Republican senators returned to Washington this week, saying their constituents want answers about how President Donald Trump’s Iran war will end after more than six months of fighting.
“They don’t like it,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) said of the people he spoke with back home. “Even the people that love the president don’t like it.”
While constituent complaints about rising prices were nearly universal during the lawmakers’ five-week recess, some Republicans said people in their state expressed concerns over the war’s duration, and others said voters want clarity about America’s goals in the conflict.
What Trump aims to get from Iran remains a mystery to many Texans, Sen. John Cornyn said of his conversations with constituents.
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“If the president was clear on what the objectives were that we were trying to achieve, I think they would be more patient,” Cornyn said. “But in the absence of that, I think there’s just confusion.”
Sen. Thom Tillis said the war has become a top-three campaign issue in North Carolina, where the large military and veteran population has kept the war’s human cost at the forefront. Voters remain most focused on the economy, he said, but the war’s duration has made the lack of measurable progress harder to ignore.
For a war the Trump administration said would take weeks to complete, Sen. Mike Rounds said the months of back-and-forth attacks are wearing thin with folks in South Dakota.
“Most of them thought it would be quick in and out, similar to Venezuela, and that wasn’t the case,” he said.
Trump said last week that he expected the war to end “immediately after” the November elections. But senior advisers, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have privately warned that Iran could resist through the remainder of Trump’s presidency.
Recent polling shows broad dissatisfaction with the war. An August UMass survey found that 54% of Americans disapproved of U.S. military actions in Iran, and nearly two-thirds disapproved of Trump’s handling of the war. And as inflation remains stubbornly high, driven by high energy costs stemming from fighting in the Middle East, 80% said the attack on Iran had increased gasoline and grocery prices.
“People are very, very concerned with the high price of gasoline, high price of diesel, high price of fertilizer, and I think they attribute that to the war,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky).
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is locked in a fierce reelection battle against Democrat Troy Jackson, said she’s heard “a lot of concern” about the Strait of Hormuz and its impact on gas and diesel prices. Sen. Josh Hawley echoed those concerns, saying Missourians tended not to discuss Iran directly but repeatedly complained about rising costs.
“The conflict needs to come to a resolution,” Hawley said.
Those concerns now follow senators into another potential vote on the war.
The administration told Congress in a July 10 letter that hostilities had resumed July 7, and it considered the renewed fighting as the start of another 60-day period under the War Powers Resolution. That period has expired, and Congress still has not authorized the war.
The House passed its third Iran war powers resolution Tuesday, with seven Republicans joining Democrats, up from four in each of the previous two votes.
Tillis, who opposed the Senate’s last war powers push, said Tuesday that he plans to support the next resolution.
“It’s time to be clear on the strategic objectives and start measuring results,” Tillis said. “And that’s not something that we’ve had since they started the conflict.”
“You just can’t have some throwaway statement saying it’s going to end just after the election,” he added. “The American people are smarter than that.”
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