WASHINGTON — Republicans easily rebuffed an effort by Democrats to force the House of Representatives to vote on President Donald Trump’s Iran war on Thursday.

The House and Senate are both on vacation but each chamber periodically holds short “pro forma” sessions where a Republican member gavels the chamber into session, then immediately gavels out.

During a House pro forma on Thursday, Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) tried to interrupt the proceedings to demand the House vote on a War Powers Resolution. It didn’t work: Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) ignored him and banged the gavel.

Still, Democrats made a spectacle of the proceedings, with a half dozen lawmakers attending the session and then speaking to reporters on the House steps afterward.

.@RepGlennIvey News Conference on Iran War Powers Resolution - LIVE on C-SPAN3 https://t.co/2klCVOBycI pic.twitter.com/vGAPcwBQhs

“Democrats are here on the Hill, saying to the Congress, saying to the speaker of the House, have us back in session so that we would live up to our constitutional responsibility,” Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) said.

The War Powers Resolution, a law Congress passed in the wake of the Vietnam War to prevent presidents from dragging the country into endless military entanglements, allows individual members of the House and Senate to force snap votes on ceasing hostilities abroad. Both chambers voted on resolutions to end the Iran conflict last month, but Republicans defeated them.

But Trump’s profane Easter Sunday post demanding Iran “open the fuckin’ strait,” referring to the Strait of Hormuz, followed by his threat that a “whole civilization will die,” have changed the politics of the war. Even a handful of elected Republicans condemned Trump’s genocidal threat, while House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) have remained conspicuously silent.

“My constituents, people across the political spectrum and the pope, I think, were really, really shocked by the president’s language in his Easter tweet and then his threat to commit genocide, literal genocide, and it can’t be excused as a negotiating tactic,” Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) told HuffPost. “The silence of so many Republicans is also a recognition that they know this is out of control.”

Though they were rebuffed on Thursday, Democrats can still force a vote on a war disapproval resolution next week when the House reconvenes. The big question will be how the vote totals change — two Republicans voted for the resolution last month, and four Democrats voted against it. One of those Democrats has since said he would vote in favor, and two House Republicans said this week that Trump’s genocidal threat was unacceptable.

Still, even if the House and Senate both approve war resolutions, Trump can simply veto them, and there are not likely to be enough votes to override a veto.

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