{"id":19504,"date":"2026-03-02T19:32:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T19:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/fetterman-needles-democrats-over-iran-strikes-opposition\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T19:32:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T19:32:41","slug":"fetterman-needles-democrats-over-iran-strikes-opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/fetterman-needles-democrats-over-iran-strikes-opposition\/","title":{"rendered":"Fetterman needles Democrats over Iran strikes opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With lawmakers slated to decide whether to rein in President Donald Trump\u2019s military operations<\/a> in Iran, most Democrats have rallied behind the measure.<\/p>\n

But Fetterman, who is breaking from his party<\/a> to support the U.S.\u2019s military strikes over the weekend,<\/a> will join most Senate Republicans to oppose Tuesday\u2019s war powers vote, a resolution that he\u2019s called \u201cempty sloganeering.\u201d And he\u2019s needling fellow Democrats who won\u2019t follow suit.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery member in the U.S. Senate agrees we cannot allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon,\u201d Fetterman wrote on X.<\/a> \u201cI\u2019m baffled why so many are unwilling to support the only action to achieve that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In both chambers, the bipartisan measure seems likely to fail. But prominent Democrats are still blasting Fetterman for being a \u201chard no.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, John Fetterman knows better,\u201d House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told BLN on Monday. \u201cArticle I of the Constitution explicitly provides Congress with the authority to declare war. Period, full stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, progressives like Graham Platner<\/a> and Saikat Chakrabarti<\/a> said that any lawmaker who adopts Fetterman\u2019s approach \u201cshould lose their seat.\u202f\u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cA man who has never seen war and never will,\u201d Platner wrote of Fetterman.<\/p>\n

Fetterman has shown willingness to break with his party on this issue. He already struck down a similar war powers vote in June, after the U.S. launched airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. His status as something of a GOP ally<\/a> has earned him occasional plaudits from across the aisle. (\u201cAmen, brother,\u201d Ted Cruz chimed in on X,<\/a> in response to Fetterman\u2019s post about the war powers vote.)<\/p>\n

Despite speculation that Republicans are trying to pull Fetterman closer<\/a> to their preferred policy positions, Fetterman still refers to himself as a \u201ccommitted Democrat\u201d \u2014 albeit one with some words of praise for Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cI might be a Democrat, but in this specific case, the president is absolutely correct to do these kinds of actions, and now we have Israel’s back,\u201d he told \u201cFox & Friends Weekend\u201d on Saturday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With lawmakers slated to decide whether to rein in President Donald Trump\u2019s military operations in Iran, most Democrats have rallied behind the measure. But Fetterman, who is breaking from his party to support the U.S.\u2019s military strikes over the weekend, will join most Senate Republicans to oppose Tuesday\u2019s war powers vote, a resolution that he\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}