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Congressional Daily Record
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April 15, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextMr. WELCH. Mr. President, we are now 46 days into President Trump's war on Iran and Lebanon. This war is wrong. This war is hurting the United States, our citizens, and our security. This war is destabilizing the Middle East and spreading to Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, and, of course, not to mention Lebanon.
the American family. The average American family will pay $2,000 more for gas each year if prices stay this high. The average Vermont household will pay another thousand dollars to heat their home this year. Farms across rural
The war is imperiling our world economy. The IMF has concluded that the growth in the economy around the world could drop by 2 percent, risking a global recession. Food prices are increasing around the world. In Sudan, the price for wheat is up 70 percent because of the war, and that is in a country on the brink of absolute starvation.
How did this happen? How did it happen? We got here because the President disregarded his own promises of staying out of Middle East wars. He disregarded the American people by not leveling with them about what his plan was and what his intentions were. He disregarded Congress entirely, and he has totally disregarded our allies. So is it any surprise that we find ourselves right now with President Trump stuck dealing with this situation that he created pretty much by himself?
the President relied on Prime Minister Netanyahu, inviting him to the Situation Room—never been done before.
own Cabinet officials, who called that for what it was. The Netanyahu advice was farcical. We have seen what happened. Oil has gone from $70 a barrel to a high of more than $120 a barrel. Fertilizer prices have jumped from $400 a ton to $700 a ton. Helium prices, which none of us really thought much about, have gone up 100 percent, and that has created an enormous supply chain crisis for the semiconductor industry upon which all of us are dependent.
Strait of Hormuz himself, supposedly for the stated purpose of opening it. For those of us who were here in the Vietnam years, that is very reminiscent of the administration position that we had to destroy a village in order to save it.
Secretary of War Hegseth really had no plan other than, as President Trump put it, to bomb Iran into the stone age. And that is what is happening. The bombing has been among the most intense bombing campaigns in the history of air warfare. The United States has carried out more than 13,000 airstrikes. Israel has carried out more than 10,000 strikes, dropping over 18,000 bombs. In the first 100 hours, the United States and Israel hit more targets in Iran than in the first 6 months of the bombing campaign against ISIS.
civilian targets. Just talk about in Iran. U.S.-Israeli strikes have hit 60 hospitals; 44 schools, including that girls school that was horrifying to all of us; the major B1 highway bridge, used by civilians, killing 13 civilians; major pharmaceutical plants that were producing anti-cancer drugs and had associated with them 200,000 jobs; desalination plants; sports stadiums; Tehran's synagogue.
thousands of civilians have been killed in these strikes. On average, 10 children a day have been killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes. Nearly 40 percent of the attacks have taken place in the heart of Tehran, a dense urban area, and 95 percent of those killed by bombs are civilians.
Iranian people—the very people he promised to save—the adversary, the enemy, much more so than the ayatollahs.
very intemperate decision by our President, this war that is making Americans less secure, and this war that is and will continue to impose extraordinary economic pain on our citizens.
It is very clear that President Trump and his negotiators—Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner—have a fundamental misunderstanding of the regime they are dealing with.
In the course of this war, President Trump has changed the narrative. Three months ago, we were focused on the violence of the Iranian regime toward its own people. Today, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the economic pain that the ayatollahs have been able to inflict on the world, the narrative is about the ayatollahs standing up to the United States and Israel.
but it has also given everyone and the ayatollahs leverage over our economy and the world economy. The threats that the President makes to the ayatollahs don't particularly move them, and it is something he doesn't understand. This is not a real estate deal. What the ayatollahs have shown—and this is horrifying—is that they are prepared to destroy their own country if that is what it takes for them to stay in power. So these threats the President makes fall on deaf ears.
Senator Sanders' joint resolutions of disapproval, which we will be taking up later today. Those resolutions would stop the United States from sending bombs—thousands of bombs—and armored bulldozers to Israel.
These weapons are paid for by the American taxpayers. We will be sending bombs to Israel at a time when we are in a cease-fire, which I hope will continue. These bulldozers are being used, literally— literally—to bulldoze entire villages in Lebanon on behalf of Israel's intentions.
would simply force a debate. It wouldn't stop anything. It would require those of us in the U.S. Senate, those of us who by virtue of our election have the article I authority to declare war—it would require us to say yes or no on where we stand. It would require us to accept our responsibility under the Constitution to do our job on the most profound question that affects the people of this country, and that is when, whether, and why to commit this country to war.
disappointed that we rejected Senator Duckworth's resolution. We need this cease-fire to continue. We need the bombing to stop and stay stopped.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.