If you’re a MAGA Republican voter and you’re getting sick and tired of GOP cowards inflicted with TDS sabotaging President Trump, get in the growing line.
Eighteen American service members have died since this conflict began. Iran is still firing on commercial ships. Trump is mulling a massive escalation because the regime hasn’t received enough pain yet. And four House Republicans decided today was the right moment to side with Pramila Jayapal and pass a war powers resolution demanding he stop.
Their names deserve to be said out loud: Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Tom Barrett of Michigan, and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. All four voted yes on a resolution directing the President to withdraw U.S. forces from Iran hostilities unless Congress grants formal approval. All four did the same thing the last time this resolution came up. None of them apparently learned anything from watching Iran resume attacks on commercial shipping within weeks of the last ceasefire.
Let’s be clear about what this resolution actually is and isn’t. It’s largely symbolic — concurrent resolutions don’t require the president’s signature, and the Senate is going to kill it. Senator Bill Cassidy voted against it before the ink was dry. The Trump administration isn’t going to stand down its military operations because Pramila Jayapal passed something on the House floor. The practical impact is approximately zero.
What isn’t zero is the political signal. At the precise moment Trump is applying maximum military and diplomatic pressure to force Iran into a real, verifiable ceasefire — at the moment he’s warning Tehran that bridges and power plants go next if they fire on another ship — four members of his own party walked to the House floor and handed Democrats exactly the footage they need for campaign ads about Republican chaos and congressional opposition to the president’s Iran policy.
Brian Fitzpatrick’s explanation is the most instructive. He cited the War Powers Act of 1973 — a law that has been widely ignored by every president of both parties since its passage, likely because its unconstitutional — and declared that Congress must follow the law. Fine. Then introduce a formal authorization for the use of military force and put the entire Congress on the record. Force Democrats to vote against finishing what America started. That’s a fight Republicans would win. Instead, Fitzpatrick is voting with that left-wing shill from Washington, Pramila Jayapal, on a symbolic resolution that does nothing except create the appearance of Republican division on the most consequential military operation in a decade.
The Senate will table this. Trump will continue the strikes. Iran will continue deciding whether the cost of continued aggression is worth paying.
And four Republicans will have spent their Thursday giving Pramila Jayapal a bipartisan headline she didn’t deserve and can’t stop using.
Massie (who’s retiring after getting his arse handed to him in his primary earlier this spring), Davidson, Barrett, Fitzpatrick. Remember the names. Their constituents should be asking them a simple question: with 18 Americans dead and Iran still shooting at ships, whose side are you on?