Kaine calls Iran war ‘triply illegal,’ says it should ‘end immediately’

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) called on the Trump administration Wednesday to swiftly end its military operations against Iran amid legislative pressure to bring this monthslong conflict to a close.

Kaine noted the House’s passage of three Iran war powers resolutions, calling the conflict “triply illegal” in comments to reporters on Capitol Hill shared by CSPAN .

The lawmaker said the Senate, which passed a war powers resolution he introduced in June, is “likely to pass a second one soon.” Four Republican senators crossed party lines to support the first measure.

However, Kaine acknowledged the resistance of the Trump administration to public pressure to end U.S. military operations against Iran.

“The war should end immediately because it’s illegal and foolish,” Kaine said, adding, “I don’t think you can expect the president to do that.”

Critics of the conflict have cited the U.S. service members who have died during the Iran war and rising global energy rates tied to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil trading corridor located in the region.

The war has also become increasingly unpopular in polling of the American public, with three quarters of respondents in a July Marquette Law School Supreme Court survey saying the conflict was “not worth the cost.”

Gas prices in the U.S. have surged amid the Iran war, with the national average of standard gas sitting around $4.47 per gallon on Wednesday, up from an average of about $3.17 per gallon a year ago, according to AAA .

Last week, the president said at a political rally in North Carolina that rising gas prices were “a very inexpensive price to pay for what we’ve done.”

Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio), who is engaged in a tightly contested reelection race this November, told Politico on Tuesday he would like to see the war “come to an end as quickly as possible so we can lower gas prices.”

A spokesperson told the outlet the senator does not plan to support Democrats’ war powers resolution. This measure does not carry the force of law.

GOP Sen. John Kennedy (La.) told CBS News’s Nikole Killion on Wednesday that “we all want the war to end” but also withheld support for a war powers resolution.

“I don’t support Congress pulling the rug out [from] under our commander in chief and just forcing him to stop immediately prosecuting the war, particularly when we’re winning,” Kennedy said. “I don’t support that, and I think the genesis of most, not all of that, but the genesis of most of that is political, and I think it would hurt America.”