‘I love this country with a soldier’s passion’: How one House Republican voted to buck Trump on Iran

By Annie Grayer, CNN

(CNN) — Republican Rep. Warren Davidson, a West Point graduate who served in the Army, remembers when the US went to war in Kosovo without congressional authorization.

It was part of the reason he decided to run for the US Congress.

On Thursday, Davidson was one of just two Republicans to vote with Democrats – and against President Donald Trump – to rein in the president’s war authority and require the White House to seek congressional approval before continuing US military action against Iran.

To be sure, Davidson is not used to being on the opposite side of the president. But the Ohio Republican said his vote was meant to remind Trump that he was once vocally against endless wars.

Republicans ultimately blocked the effort, but in a conversation with CNN ahead of the vote, Davidson said his vote was also to assure conservatives balking at the war effort that they still have a Republican representative in Congress.

The message, he said, was simply: “Hey, there’s still people that hear you.”

Even though he and staunch anti-interventionist Thomas Massie were the only Republicans to vote in favor of Democrats’ war powers push, Davidson said many of his Republican colleagues expressed similar concerns behind the scenes. If the war with Iran continues for 60 days without authorization, it could be a constitutional crisis, he said of those conversations.

“I’ve been encouraged to see that I’m not the only person that shares this viewpoint. I might be the only person that votes this way on this resolution but there are a lot of people in the movement that share these concerns,” Davidson told CNN.

The Ohio Republican did not come to his decision lightly and it wasn’t without pressure from both House GOP leadership and the Trump administration.

Ahead of a House classified briefing with Trump administration officials about the US strikes against Iran earlier this week, Davidson was open to being persuaded to vote with the majority of his party. But he said he had at least two conditions: He needed to know what intelligence the president had received that made him want to engage in war when he has historically been against it, and he needed to know what limiting factors existed on the ongoing operation.

During the classified briefing, Davidson stood up to ask a question, a source in the room told CNN.

Davidson declined to share that question with CNN, but he said the administration has publicly answered why Trump felt it was time to engage in war but that it has not put any limitations on what the conflict will look like.

The next morning, Davidson confronted House Speaker Mike Johnson during a closed-door meeting about his views of Article I of the US Constitution and the role Congress should play in authorizing the use of military force, a source familiar with the exchange told CNN.

After that interaction, House GOP leadership kept the conversation with Davidson going, thinking the congressman could still change his mind, a GOP leadership aide told CNN.

But later Wednesday, Davidson announced on the House floor that he would be voting against his party’s leadership and in support of the war powers resolution.

“I love this country with a soldier’s passion,” Davidson said from the House floor. “I rise in support of this war powers resolution today because the moral hazard posed by a government no longer constrained by our Constitution is a grave threat.”

Massie, the Kentucky Republican who co-led the legislation with California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, is used to being on an island apart from his Republican colleagues as the result of his high-profile fights against the president. He applauded Davidson’s willingness to stand up for what he believed in.

“I’m beyond the pressure campaign. I’m in the part where they just try to unselect you,” Massie said. “It seems like anybody who gets on the same side of an issue with me where I’m taking up for the Constitution and standing for what we campaigned on instead of the flavor of the day does take a lot of heat. But Warren’s done that already before. He’s not afraid to take heat.”

Davidson, who says he still has friends in active duty, said a vote in Congress goes a long way in showing soldiers that their country is behind them.

“It’s like, ‘Hey, how is it you can’t vote? Or if it’s tied 213-213, you’re ready to send us, and you guys can’t even work this out amongst yourselves?’ And so, I think it really is a huge boost for the soldiers to know that the whole country is behind them,” he said.

On Thursday, Davidson sat alone toward the back of the House chamber when he cast his vote.

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