Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, delivered a deeply personal and impassioned floor speech Wednesday urging the Senate to reject a War Powers Resolution that would have directed President Trump to halt U.S. military operations against Iran, choking up as he pointed to a bracelet honoring a fallen friend killed by an Iranian bomb.
The Senate voted 47-49 to defeat the measure, with Republicans largely holding together to block the Democratic-led effort. The House had passed its version of a similar resolution 214-208 earlier in the week. Sen. Steve Daines, also of Montana, called the resolution unconstitutional.
Sheehy opened his remarks by invoking a dignified transfer ceremony he had witnessed the previous day at Dover Air Force Base, where President Trump and others presided over the return of remains from the war zone — a ceremony Sheehy said is sacred to those who have served. He noted he had personally carried friends off the plane in similar ceremonies.
“This regime that we are fighting does not care about our partisan politics,” Sheehy said. “They don’t care who you voted for, who you pray to, or where you live. They want to kill all of us. And they don’t just say it, they actually do it. And they’ve been doing it for 47 years.”
Sheehy pushed back on the Democratic framing of the conflict as a war of choice, saying the choice was made by Iran’s regime — not by Trump. He ticked through nearly five decades of attacks he tied to Iran and its proxies, invoking the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, the USS Cole, the Achille Lauro and the activities of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
“There’s never been a single president who has stood up to Iran and hit back,” Sheehy said. “For 47 years, our troops and our families have been absorbing attack after attack after attack all over the world.”
Sheehy also addressed critics of what he called “forever wars,” saying that service members deployed overseas deserve the support of their elected officials rather than what he described as having their efforts undermined from Washington.
“We didn’t start this war. We did not. But we will finish it,” he said, closing his remarks with a direct address to the president: “Thank you, Mr. President.”
The speech drew wide national attention and extensive coverage, with Sheehy’s visible emotion at the outset of his remarks becoming one of the more discussed moments of the Senate debate on the resolution.