A bloc of Senate Democrats is preparing to grind the Senate to a halt unless senior Trump administration officials appear before Congress to answer questions about the growing military confrontation with Iran.
The group says it will wield every procedural tactic available to block routine Senate business until officials—including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—testify under oath about the conflict.
Their ultimatum signals a new phase of partisan warfare on Capitol Hill as the Iran crisis intensifies.
Leading the charge is Cory Booker, who openly acknowledged Democrats intend to use Senate rules to disrupt the chamber.
“We have collectively agreed that we’re going to use the levers that we have,” Booker said Monday evening. “We should be having hearings on the biggest military engagement since the war in Afghanistan.”
Booker made clear that the effort is not symbolic—Democrats are prepared to interfere with the Senate’s day-to-day operations if necessary.
“Each individual senator has a tremendous amount of power to disrupt the normal functioning of the Senate as well as certain privileges that we can exercise, and what we have agreed right now is that we’re not going to let the Senate continue business as usual, which seems to be ignoring the urgent issues the American people are dealing with,” he said.
The lawmakers insist that top administration officials must appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee to answer questions about the war’s trajectory.
Their demands include explanations for how long the conflict might last, what the total cost will be, what the ultimate objective is, and how the U.S. is handling rules of engagement as civilian casualties rise. Reports indicate that roughly 170 people were killed after a missile struck a girls’ school in southern Iran.
Democratic leaders on the relevant committees are pushing their Republican counterparts to schedule hearings immediately.
Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations panel, and Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on Armed Services, have formally requested that the committees summon Trump administration officials.
Booker framed the demand as a constitutional obligation.
“We are demanding there be hearings, debate, questions answered — that the Senate do its job,” Booker said.
“It is unacceptable that we have not had hearings and we have not had a sufficient debate on the issues in public … in hearings, witnesses under oath. That is what we are demanding.”
The pressure campaign is being driven by a group of prominent Democratic senators with national ambitions and strong foreign-policy interests.
Among them are Chris Murphy, another possible presidential contender, Tim Kaine, who has long championed congressional war powers, Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth, and progressive heavyweights Adam Schiff and Tammy Baldwin.
Their strategy centers on the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the law intended to limit a president’s ability to wage prolonged military conflict without congressional approval.
Democrats have already filed five separate resolutions ordering the administration to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities involving Iran. Each one could force debate and votes on the Senate floor.
Murphy explained how the law gives them leverage.
“As senators we have the right to force a vote and debate every single day in the Senate. That’s not a right under the rules, by the way, granted to us by the majority. That’s a right given to us by the statute,” Murphy said.
Last week Kaine used that authority to force a vote on halting U.S. military action against Iran. The measure ultimately failed.
The vote broke largely along party lines.
Republicans overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, with Rand Paul the only GOP senator supporting it.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman crossed party lines to oppose the resolution.
But Democratic leaders say they intend to keep forcing the issue, betting that political pressure will mount if the conflict drags on and casualties rise.
Murphy argued that Republicans may eventually find their support for the war more difficult to sustain.
“I think it will become harder and harder as this war gets uglier and uglier, deadlier and deadlier, more costly and more costly, for Republicans to continue to vote in favor of this war,” he said.
Duckworth, a decorated combat veteran who lost both legs after her helicopter was shot down in Iraq in 2004, warned that the conflict could spread across the Middle East despite the White House’s optimism.
President Donald Trump insisted earlier this week that the conflict would conclude “very soon.” But Duckworth says signs on the ground point the other direction.
“It’s going to spread, it’s already spreading,” she said.
Iranian drones and missiles have already targeted multiple countries in the region, including Israel, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Kuwait.
Democrats are designing their strategy carefully. By filing multiple versions of war-powers resolutions, they can trigger repeated debates on the Senate floor—potentially forcing lawmakers to revisit the conflict again and again.
Murphy suggested the list of resolutions may grow.
“There are five now,” he said. “They’re not all the same. Again, this is not a right by rule, it’s a right by statute.”
In other words, the Senate could soon face daily procedural clashes over the Iran conflict—turning Capitol Hill into the next political battlefield in a war already raging overseas.
