Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks to members of the media during a news conference on Capitol Hill on March 4, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The House failed to adopt a war powers resolution that attempted to curtail President Donald Trump’s military actions in Iran.
It failed by a vote of 212-219. Republican Reps. Thomas Massie and Warren Davidson bucked GOP leaders by voting in favor; four Democrats voted against the resolution, including Reps. Greg Landsman, Henry Cuellar and Jared Golden.
The resolution, which only expresses the sentiment of Congress, called on the president to terminate the use of U.S. armed forces in hostilities against Iran or any part of the Iranian government or military unless a declaration of war or authorization to use military force is enacted.
The measure was non-binding and not subject to the president’s signature or veto.
Speaker Mike Johnson argued Wednesday that the United States is “not at war” but only engaged in a “defensive operation” in Iran.
“We’re not at war right now,” Johnson told reporters at the Capitol. “We’re in — four days into a very specific, clear mission and operation.”
Later on Wednesday, Trump contradicted Johnson, repeatedly referring to the conflict in Iran as a “war” hours after Johnson said it wasn’t.
Sitting next to Johnson during a roundtable on energy prices, Trump said “we’re doing very well on — on the war front, to put it mildly.”
Johnson had said that the “passage of a war powers resolution right now would be a terrible, dangerous idea.”
“It would empower our enemies. It would kneecap our own forces, and it would take the ability of the U.S. military and the commander in chief away from completing this critical mission to keep everybody safe,” he said Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Senate Democrats failed to meet a 51-vote threshold on an alternate Iran war powers resolution sponsored by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine and Republican Sen. Rand Paul. The resolution failed behind a 47-53 tally.
United States Space Force Col. Bree Fram poses for a portrait at home on Thursday June 05, 2025 in Reston, VA. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Overturning a new congressional map in Virginia that would have favored Democrats has had an outsized impact on the state’s U.S. House primaries, with at least four high-profile candidates so far suspending their campaigns.
With Virginia keeping its current congressional map, which currently has six Democrats and five Republicans, Democratic candidates face the prospect of either running in a GOP-leaning district or of mounting primary bids to incumbent Democrats.
Virginia’s primaries are Aug. 4, having been changed from their original date of June 16. The state had also moved its candidate filing deadline to May 26, so candidates can still get on the ballot ahead of the primary.
Col. Bree Fram, a transgender woman who came out and transitioned while serving in the Air Force and who had joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its ban on transgender individuals in the military, suspended her campaign for the proposed 11th District. She would have been mounting a primary challenge to incumbent Rep. James Walkinshaw regardless of which map was in place.
“With only five weeks before early primary voting, the ruling left this campaign without sufficient time and resources to meaningfully pivot to the previous district and have the kind of substantive debate voters deserve,” Fram wrote.
Dorothy McAuliffe, the former first lady of Virginia who was running in the redrawn 7th District, announced last Saturday that she will similarly suspend her campaign. The 7th District is represented by Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman.
“For me, representing Virginia in Congress was an opportunity to do good, make government deliver, protect fundamental freedoms, lower costs, defend democracy, and fight for those too often ignored,” said McAuliffe, who is married to former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
“I am disappointed that the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision at the expense of the Commonwealth’s voters is now final. Although this means the end of my congressional campaign, our movement to fight corruption and lawlessness is just beginning,” Cooney wrote on X.
Dan Helmer, a Virginia state delegate who had also launched a bid for the redrawn 7th District, said last Friday he had ended his campaign.
“While I’m incredibly disappointed at tonight’s news, I can’t say I’m surprised. The MAGA playbook is straightforward: if you can’t win at the ballot box, pack the courts… While our candidacy for Congress has ended, the path forward is clear: as I’ve said consistently, we need reform of the courts, here in Virginia, and in the federal judiciary,” he wrote in a statement on X.
One major name has not yet confirmed her plans.
Olivia Troye, a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence who changed parties and was running as a Democrat in the proposed 7th District, wrote in a blog post last Wednesday that she had visited an ICE detention facility on the day of the Virginia Supreme Court decision, and that both that visit and the court decision “made me more certain than ever that I cannot walk away from this fight.”
Troye has not confirmed if she plans to withdraw from the race. ABC News has reached out to Troye and her campaign. Troye was among the highest-profile Trump administration officials to become a critic of the president during his first term.
One candidate has said he’s staying in the race even with the Democratic-favoring map thrown out.
Tom Perriello, a former member of Congress who had planned to run in the redrawn 5th District, said the day the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling dropped that he is still going to run for Congress but is shifting to the current 5th District to try to unseat incumbent GOP Rep. John McGuire. Perriello represented the 5th from 2009 to 2011.
“We are obviously aware of the Virginia Supreme Court decision, and as we said from the launch of the campaign, we will respect the will of the voters and the courts … having done hundreds of listening sessions across Central and Southside Virginia over the last few months, I can say one thing that people on the right, left and center, seem to agree on is that McGuire needs to be fired and replaced by somebody who actually cares about Central and South Side Virginia,” he told reporters on Friday, just hours after the seismic court decision.
Construction work continues on President Trump’s White House Ballroom on the site of the former East Wing of the White House, seen from the Washington Monument on March 8, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended the cost increase of his massive White House ballroom construction project, the price tag of which has jumped from $200 million to nearly $400 million.
“The only reason the cost has changed is because, after deep rooted studies, it is approximately twice the size, and a far higher quality, than the original proposal, which would not have been adequate to handle the necessary events, meetings, and even future Inaugurations,” Trump wrote in a post to his social media platform.
“The original price was 200 Million Dollars, the double sized, highest quality completed project will be something less than 400 Million Dollars. It will be magnificent, safe, and secure!” the president added.
Trump’s defense comes after his relentless criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s oversight of a multi-billion-dollar renovation of the central bank’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The cost of the Fed renovation increased, which the central bank said was due to rising costs of labor and material as well as unforeseen damage to the property.
The White House previously said it aimed to raise the $400 million through private donations, and Trump himself repeatedly promised no taxpayer money would be used to build the ballroom.
“So we did this, no charge to the taxpayer whatsoever,” Trump said about the ballroom in February. “This was all donations made by friends of mine and people that are — that love our country.”
But now, Republicans in Congress are proposing $1 billion for security-related aspects of the construction project.
On Tuesday, Senate Republicans said that they are aiming to secure $1 billion in funding for the Secret Service for security-related aspects of the East Wing renovation, including the ballroom project, as part of a broader funding package for immigration enforcement.
Trump’s social media post on Wednesday defending the higher costs made no mention of the proposed $1 billion infusion from Congress.
It’s unclear exactly how the Secret Service would spend the money — and the public may never know given that much of the agency’s spending related to White House security is classified.
But in federal court and in the president’s own social media posts, the administration has offered some examples of the security features that Trump has in mind.
In a filing in the ballroom lawsuit last month, the Justice Department said the protective enhancements to the East Wing project would include “missile resistant steel columns, Military-grade venting, drone-proof ceilings and bullet, ballistic, and blast proof glass,” all aimed at forming a “fortified structural buffer” on the east side of the complex that would gird not only the ballroom, but also the main White House residence and the offices in the West Wing.
That April 27 filing also said the upgrades would include “bomb shelters, a state of the art hospital and medical facilities, Top Secret military installations, structures, and equipment, protective partitioning, and other features.”
Welcoming the proposed help from Republican lawmakers, a White House spokesman said on Monday that they “rightly recognized the need for these funds.”
Several Democrats criticized the Republican plan to allocate $1 billion toward the project.
“Donald Trump promised that ZERO taxpayer dollars will be used for his ballroom. He lied,” House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, the No. 2 House Democrat, wrote on X.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called it a “vanity project.”
“While Americans are struggling to make ends meet as a result of President Trump’s failed policies, Republicans are focused on providing tens of billions of dollars for the President’s vanity ballroom project and cruel mass deportation campaign,” Durbin said in a statement. “Republicans are in danger of losing control of Congress in November, so they are going outside the usual bipartisan appropriations process to fund these unpopular policies through the end of the Trump Administration.”
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters while aboard Air Force One, February 6, 2026 en route to Palm Beach, Florida. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — After Tuesday night’s embarrassing defeat for Speaker Mike Johnson at the hands of rebellious Republicans, the House is set to vote Wednesday evening on a Democratic-led resolution to rescind President Donald Trump’s tariffs imposed on Canada — which could result in a major rebuke of the president’s trade policies.
The legislation, led by the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Gregory Meeks, would force House lawmakers to go on the record for the first time on Trump’s tariffs and trade policy.
The measure seeks to end the emergency declaration Trump used to justify his Canada tariffs.
Even if the tariff vote clears the GOP-led House, Trump is likely to veto the measure. It’s unclear how the largely symbolic vote will fall given Speaker Johnson’s razor-thin majority.
Johnson argued on Fox Business Wednesday morning that Congress should not be getting in the way of Trump’s tariffs.
“I think it’s a big mistake. I don’t think we need to go down the road of trying to limit the president’s power while he is in the midst of negotiating America first trade agreements,” Johnson said, adding that tariffs have “done great for the economy.”
He pointed to the tariff case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court — arguing that Congress should allow that process to play out.
House Republican leaders have fought for a year to block such a tariff vote from hitting the House floor, but the failed rule vote Tuesday night opened the door to full House votes on overturning the president’s tariffs.
Three Republicans — Reps. Kevin Kiley, Don Bacon and Thomas Massie — bucked their own party to defeat the procedural effort that failed by a vote of 214-217.
Bacon posted on X Wednesday, “Congress has Article One Constitutional responsibilities on tariffs. We cannot & should not outsource our responsibilities. As an old fashioned Conservative I know tariffs are a tax on American consumers. I know some disagree. But this debate and vote should occur in the House.”
Even if the House passes the resolution the matter would need to go back to the Senate.
Last October, the Senate voted on similar resolutions to cancel some of Trump’s tariffs.
At the time, some Senate Republicans joined Democrats to rebuke the president’s trade policy.
