Vermont’s U.S. senators are backing legislation meant to prohibit President Donald Trump from using military force against Iran without first getting approval from Congress to do so — a possibility he has floated as fighting between Iran and Israel intensifies.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, on Monday introduced the “No War Against Iran Act,” which Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and six other Democratic senators have also signed onto. The bill would prohibit the use of federal funding for military force in or against Iran without specific congressional authorization, with some exceptions for existing federal laws.
“Our Founding Fathers entrusted the power of war and peace exclusively to the people’s elected representatives in Congress, and it is imperative that we make clear that the President has no authority to embark on another costly war without explicit authorization by Congress,” Sanders said in a press release issued this week.
The senators’ push comes as Trump has made repeated warnings, many of them not entirely clear, that the U.S. would join Israel in striking at Iran’s nuclear program. At the same time, Iran’s leader has vowed the U.S. would face retaliation for such a move.
The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that Trump has privately approved plans to attack Iran but held off on giving the final order to see if the country’s government would abandon its nuclear program. Trump told reporters at the White House earlier that day that, regarding a potential strike, “nobody knows what I’m going to do.”
On Thursday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump would make a decision on potential military action in the next two weeks.
In statements this week, Vermont’s senators raised opposition not just to the possibility Trump would join in the conflict unilaterally, but also to the fact it could draw the U.S. into a prolonged war in the Middle East and hinder diplomatic solutions.
Sanders said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — whom Sanders has fiercely criticized in recent years — scuttled the possibility of a diplomatic solution to ending Iran’s nuclear program when Israel started attacking targets in Iran last week, adding the strikes “directly contravened the express wishes of the United States, which was seeking a diplomatic resolution to the long-standing tensions” over the program.
“The U.S. must make it clear that we will not be dragged into another Netanyahu war,” he said in a separate press release. “Along with the international community we should do everything possible to prevent an escalation of this conflict and bring the warring parties to the negotiating table.”
Welch said in a video posted to his social media feeds on Wednesday that U.S. military involvement in Iran — with or without congressional approval — was the wrong path, pointing to past U.S. conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as examples.
Recent Israeli strikes targeting Iranian military leaders, as well as strikes that have killed civilians in the country’s capital, Tehran, “are telltale signs that the Netanyahu goal is not just about Iran’s nuclear program. It’s about regime change,” Welch said.
“But you know what?” he continued. “We’ve learned, over and over again, that forcing regime change from outside in, in the Middle East, does not create lasting peace. Quite the opposite.”
For her part, Vermont’s sole delegate to the U.S. House, Democratic Rep. Becca Balint, said this week she was signing onto a resolution led by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Ca., that’s also aimed at forcing Trump to go through Congress before taking military action against Iran.
Balint wrote in a post on X that she was backing the measure “to prevent the United States from entering another forever war.”
Story Written by Shaun Robinson, VTDigger
Story Link: https://vtdigger.org/2025/06/19/vermonts-us-senators-say-trump-must-consult-congress-before-striking-iran/