Trump's Biggest Senate Win This Week?

It happened past most people’s bedtime on a Wednesday, which is exactly how the Senate likes to handle the things it would rather you didn’t watch. Tim Kaine’s resolution to yank President Trump out of his Iran operations — to handcuff the Commander-in-Chief and march him to the bargaining table with Tehran — went down 50 to 47. And the most beautiful part isn’t that it lost. It’s that it lost by more than it was going to the day before.

Somebody pour a Diet Coke. The vote count literally moved in Trump’s direction overnight, which is the political equivalent of a poker player going all-in and then watching two of his opponents fold their winning hands at 2 a.m. for no reason anyone can explain.

Here’s the setup, for those of you who were asleep like sane people. Kaine — the Virginia Democrat best remembered for being the guy standing next to Hillary Clinton in 2016, the human participation trophy of national politics — wanted a war-powers resolution forcing Trump to pull American forces out of any Iran operation absent a fresh vote from Congress. It’s the same play the anti-war crowd runs every time a Republican is in the Oval Office and never, ever runs when a Democrat is dropping bombs on someone. Funny how that works.

Washington took something from your grandfather in 1933. The plan on Trump’s desk could pay it back — at 7,000%.

The day before, the procedural motion looked like it was headed for a 50-48 loss. Close, but a loss is a loss. Then the sun came up. And by the time the Senate actually voted, two Republican holdouts — Rand Paul and Bill Cassidy — had flipped their votes to Trump’s side, turning 50-48 into 50-47.

Trump, naturally, did the math in public. “The Senate just changed its vote on Iran from 50-48 against, to 50-47 for,” he announced — and you can practically hear the grin in it. The man asked the Senate to count again, and the Senate counted again, and the number came up his way. When was the last time that happened to anybody?

Only two Republicans defected: Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. Write those names down if you’re surprised, but you’re not surprised, because it’s always Collins and Murkowski. At this point the two of them voting against their own president is less a news event than a weather pattern.

Now, let’s be clear about what actually got decided here, because it’s bigger than a head count. The whole premise of Kaine’s resolution was that the President needs the Senate’s permission slip to defend American interests against a regime that chants “Death to America” as a matter of official policy. The Senate looked at that premise and said no. The Constitution makes the President the Commander-in-Chief — not a subcommittee, not Tim Kaine, not a 100-person debating society that can’t pass a budget on time. And on Wednesday night, the Senate remembered that for once.

That’s the part the establishment hates most. The same people who spent four years insisting Trump was a reckless cowboy who couldn’t be trusted with the office just watched a chamber of the United States Congress decline to take the keys away from him — and then increase its confidence in him 24 hours later. Two senators who’d been holding out folded. The momentum didn’t drift toward the guardrails. It drifted toward Trump.

And here’s where you can see the whole game in miniature. Kaine’s people will tell you this was about “principle,” about Congress reclaiming its war powers, about checks and balances. Noble stuff. The trouble is they only discover these principles when a Republican is in charge. The war-powers conscience goes into a deep, restful coma every time a Democrat is the one ordering strikes, and wakes up bright-eyed the second a Republican does the same thing. It’s not a principle. It’s a partisan reflex wearing a constitutional costume.

The losers are already spinning it as a “near-miss,” a moral victory, a sign that the resistance is growing. Let me translate: they lost, and then the next day they lost by more. In what universe is your coalition shrinking a sign of momentum? Only the one where the press grades Democrats on the world’s most generous curve.

So the scoreboard reads 50-47. Trump asked the Senate to reconsider, and it did — in his favor. Rand Paul and Bill Cassidy looked at the choice between Tim Kaine and the Commander-in-Chief and made the right call overnight. The resolution is dead, the President’s hands are untied, and the only people upset about it are the ones who think Tehran deserves a vote in how America defends itself.

The Senate counted to 50 twice. Both times, Trump came out on top. Anybody still want to tell us we’re losing?

Share