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Congressional Daily Record
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June 23, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextMr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I want to start by saluting my colleague the Senator from Virginia Senator Kaine for his steadfast adherence to the Constitution of the United States and Congress' role in that Constitution, especially as it relates to war powers.
this disastrous and illegal war that President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu launched over 100 days ago.
people have already paid too high a price. There is no good way out of a bad war, but when you are digging yourself into a hole, the best way out is to stop digging.
the United States and Iran is perfect, but rather the debate is about whether continuing the war would make things better.
things even worse, not better. The terms of this agreement reflect the reality that many of us warned about before this war even began.
objectives its advocates promised. In fact, you could tell that because there was such confusion within the administration about what the real goals of the war were.
elements of the Iranian regime rather than weaken them. We warned that the war would destabilize the region, threaten the global economy, and ultimately leave the people of the United States worse off.
And that is exactly what has happened.
Netanyahu, launched the war against Iran without congressional authorization. When he did that, President Trump walked away from diplomatic alternatives.
just as he previously chose to tear up the JCPOA. That is the agreement that was negotiated by the Obama administration which had successfully constrained Iran's nuclear program through diplomacy.
on Iran's nuclear program without dragging the United States into another war in the Middle East.
detect any effort by Iran to violate that agreement. In fact, the first Trump administration certified that Iran was in compliance with the terms of that agreement.
Trump administration—President Trump, his first time in the Oval Office—ripped it up. He just ripped it up. He reimposed sanctions on Iran that had been lifted as part of that agreement.
felt it no longer had to abide by its terms, which started us down the path that brings us here.
negotiated solution and joined Prime Minister Netanyahu in starting the war. I think we all remember that Candidate Trump told the country, told the American people, that he would keep us out of wars. He told us he was instead going to focus here at home and bring down prices.
Well, he has done exactly the opposite; started a war, prices are going up.
to be embracing many of the same underlying principles of diplomacy with Iran that has always been required.
likelihood of exactly the kind of conflict we are now seeing. And we were right.
same people in this body who cheered the war on are attacking efforts to end it. And as we discuss a War Powers Resolution, I think it is important to underscore the fact that many of our Senate colleagues who were cheering on the war still were unwilling to bring forth before the Senate an authorization—a congressional authorization—to support the very war they were cheering on.
putting an authorization on this floor, which is Congress' duty with respect to the Constitution if it wants to go to war.
authorization to support the war they cheered on are doing their very best to try to prevent the war from ending. And that should concern all of us because every proposal to derail diplomacy ultimately leads back to the same place; it leads back to more war, to more destruction, to more American lives at risk, to more economic turmoil, and billions more taxpayer dollars wasted.
Let's talk about what this war has already cost. We should keep this in mind as we listen to some who want to
continue this war. It has already cost us the lives of 14 American servicemembers and hundreds have been wounded.
Minab, most of them children. And even months later, questions about that attack remain unanswered.
Iran. Thousands more have been killed in Lebanon, and 30 civilians have been killed in Israel.
All these lives lost, and for what—for what? We are now negotiating arrangements to restore conditions that existed before this war even began, like reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which, of course, was open the day before this war started.
been felt by every American. According to Moody's Analytics, this war has already cost American consumers and taxpayers about $132 billion. Gas prices have surged, and Americans have spent tens of billions more dollars at the pump than they would have otherwise.
food costs. We just saw inflation jump to the highest level in more than 3 years.
just 2.5 percent, the lowest it has been since the pandemic. And the Pentagon—the Pentagon—tells us it is preparing to request $80 billion in supplemental funding to cover the costs associated with this conflict, a number we expect to be much higher at the end of the day.
to stop wars. He promised he was going to lower costs. Instead, he has spent billions of taxpayer dollars on a reckless war of choice while driving up prices here at home.
priorities straight, they would have invested these moneys on behalf of the American people. You could use them to bring down healthcare costs. You could use them to bring down child costs.
If you take even a conservative number of $50 billion for what the war has cost already—and it is much higher than that—but $50 billion, you could erase the medical debt for every American who was pushed into medical debt because they couldn't afford their healthcare.
administration prioritized the war instead of making life more affordable for American families.
authorization, many Members of our body continue to abdicate their constitutional responsibilities with respect to matters of war and peace, probably the most solemn responsibilities given to the Congress in the Constitution.
and called up these War Powers Resolutions—to continue to urge this body to execute our constitutional responsibilities.
Now, today, we have before us another opportunity. The House has already acted by passing this concurrent resolution directing the President to remove U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran, because while this cease-fire represents progress, it remains tenuous. We all know that. In fact, President Trump yet again threatened to bomb Iran this weekend, contrary to the very first line in the first clause of the MOU that says Iran and the United States “will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other.” And American troops remain deployed throughout the region. The risks are still present, and the prospect of further escalation remains very real, particularly in Lebanon, where Prime Minister Netanyahu continues to agitate for more war despite the MOU clearly indicating a halt to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon.
In recent days, I am sure my colleagues have seen that U.S. intelligence Agencies have warned the Trump administration that Prime Minister Netanyahu is likely to try to undermine the President's efforts to reach a lasting peace deal with Iran in order to ensure his own political survival in upcoming elections in Israel.
media post a few days after the MOU was signed:
All of Lebanon must burn.
He is not just any member; he is a member of the government, the Netanyahu coalition.
And that sort of rhetoric is not new. In March of this year, Israel Defense Minister Yisrael Katz said that “all homes in Lebanese villages near the border will be destroyed—in accordance with the Rafah . . . model in Gaza.” Well, Rafah is a city in southern Gaza near the Egyptian border that was turned into rubble during the war in Gaza, and now you have the Israeli Defense Minister saying that is the plan for southern Lebanon.
that even President Trump and Vice President Vance are publicly admonishing the extremist Israeli Government and their blatant attempts to undermine diplomatic efforts to permanently end this war.
us predicted would unfold if we started this illegal war in the first place. The war was a blunder. We should recognize that. And America is worse off than before we started. There is no good way to end a bad war, and we should end it.
answer to a simple question: What is your alternative? What comes next? More lives lost? More money wasted with no path forward? Because that is the only alternative they are offering.
of a broader diplomatic settlement. But I also hope, colleagues, we will learn something from this needless tragedy. The calls for military adventurism, the promises of quick victory, the fantasies of regime change under the circumstances that were deployed, and the endless effort to undermine diplomacy led us directly to this disaster, and we should not repeat those mistakes. We should take a stand today and end this war, and we should finally start putting the interests of the American people ahead of costly and unnecessary conflicts.
I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this War Powers Resolution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.