In a Sunday night letter to her Democratic colleagues, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress will vote this week on a war powers resolution aimed at restricting President Donald Trump’s actions in the Middle East.
The resolution “reasserts Congress’ long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran will cease within 30 days.”
Last week, President Donald Trump ordered a drone airstrike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who the U.S. has accused of carrying out terrorist attacks on Americans and hundreds of others throughout the region.
The U.S. is also sending nearly 3,000 more troops to the Mideast in the aftermath of the attack, which has raised tensions between Iran and Trump.
For his part, Trump said his tweets will serve as notification to Congress of any future actions against Iran.
Thousands of Iranians took to Tehran streets on Monday, mourning Soleimani's killing, which happened while the Iranian revolutionary guard was at the Baghdad airport in Iraq. Iranian leaders are vowing revenge on the administration's actions, and Tehran has abandoned the remaining limits of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers in response to the slaying.
Soleimani's daughter, Zeinab, directly threatened an attack on the U.S. military in the Mideast while speaking to a crowd that stretched as far as the eye could see down major thoroughfares in Iran's capital.
The United States urged its U.S. citizens to leave Iraq “immediately.” The State Department said the embassy in Baghdad, which was attacked by Iran-backed militiamen and other protesters earlier this week, is closed and all consular services have been suspended.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself prayed over the caskets of Soleimani and others slain in the attack. Khamenei, who had a close relationship with Soleimani, wept at one point during the traditional Muslim prayers for the dead.
Trump has responded aggressively to Iranian threats.
Meanwhile, Pelosi still has not turned over Democrat-passed articles of impeachment against the president to the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer continue to spar over whether witnesses will be called during a Trump impeachment trial in the Senate.
"Congress and I will do everything I can to assert our authority," Schumer said Sunday on ABC. "We do not need this president either bumbling or impulsively getting us into a major war."
Despite Democrats' professed sense of urgency in passing House impeachment articles against the president last month, Pelosi has delayed sending the charges over to the Senate and refused to name the House managers who would handle the trial until Senate GOP leaders meet her demands.
Pelosi is demanding information from the Senate on how it plans to conduct Trump’s trial and hopes to give Schumer more leverage in talks with McConnell.
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