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Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, in a few minutes, we will move into a series of votes, and one of the votes is a motion to proceed to a resolution that I filed a number of weeks back, an Iran War Powers Resolution.

The current status of that resolution is that, about a month ago, we successfully discharged it from the Committee, and so it is now able to be called up on a motion to proceed.

I want to just inform all of my colleagues that, while I am always going to vote for a motion to proceed to my resolution, the resolution is completely superfluous. It is completely superfluous because both Houses of Congress have now taken the historic step of voting for the first time, under the history of the War Powers Resolution, that the President of the United States cannot restart a war legally unless he asks Congress for permission. That has left the station.

Both Houses--Republican majority--have said it will be illegal for Donald Trump to start back the war against Iran without a vote of Congress.

And so any action on the motion to proceed to my resolution is superfluous because that vote is done, Congress has spoken, and the will of both Houses is now clear.

So I will vote to proceed to my motion, but no one else should feel any stress about this one. Congress has clearly spoken and rebuked the President for starting an illegal war, and said he can't restart it without us.

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