On Monday, Iran launched missile strikes against a major U.S. base in Qatar in response to President Donald Trump’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend.
Trump’s ”Operation Midnight Hammer” hit facilities in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow, where Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility is buried deep underground not too far from the city of Qom.
The president has repeatedly sought to blame others for the problems he faces, even ones that he created, like his tariffs triggering a panic about higher prices. Not anymore. This is the week where he will finally own what happens in the world.
Up until this moment, both in his first and second presidencies, Trump has had to manage wars that his predecessors began. During his first term in office, Trump had to manage the fallout from the War in Afghanistan that began under George W. Bush and continued under Barack Obama.
Since his return to the White House in January, he has had to face Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza.
Iran is different. As The Independent explained over the weekend, by first siding with Israel and now carrying out strikes himself, Trump has gambled his entire presidency on his decision to attack Iran. It might turn out all right. Monday’s strike against the U.S. base in Qatar might be the extent of Iran’s strikes and brings things to an end within a few weeks, not unlike his decision to kill Qasem Soleimani.
But the choice might mushroom into a longer and protracted conflict similar to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that plagued Bush, Obama and Joe Biden.
Many have flagged the dissents from Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky against a war with Iran. And even a majority of Republican voters oppose one.
Ignore them, at least in terms of what Washington will do in response. Massie and Greene are decidedly in the minority. By contrast, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have registered their support for strikes.
They likely will not want to put forward a congressional resolution to approve Trump’s actions specifically because it is politically unpopular and subjecting their incumbents to such a vote would be political suicide.
Massie may get enough Democrats to force his bipartisan resolution to the floor via a discharge petition, and Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine’s War Powers Act might draw a vote. But until a significant slice of Republicans break with Trump, he will not be reined in.
For the most part, Capitol Hill will be focused on the other key part of Trump’s legacy: his “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” the mega-spending bill that includes everything from tax cuts to increased spending for the military, oil and gas development, and immigration enforcement.
Thune put out an op-ed on Fox News’s website pledging that the Senate will stay in session until the bill passes. Trump has called for the bill to be passed by July 4. But that is an ambitious deadline given that Senate Republicans remain far apart on the bill.
Specifically, Republicans are split when it comes to Medicaid since the current text would cap the taxes on hospitals and nursing homes that states use to collect Medicaid dollars to receive matching funds from the federal government. Other Republican senators warn this would drain rural hospitals of desperately needed funding.
Republicans, who have only 53 seats, plan to sidestep a filibuster by using the process called reconciliation, which would allow them to pass it with a simple majority. But for them to do that, the Senate parliamentarian must subject the bill to the “Byrd bath,” which determines whether certain parts of the bill are germane to the budget. If not, she can strike them from the text.
Already, the parliamentarian has struck text related immigration enforcement and another provision that would have required groups suing the federal government for a temporary restraining order or an injunction to pay a bond fee to cover the cost of the lawsuit.
The Byrd bath is ongoing. But if the parliamentarian strips out too many of the provisions that House Republican leadership stuffed into the bill, conservatives in the lower chamber might revolt. If the Senate takes too long, public opinion about the bill — which is already quite low — will likely to continue to drop.
Much like Trump’s challenge to Iran, this will serve as a major test to whether he can get his agenda across the finish line. It may be the moment that cements his legacy, or breaks his presidency.
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