As Trump Threatens to 'Annihilate' Iran, Most Senate Republicans Still Refuse to Demand End to Illegal War

Even as some swing-state Republican US Senate candidates are suddenly calling for an end to President Donald Trump's unpopular and illegal war with Iran, the vast majority of elected GOP senators are voting to keep the conflict going.

A war powers resolution that would have compelled Trump to end the war he started more than six months ago was narrowly defeated in the US Senate on Thursday.

Just four Republicans—Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Thom Tillis (R-NC)—voted in favor of the resolution, which failed by a vote of 49-50. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was the lone Democrat to vote against the resolution.

The Iran War, which Trump launched in February without congressional authorization, has led to a massive spike in energy prices, including record-high prices for diesel fuel.

As reported by NPR, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), who voted against Thursday's resolution, nonetheless acknowledged the economic toll the war is taking on Americans while speaking with reporters earlier this week.

"Everybody wants to see wars come to a conclusion," said the South Dakota Republican. "We are hopeful that the administration's efforts will lead to getting... the shipping lanes open and taking some of the pressure off of the American peoples' pocketbooks via a lower price at the pump for gasoline."

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who led the war powers resolution in the US House of Representatives, decried the Senate's failure to pass it as "a slap in the face to the millions of American people who want this war to end."

"The Senate had the opportunity to send a clear message to this administration that they would not stand for another day of his war of choice," said Jayapal. "Instead, a majority of Senate Republicans acted as a cult party and stood by Trump’s unpopular and devastating war."

The Washington Democrat vowed that the House "will continue to pass these resolutions and demand an end to the war."

Cavan Kharrazian, senior policy adviser for Demand Progress, had a more optimistic take on the resolution's failure, arguing that the close vote count "shows that the tide continues to turn against this illegal war."

Kharrazian also noted that "Congress has already passed a legally binding war powers resolution directing him to remove US forces from the fighting," but the president "ignored it and kept waging a war that was illegal from day one."

During an unhinged speech before the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump threatened to "annihilate" Iran by driving the country "into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations."