Lisa Murkowski

Murkowski set 11 May as her deadline for The White House to produce a written plan with defined objectives, success metrics, exit criteria and reporting requirements before she would file her Iran war-authorisation bill (AUMF). The deadline passed unmet, and she kept the bill off the floor when the Senate returned that day.

On 12 May, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate Appropriations Committee that Trump already had 'all the authorities he needs under Article 2' and did not need an AUMF, ending the rationale for her bill without a vote ever being taken on it. She never filed it.

Murkowski criticised Trump's Iran rhetoric through early April without breaking ranks on the Senate's war-powers votes. On 13 May she crossed for the first time, voting yes on the seventh Democratic War Powers Act resolution alongside Susan Collins and Rand Paul; the measure fell 49-50, one vote short.

The crossing came a day after Hegseth's Article 2 testimony had removed her AUMF's rationale. The House tied 212-212 on a parallel measure the following day, leaving both chambers without a binding result against the war.

Murkowski refused to vote for the Pentagon's $200 billion war supplemental without a White House strategy outline, a position she held as the request quadrupled from its original estimate in March 2026. At $900 million a day, the funding fight put her Appropriations Committee seat at the centre of Congress's clearest leverage over the war's cost.

Her position held into a wider Republican revolt: Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts called the dissent 'good', the first time the group had endorsed opposition to military spending, while GOP leaders privately conceded they lacked the votes to pass the request.