A group of Senate Democrats is threatening to hold up business on the Senate floor unless Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and others testify about the conflict in Iran, The Hill reported.
"We have collectively agreed that we're going to use the levers that we have," Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., told The Hill.
"We should be having hearings on the biggest military engagement since the war in Afghanistan," Booker said.
"Each individual senator has a tremendous amount of power to disrupt the normal functioning of the Senate as well as certain privileges that we can exercise.
"What we have agreed on right now is that we're not going to let the Senate continue business as usual, which seems to be ignoring the urgent issues the American people are dealing with," Booker added.
Democrats said they want Rubio and Hegseth to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee, The Hill reported.
"We are demanding there be hearings, debate, questions answered — that the Senate do its job," Booker told The Hill.
"It is unacceptable that we have not had hearings and we have not had a sufficient debate on the issues in public … in hearings, witnesses under oath.
"That is what we are demanding," Booker added.
Other Democrats joining with Booker include Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Adam Schiff of California, and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, The Hill reported.
The Democrats have already filed five different resolutions directing the administration to remove U.S. troops from military hostilities against Iran, and they plan to force Republicans to repeatedly debate and vote on the conflict on the Senate floor.
"As senators, we have the right to force a vote and debate every single day in the Senate.
"That's not a right under the rules, by the way, granted to us by the majority. That's a right given to us by the statute," Murphy told The Hill.
"What we're saying is we're not going to let the Senate be silent.
"We want there to be a hearing so that the American public can hear from their leaders why they think this war is in the national interest; I think they'll fail in that exercise," Murphy added.
"I think it will become harder and harder as this war gets uglier and uglier, deadlier and deadlier, more costly and more costly, for Republicans to continue to vote in favor of this war," Murphy continued.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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