Progressives are pressuring Democratic leaders to use a looming government funding deadline to cut off funding for President Donald Trump’s Iran war. It’s a move that would likely put the party on a collision course with the White House and risk a government shutdown just weeks after the Democrats’ sweeping election victories.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) are calling for members of their party to withhold support for a government funding bill unless it restricts funding for the conflict. The effort presents an early test for Democratic leaders, who have been noncommittal about whether to use the party’s new leverage to confront Trump now or wait until their newly elected majorities take power in January.
“I’m not planning to vote for anything that provides any funding to fuel the war in Iran,” Van Hollen told The Washington Sun. “If the president wants to tell the country that he’s prepared to shut down the United States government in order to conduct an illegal and senseless war in Iran, that will be his choice.”
Van Hollen also framed the question as whether the party would heed the message voters delivered in Tuesday’s elections.
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“I think this is a really important moment for Democratic leadership,” he said. “Are the Democrats, including the Democratic leadership, going to listen to the verdict of the American people and vote to end this war?”
The debate is taking shape as Democrats prepare to return to Washington next week following an election that left Republicans grappling with the political fallout from the war. With government funding set to expire Dec. 11, lawmakers have little time to decide how aggressive to be.
Van Hollen said he and his colleagues have discussed a proposal modeled on a 1973 congressional measure that barred the use of funds for the Vietnam War that Congress had already approved.“The idea would be to say no funds may be expended to conduct the war in Iran,” Van Hollen said.
When Congress used a similar strategy to force President Richard Nixon to accept restrictions on U.S. military operations in Southeast Asia, the measure covered previously appropriated money. American bombing in Cambodia ended when the prohibition took effect roughly six weeks after Nixon signed the legislation.
Advocates of that idea say the funding deadline represents a first chance to use government funding as leverage to end the war. Lawmakers are expected to pass a short-term spending bill to extend funding into early 2027, when the new Democratic majorities could seek to impose restrictions on the conflict through a full-year budget.Senate Democratic leaders have not yet embraced the strategy. Representatives for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries did not respond to requests for comment. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement to The Sun that Democrats will “look at every tool we have available to us to bring this disastrous war to an end.” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, is focused on keeping war funding out of a regular defense spending bill for 2027.
“Democrats will absolutely not fund Trump’s war of choice with Iran that has increased costs on American families and made us less safe,” she said in a statement.
Some Democrats worry that forcing a shutdown in December would be a tactical mistake and would actually undermine their ability to confront Trump once they take control of Congress in January. One congressional Democratic aide said a prolonged funding impasse could consume the opening weeks of the new majority, derailing the oversight Democrats promised and negotiations to end the war.
Democrats forced two government shutdown fights over the past year. They failed to achieve their demands both times.
But Khanna and Van Hollen, two progressive lawmakers contemplating 2028 presidential runs, argue that Democrats must force the issue as soon as possible.
“It would be a betrayal of the voters to be complicit in keeping the war going,” Van Hollen said.
Republicans hold 53 Senate seats, meaning they would generally need at least seven Democratic votes to overcome a filibuster on a government funding bill. By withholding those votes, Democrats could force Republicans to negotiate restrictions on military operations in exchange for avoiding a government shutdown.
Khanna, a longtime critic of U.S. military interventions abroad, on “The Lever” podcast explicitly endorsed the idea of blocking a continuing resolution unless Congress restricts funding for the war.
“Of course, we should,” Khanna said when asked whether Democrats should risk a shutdown. “We just would have won an election because people are upset at higher food and gas prices and diesel prices because of the war in Iran. Our first aim should be to try to stop this war, and we should use every tool at our disposal to do that.”Khanna argued the idea would have broad support.
“I don’t think this is a progressive position. I think this is a ‘Hey, I paid attention to the election,’” Khanna said. “They just hand you a mandate. Don’t you think the first thing you would do is try to stop the war in Iran?”
The pressure on Democratic leaders is also coming from outside antiwar groups, which are demanding lawmakers publicly commit to blocking a spending bill before negotiations begin. More than two dozen organizations, including Demand Progress, Common Defense, Peace Action and the National Iranian American Council, have signed onto a draft letter going out Friday.
“The most appropriate and immediate opportunity comes when current government funding expires on December 11, 2026,” says the letter, shared with The Sun. “Congress must ensure that any subsequent continuing resolution, appropriations measure, or other funding or authorization legislation explicitly prohibits any funding for the ongoing, unauthorized hostilities against Iran.”
The left-leaning organization Just Foreign Policy, which organized the letter, posted on X Friday at Schumer, Murray and other Democrats: “Americans voted to end the war NOW.”
Some Democrats have expressed interest in using the spending deadline to pressure Trump, though they have stopped short of committing to a shutdown confrontation.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona) said Thursday that ending the war could be a condition of the funding negotiations, but he suggested Democrats should also use their leverage to address other priorities, including Medicaid cuts.
“I think we have to look at everything, whether it’s impeachment funding, whatever mechanism we have through the [annual defense policy bill — whatever mechanism that we can use through the Constitution,” Gallego, another possible 2028 candidate, said at a midterm briefing hosted by the Center for American Progress in Washington. “But the American public has been very clear that they do not see the benefit to this war; they don’t believe that it’s in the interests of this country, and they’re sick of paying for it.”
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