It may not have the official title, but President Donald Trump’s military venture in Iran is beginning to have all the trappings of a capital-W war.
On Tuesday evening, news reports emerged that the Pentagon will dispatch members of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt warned that Trump was prepared to “unleash hell” if Tehran did not come to the negotiating table.
Just don’t tell that to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Republicans. The same night, the Senate voted down another War Powers Act resolution to force Congress to rein in the Trump administration on Iran.
On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson was less than forthcoming about it.
“The build up of troops is very different than boots on the ground,” Johnson told The Independent at his weekly press conference. “We don’t have boots on the ground. I don’t think that’s the intention, but I think Iran should watch that build up, and they need to take note of that.”
There’s a big reason for this: Americans just don’t like the war in Iran. An Associated Press-NORC poll showed that 59 percent of Americans think the war in Iran has gone too far, with 63 percent of independents saying so. In addition, 62 percent of Americans oppose putting U.S. troops on the ground in Iran.
That may be why Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) played coy when asked about the report of sending in troops.
“I’m told that that’s not real, so I haven’t been personally briefed on that,” she told The Independent. “I don’t want boots on the ground.”
Boebert, like her friend-turned rival former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, represents the isolationist wing of the Republican Party. Even as Johnson has pushed for a supplemental bill to fund the way and restock the U.S.’s armament stock, Boebert has come out against such a spending package.
And Boebert is not the only one who is not happy about the idea of boots on the ground. Rep. Nancy Mace, the Trump critic-turned-fan who is now running for governor of South Carolina, excoriated administration leadership after a House Armed Services Committee hearing.
“The justifications presented to the American public for the war in Iran were not the same military objectives we were briefed on today in the House Armed Services Committee,” she said on social media. “This gap is deeply troubling. The longer this war continues, the faster it will lose the support of Congress and the American people.”
Mace has also been sniping at her fellow Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham, for his bellicose rhetoric. There’s a longstanding beef there. Mace ran against Graham in a Senate primary in 2014.
The two Republican women have ever-so-slightly been willing to break with Trump while still supporting him, going back to when they signed the discharge petition to force a vote to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
And the co-sponsors of that bill, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) are now pushing for another War Powers Act resolution.
Khanna told The Independent he is confident he can get more Republican support this go around.
“I think we could get some Republicans, especially. President refuses to rule out ground troops,” he said. “There are a number of Republicans made that clear, that’s their red line.”
Democrats have long been furious at the fact that there have been no open hearings regarding the war. That anger is only growing. Rep. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, who was among the Democrats who recorded a video saying U.S. servicemembers can refuse illegal orders, put it plainly.
“I think that this administration should be accountable and answering to the American people,” Goodlander, a former intelligence officer for the Navy Reserve, told The Independent. “War should not be conducted in secret. War should not be conducted with blank checks.”
And Sen. Chris Murphy, who has led the messaging against the war, has come out just as forcefully.
“Trump is making this up on a day to day basis,” he told The Independent. “It is costing Americans billions of dollars, and the costs are just going to continue to go up.”
The growing unpopularity of the war, as well as Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s unwillingness to do anything to rein Trump in, might be the undoing of the Republican majority.
A separate Quinnipiac poll showed that Democrats have an 11-point advantage in terms of whom voters want to control the House of Representatives.
Johnson has been making the case that the 2026 midterms will be a “Contrast for America.” He’s right, but not in the way he thinks; 2026 will be a referendum on how much Americans want to see Trump’s power go unchecked.
