Republican-Led House Votes to Stop Iran War in Rebuke to Trump

The US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, June 3, 2026. The biggest GOP test this week is whether the House and Senate can advance their $72 billion Republican-only budget bill focused on immigration enforcement. Photo by Eric Lee /Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) — The Republican-led House voted to halt the US war with Iran, breaking with President Donald Trump on an unpopular foreign conflict that is taking an escalating economic toll on Americans.

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The 215-208 vote Wednesday shows worries over the war spreading in the president’s own party five months before congressional elections. Last month, a Senate resolution to end the war also advanced past a procedural hurdle for the first time, though that legislation hasn’t yet come to a formal vote.

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The House vote won’t end US military attacks on Iran. The Senate would still have to pass the resolution and provisions in the 1973 War Powers Act that the House invoked are legally controversial anyway.

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Still, the House’s new stance trumpets to a global audience the president’s increasing isolation on the war as talks on an interim peace deal drag on and tensions flare across the Middle East. The US and Iran clashed again overnight, with Kuwait and Bahrain caught in the crossfire of the most serious strikes since a ceasefire went into effect in early April.

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House Republican leaders worked to delay the vote on the war, abruptly canceling a vote in May when it became clear opponents of the conflict would prevail.

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“It is a very dangerous prospect to take away from the administration and the commander in chief right now, the ability to negotiate,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said before the vote. 

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The vote against the war is the latest in a series of setbacks for a president who has bent Congress to his will for most of his second term. After pushback from Republican lawmakers, he was forced Tuesday to scrap a $1.8 billion account to pay political allies who claim they were unfairly targeted by the government. Earlier Wednesday, Senate Republicans stripped funding for his new White House ballroom from a spending package.

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The military conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have sent global energy prices soaring, pushing the US average price for regular gasoline up to $4.26 as of Wednesday, according to the American Automobile Association.

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A surge in inflation since the war started is eating away at Americans’ paychecks, straining consumers who were already frustrated by the high cost of living. After accounting for rising prices, wages declined in April from a year earlier — the first such drop since 2023. US consumer sentiment slid in May to a record low. 

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Sixty-four percent of Americans say going to war with Iran was the wrong decision, according to a New York Times/Siena poll taken in May. 

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Lawmakers in both the House and Senate also have expressed concern about the cost of the Iran operations and not having complete knowledge of what munitions and equipment need to be replenished and repaired. The Trump administration has yet to send a supplemental funding request to Congress.

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The Pentagon’s acting comptroller, Jules Hurst, told lawmakers May 12 that the estimated cost of the Iran war to date was now closer to $29 billion. Outside experts have cast that figure as too low given the huge cost of munitions, operations, and deployments in the Middle East.

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—With assistance from Maeve Sheehey.

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