By Sam Barron | Monday, 09 March 2026 10:12 PM EDT
A group of Senate Democrats said they are threatening to hold up business on the Senate floor unless Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth testify about the conflict in Iran.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., stated that the group has collectively agreed to use their powers to disrupt Senate proceedings.
“We should be having hearings on the biggest military engagement since the war in Afghanistan,” he said.
“Each individual senator has a tremendous amount of power to disrupt the normal functioning of the Senate as well as certain privileges we can exercise,” Booker added.
“What we have agreed on is that we are not going to let the Senate continue business as usual, which seems to be ignoring the urgent issues the American people are dealing with,” he said.
The group wants Rubio and Hegseth to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“We are demanding there be hearings, debate, questions answered — that the Senate do its job,” Booker said.
“It is unacceptable that we have not had hearings and we have not had a sufficient debate on the issues in public … under oath,” he added.
“That is what we are demanding.”
Other Democrats joining Booker include Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Adam Schiff of California, and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.
The Democrats have filed five resolutions directing the administration to remove U.S. troops from military hostilities against Iran and plan to force Republicans to repeatedly debate and vote on the conflict.
“As senators, we have the right to force a vote and debate every single day in the Senate,” said Murphy.
“That’s not a right under the rules granted to us by the majority. That’s a right given to us by statute,” he added.
“What we’re saying is we are not going to let the Senate be silent. We want there to be a hearing so that the American public can hear from their leaders why they think this war is in the national interest; I think they’ll fail in that exercise,” Murphy said.
“I think it will become harder and harder as this war gets uglier and uglier, deadlier and deadlier, more costly and more costly, for Republicans to continue to vote in favor of this war,” he continued.
