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Floor Speech

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Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, we are facing a dark moment in our country's history. On Saturday, Donald Trump decided to drag the American people into a reckless, illegal war with Iran, a war based on lies, a war launched with no imminent threat to our Nation.

Six U.S. servicemembers are now dead and more badly hurt. A missile from the United States and Israeli-led bombing campaign reportedly killed over 150 people at a girls' school in Iran, many of them little girls, some as young as 7 years old. And now, violence is spreading across the Middle East, with the threat of that violence bleeding into the United States.

And for what? For another forever war that the American people do not want? Our Constitution is clear; only Congress can declare war. That is because one single person should not have the power to drag our entire country into a reckless war.

But that is exactly--exactly--what Donald Trump has done. He has given prepared remarks. He has spoken to the press. Yet, even after multiple bombing runs and the death of American servicemembers, Donald Trump cannot give a single clear reason for this war.

Why are we at war? Donald Trump has dozens of reasons and, ultimately, no reason at all. Worse yet, Donald Trump is dragging Americans into this war with no plan for how to end it. He has no stated objectives, no clear strategies, no way to explain: When we accomplish this, we will leave. Even the deaths of Americans has not given Donald Trump pause. Instead, he doubles down.

Every hour, the Trump administration feeds us shifting justifications for this war; every hour, he contradicts a justification that he used earlier. Donald Trump said that Iran has restarted its nuclear program, but Donald Trump's own officials have said that is not true.

Donald Trump claimed that Iran is developing long-range missiles that will soon be capable of hitting the United States. That directly goes against what his own government has claimed.

As recently as January, the Trump administration said they would not engage in any regime change wars. And now, they are calling on the Iranian people to rise up and change their regime. Khamenei was an authoritarian dictator who has the blood of Americans on his hands, but killing one leader does not topple a brutal regime. The next leader could be just as bad or even worse. And Donald Trump's deceptions keep right on coming. In June of last year, Trump bombed Iran and claimed that Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities had been ``completely and totally obliterated.''

``Completely and totally obliterated.''

And now, Trump is telling the American people that he had to attack Iran on Saturday because Iran posed an imminent threat based on their nuclear capabilities. Both of those things cannot be true.

If Donald Trump believes that Iran's nuclear ambitions are a threat, he had the chance to curb them. In fact, the United States had a deal that would have prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. That was President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, and Trump ripped up that deal and got nothing in return.

Instead of doing the hard work of diplomacy to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, Trump is lying to Americans while dragging us into yet another reckless war that is costing American lives.

Already, six U.S. servicemembers have been killed, and others have been seriously hurt in these attacks. My heart is with these servicemembers and their loved ones, but Trump just doesn't seem to care.

In fact, he said he is not ruling out sending United States' ground troops into Iran. He even said that, while every President says, Well, there will be no boots on the ground, he doesn't say it. He is proud of the fact that he is willing to put American lives at risk for this war of his own choosing. It is truly horrific.

The ripple effects of this violence are even broader. Protesters in countries across the world are storming U.S. Embassies and threatening the lives of State Department officials. American citizens living in the region are now in the middle of a war zone, in danger, and unsure if they can make it home safely.

And the violence is spreading. Iran has attacked at least nine countries since the Trump administration and Israel started this war on Saturday, putting more American servicemembers and more American civilians abroad at risk and threatening to destabilize the entire region.

I disagree with Donald Trump, but I understand that he won the 2024 election. But when he ran in 2024, he said repeatedly that he would be a peace President. He ran on a platform of no more wars. He said he would be a President to stop wars, not start them, and Americans believed him.

But now, we face an ugly reality. In the modern era, no American President has ordered more military strikes against as many different countries as Donald Trump. None. Donald Trump's disregard for human life seems to have no bounds.

I want to make one more point here, and it is about something that is very personal to me. All three of my brothers served in the military. My oldest brother served off and on in Vietnam for 6 years, running 266 combat missions. I remember the fear our family felt with every late- night phone call or official-looking letter. Could my brother be hurt? Could he be dead?

It is still hard to find the words to describe the pain that we put American families through when we ship a generation off to war. Mamas are worried sick that their sons or daughters will not make it home. A new generation of veterans will have to live with the horrors of war, live with the trauma of witnessing innocent victims of war take their final breath, live with their own injuries and prolonged recoveries.

The people who will be asked to sacrifice their lives are the American people. It won't be Donald Trump. It won't be Pete Hegseth. It will be our sons and daughters, our nieces and nephews, our grandchildren. Trump is right to note that people die in war. That happens as surely as night follows day. And that means that the leaders who send young people to die must take the consequences of this conflict with the seriousness it deserves, with life-and-death seriousness.

Instead, Trump and his team seem to be treating war with Iran like a game, as if Commander in Chief was a costume and Secretary of War is a fun, pretend title, and the lives lost are just numbers on a board with the title Operation Epic Fury.

Forty-eight hours after he started this war, Trump finally addressed the American people and took questions. He spoke to the people who are worried sick about what this war means for them and what it means for the people they love.

Instead of offering a plan, however, he talked about renovations to his gold-encrusted ballroom. It is sickening, and it is time for this Congress to make him stop.

Here is what we need: First, Donald Trump started this war illegally, without the consent of Congress, and he cannot be allowed to continue it. There is too much at stake. Every single Senator must support Senator Kaine's War Powers Resolution to block this reckless war. This isn't about politics. This is about life and death for young Americans who will be called on to serve and for civilians who will end up in harm's way.

Second, the United States must investigate the bombing of an elementary school in Iran. Israel claims it was not aware of any operations in the area by their own IDF, and that raises the question of whether it was a United States strike and how that happened.

The U.S. military's Central Command has said it needs to look into the incident. As we regularly do following a catastrophe of this size with the possible involvement of the U.S. military, we must find out what happened and hold those responsible to account.

And, third, we need to hold accountable every single Trump administration official who lied to the American people about this unconstitutional war. People have a right to the truth from their government, and nowhere, at no time, is that more crucial than in the life-and-death decisions surrounding the decision to go to war.

We must hold our elected officials accountable if they don't level with the people who will be sent to fight and possibly to die. Along with many of you, I am angry at what this administration is doing. I feel grief for those killed in the conflict. I feel anguish for the families at home trying to make sense of why their beloved husbands, wives, sons, daughters, moms, and dads are sent into a war that no one can explain.

And I will keep fighting for an end to this war.

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