Here are the 4 Democrats who opposed the war powers resolution

Four Democrats defied party leaders on Thursday to oppose a resolution curbing President Trump’s war powers in Iran. 

Some defections had been expected headed into the vote, given the thorny nature of the conflict and its relationship to Israel, which has divided Democrats on and off of Capitol Hill for years.

Before Trump struck Iran over the weekend, a number of pro-Israel lawmakers were lining up against the war powers resolution, which was sponsored by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

After the strikes, however, some of those lawmakers — including Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) — reversed course to support the measure.

The four who ended up voting against the measure are: Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) and Juan Vargas (D-Calif.).

Landsman and Golden both touted an alternate war powers resolution they had introduced, along with Reps. Gottheimer, Cuellar, Jim Costa (D-Calif.) and Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.). That resolution would place limits on the operation but give Trump a 30-day window to wind down the conflict.

Landsman and Golden said they had plenty of concerns with how the decision to launch strikes against Iran was made, but they were cautious about grinding the operation to an immediate halt.

“The president has not provided sufficient clarity for why this action was necessary at this exact moment. But servicemembers are actively engaged in hostilities, our allies are under attack and the Iranian regime is more desperate than ever to reassert its power,” Golden said in a statement. “While I do not believe that an abrupt about-face is a good course of action given the reality on the ground, that should not be construed as my approval. While conflict requires that we remain flexible to shifting circumstances, at this time I would not support Congressional authorization or funding for sustained combat operations.”

Landsman has been a strong and vocal supporter of Israel and in an appearance on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” on Thursday said Iran “has been a chaos machine. They cause mayhem, violence.”

But he also said, “I think it’s important to say, look, this is not good policy. What’s better policy is to allow the military and our allies to finish this particular operation, which is targeted, just the missiles and the launchers and the ships. That’s it. And then be done.”

Golden, who is retiring at the end of this term, is in a Republican-leaning district and frequently bucks his party on votes. Cuellar also often votes with Republicans, and Landsman is in a toss-up district. Vargas’s vote was perhaps the biggest surprise of the four, and he had not released a statement as of press time.

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