WASHINGTON – Two Republican senators reversed their positions on Donald Trump‘s military power in Iran, just hours after a raised-voice Capitol Hill meeting between lawmakers and the president.
Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana switched their votes in a late-night June 24 session, and both posted on social media that their change of heart came after meeting with Trump himself and members of his administration.
The vote was largely symbolic but appeared to mollify the president, who earlier in the day canceled a ceremonial signing of a bipartisan housing bill in order to exert pressure on the Senate to pass an unrelated election law bill.
A subsequent meeting with Senate Republicans ended up focusing largely on the Iran war – including how the Senate previously, on June 23, passed a separate rebuke of Trump’s war in Iran. Four Republicans, including Paul and Cassidy, sided with Democrats in that vote.
Cassidy then got into a heated exchange with Trump over the war during the closed-door sit-down. He told reporters he lost his temper. Afterward, Vice President JD Vance and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, invited Cassidy to the White House, where the senator said they addressed many of his concerns before switching his vote.
“As long as I’m reassured that there’s honesty, and that how they’re depicting events is playing out appropriately, I’m reassured,” Cassidy told reporters outside the Senate chamber, chalking all the day’s drama up to just “another day on the Hill.”
Paul wrote on social media before the June 24 vote that his “opinion on the debate over war and executive power has not changed.” “But since hostilities seem to be over and the President asked me to give consideration to his negotiating position, I will do so,” he said.
President Trump, who spoke with Senate GOP leaders by phone immediately after the vote, celebrated the shift.
“Wow! The Senate just changed its vote on Iran from 50-48 against, to 50-47 for,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Rand Paul and Bill Cassidy changed. Thank you to Leader John Thune, Lindsey Graham, Bernie Moreno, and all. This vote puts Iran on notice!”
The Senate is out for a two-week July 4 recess, after which Senate Majority Leader Thune, R-South Dakota, said he hopes to get several other legislative priorities, including the annual defense policy bill, “teed up and ready to go.”
Contributing: Zachary Schermele, USA TODAY
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