Latest effort to rein in Trump on Iran falls short in House vote

Politics Latest effort to rein in Trump on Iran falls short in House vote By Caitlin Yilek Caitlin Yilek Politics Reporter Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at CBSNews.com, based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation. Read Full Bio Caitlin Yilek Updated on: April 16, 2026 / 12:11 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google Washington — The latest vote in the House to block President Trump from taking further military action against Iran narrowly failed Thursday as the war approaches its third month and the off-ramp remains uncertain. The war powers resolution, introduced by Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, failed in a 213 to 214 vote, with one voting present. One Republican voted with nearly all Democrats, several votes shy of the support it needed for passage. It's the latest test of Congress' support for the war that Mr. Trump has claimed for weeks would be over "soon." Democrats in both the House and Senate stressed a renewed urgency to reining in the president's authority on Iran after he threatened last week to eradicate a "whole civilization" unless the regime agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical channel for global oil trade. Since then, peace talks between the U.S. and Iran collapsed in Pakistan amid a fragile two-week ceasefire and the U.S. has placed a blockade on vessels using Iranian ports. Last week's episode, in which Mr. Trump threatened to attack Iran's civilian infrastructure, prompted some Republicans to express unease, but had little effect on how they voted on the president's war powers authority. A Democratic-led resolution in the Senate also failed in a Tuesday vote, with just one Republican supportive of it. House Democrats tried to pass Meeks' measure last week via unanimous consent during a brief pro forma session, but were blocked from e...