035826214","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}