March 10, 2026 - Washington, D.C. — On Monday, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) on CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins to demand public accountability for Trump’s illegal war in Iran. The Senators issued a call for key Trump administration officials to testify under oath while filing new War Powers Resolutions as a method to force the Senate to hold additional debate on Trump’s ongoing war.

Schiff highlighted the rising costs the war has put on the American people, both in the servicemembers lives lost and in the prices everyday families are seeing rise as result of the conflict and the ensuing chaos. He also continued to press Senate Republicans to conduct basic constitutional checks and balances in the face of the largest American military conflict since Afghanistan.

Key Excerpts:  

On the need for the Trump administration to testify under oath on the Iran War: 

They’re going to have to testify publicly. We know from the classified briefings there was no imminent threat of attack. So, if there was no imminent threat to the United States, why are we at war? And they make no mistake in a closed session or an open discussion that we are at war. So why? What is the case to be made for this? When Americans can’t afford their groceries, they can’t afford their medicine, they can’t afford the cost of living, and yet we’re dropping a billion dollars of bombs, it seems every day in Iran. Let them make the case to Congress. Let them make the case to the American people.

I think they will have to come in and testify, and we want to maximize the pressure to make that happen. We haven’t been in a war like this since the beginning of the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War. The president then, at least sought authorization from Congress, tried to make the case to the American people. They haven’t done this, and I think they haven’t done it because they’re they don’t want to put themselves at risk. The Senators, they don’t want to go on the record this way, but they ought to have just a fraction of the courage our service members are displaying. They think this is such a great idea. Let them bring up an authorization, let them vote on it, but at a minimum, let them testify under oath. The president says we didn’t bomb an Iranian girl’s school. I’d like to hear the administration figures come and repeat those words under oath.

On the ultimate cost of the war:

[…] What we just witnessed in that dignified transfer, there is no more powerful testimony of the cost of war than what we just watched. It is not just that the president didn’t come to Congress to make the case for this or seek an authorization. It’s just that this is a war in search of an aim with tremendous cost for the American people. One of the soldiers who was killed was a Californian. I want this, what we just watched to be the last [dignified] transfer we see in this war. There’s no more powerful reason to put a stop to it than what we just witnessed.

On the need for the Trump administration to focus on meeting the needs of the American people:

[…] We have so many profound needs here at home that we’re unable to meet. We spent trillions of dollars on the Iraq War and the Afghanistan war. We’re spending billions and billions on this. They’re talking about bringing a funding bill to the Congress. I’d rather bring funding bills to provide disaster assistance we still haven’t received after the fires in Los Angeles, or to help our farmers or to help other parts of the country that are in desperate need. But instead, we are spending billions on a conflict that was a choice of the president, something he now has the gall to call an excursion. This is no excursion for our service members whose lives are at risk, it’s certainly not an excursion for their families back home. So we’re going to use every means we can to hold them accountable. I think when the American people hear from these administration officials, they will see how thin the case for this was, and that, I hope, will and hasten the end of the conflict.

Background:

Late last week, Senators Schiff, Kaine, Baldwin and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) filed individual War Powers Resolutions to curtail the Administration’s power to conduct war without congressional approval in Iran.

Under Senate rules, these resolutions—which were filed on March 5th and 6th–are “privileged,” which means they are eligible to be immediately called up for a discharge vote on the Senate floor after 10 calendar days.

The Senators are demanding public debate and oversight of the administration’s war immediately in the relevant committees of jurisdiction, or they will use the tools of the Senate to hold this public debate and continued votes on the administration’s war powers on the floor of the Senate.  

The new resolutions were filed days after a majority of Senate Republicans voted to block the War Powers Resolution led by Schiff, Kaine and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) resolution to prevent the continued use of military force against Iran unless explicitly authorized by Congress.

Last June, the Senate voted on a similar War Powers Resolution introduced by Kaine and Schiff to prevent the use of military force against Iran unless explicitly authorized by Congress. The June resolution gained bipartisan support but did not receive enough votes to advance. 

Source: Senator Adam Schiff