Third GOP senator says he’ll support Iran war powers resolution

Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) said on Tuesday that he will support a revised resolution that would rein in President Trump’s ability to take military action against Iran without congressional approval.

Young said that he was supportive of what he called “Kaine 2.0,” referring to a revised war powers resolution authored by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.).

“I will be supporting, shall we call it, Kaine 2.0., the newer Kaine language, should I have an opportunity to vote on it,” Young told reporters.

In a procedural twist for Democrats, Young said in a separate statement that he would not support Kaine’s resolution on an initial vote to bring it up on the Senate floor.

“While I appreciate Senator Kaine’s willingness to revise this bill, I will be opposing the motion to discharge and hope that we can continue working on this issue in a less politicized manner,” Young said in the statement.

Young added that he has been working with Kaine, but “due to Senate parliamentarian procedures, those revisions will not be incorporated until after a partisan vote to discharge occurs.”

The resolution that would be discharged from the Foreign Relations Committee would be Kaine’s initial resolution, which does not include the changes he made to win over Republicans.

Kaine could then amend it on the floor to reflect changes asked for by Republicans before final passage.

Young is the third Republican senator to say he will support the revised resolution. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) have both said they will support it.

Democrats need four Republican senators to break with them to pass the resolution, which would require Trump to end hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless he gets Congress to sign off on them.

Several GOP senators, including Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), have not said how they would vote on the resolution.

Kaine has been making changes to his resolution as he’s tried to gather more Republican support. He removed two paragraphs in the “findings” section that directly mention Trump over concerns from Republicans and some Democrats that it was too political.

Kaine also said he was working in some of the language from a House-passed war powers resolution into his, specifically changing his wording about removing troops to the lower chamber’s use of “termination of the use of U.S. armed forces” in hostilities against Iran after some colleagues raised concerns that “removing” suggested a pullback of U.S. troops from the region.

–This report was updated at 1:42 p.m.