Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) expects he will get some Senate Republicans to cross the aisle and support his resolution to curb the president’s war powers in Iran.

Kaine filed a resolution last week that requires congressional debate and a vote before the U.S. takes any offensive measures against Iran. On Saturday, President Donald Trump ordered three of Iran’s nuclear sites destroyed by six 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs and 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles. While Trump had hinted that he would make a decision within the next two weeks of whether to strike, Kaine condemned the move made without notifying Congress.

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“We will have Republican votes. How many, I don’t know,” Kaine said of his resolution on Fox News’s Fox News Sunday. “We’re gonna have the briefing this week, we’ll have a vote. I know many Republicans will fall in line and say, ‘the president can do whatever he wants,’ but I hope members of the Senate and the House will take their Article I responsibility seriously and say, you didn’t even notify us, much less get an authorization. The U.S. should not be at war without a vote of Congress.”

Already, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) is among the republicans defending Trump’s decision. According to Mullin’s interpretation of the Constitution’s Article II, “if we are attacked, the commander in chief — not the president of the United States at the time, but now he becomes commander in chief — has the authority and the ability to protect Americans home and abroad if we feel threatened or attacked, including our assets.”

“There is no question Iran threatened us, and there is no question they have attacked us. This is well within the president’s authority to do exactly what he’s doing,” Mullin said Saturday on Fox News’s Hannity.

Kaine’s resolution is privileged under the War Powers Act, meaning Republicans must bring it to the floor for a vote. There is a possibility the resolution won’t be brought forward until after the July 4 recess, since such resolutions take 10 days to “ripen.”

The last time Kaine brought forth a resolution centered on Iran was in 2020, when Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian general at the time. Eight Republicans, Susan Collins (R-ME), Todd Young (R-IN), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and former Sen. Lamar Alexander from Tennessee, sided with the Democrats in supporting the measure.

MARKWAYNE MULLIN DEFENDS IRAN STRIKES THAT WERE ‘WELL WITHIN’ TRUMP’S AUTHORITY

This follows two previous resolutions Kaine has forced a vote on since Trump took office: one centered on the president’s tariffs and the other on the deportation of migrants to El Salvador.

Other Democratic House members have gone further, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), stating that the decision to strike without Congressional authorization was “a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers” and thus warrants an impeachment of the president. Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) has also joined in the chorus calling for impeachment.