Reactions are pouring in after the USA and Israel announced a major military operation against Iran early Saturday, after weeks of threats from President Trump.

Mr. Trump announced the attack, titled “Operation Epic Fury,” in a video on Truth Social. He called on Iranian military forces to lay down their weapons and Iranian civilians to rise up and “take over your government.” Mr. Trump told the Washington Post that he wants to ensure freedom and security for the Iranian people.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said “Iran is facing severe consequences for its evil actions” and confirmed that Gang of 8, a group of eight congressional leaders who are legally required to be briefed on classified intelligence matters, had been briefed “earlier this week that military action may become necessary to protect American troops and American citizens in Iran.”

The Trump administration “has made every effort to find peaceful and diplomatic solutions in response to the Iranian regime’s continued nuclear ambitions and development, terrorism and the killing of Americans and even their own people,” Johnson said. “For decades, Iran has defiantly maintained its nuclear program while arming and funding Hamas, Hezbollah and other internationally recognized terrorist organizations. Iran and its proxies have threatened America and American lives, undermined our core national interests, systematically destabilized the Middle East and threatened the security of the entire West.”

Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the operation a “crucial and necessary operation to protect Americans and American interests” and said “the Iranian regime has never been weaker.”

Trump ally Senator Lindsey Graham said the operation “was well planned” and would be “violent, extensive and I believe, at the end of the day, successful.”

“It blows my mind that the murderous Ayatollah regime in Iran will soon be gone. We are facing the biggest change in the Middle East in a thousand years,” said Graham, a Republican who represents South Carolina. he said on social media. He prayed for everyone participating in the operation and said the effort would make “America safer and ultimately more prosperous.”

Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, shared a list of crimes committed by Iran and he said “the butcher’s bill finally came to the ayatollahs”.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat and the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, called the military operation “a deeply consequential decision that risks drawing the United States into another broad conflict in the Middle East.”

He condemned the Iranian regime for supporting terrorism and undermining regional stability, but said that “acknowledging this reality does not relieve any president of the responsibility to act within the law, with a clear strategy and with Congress.”

“The American people have seen this play out before – claims of urgency, misrepresented intelligence and military action that embroils the United States in regime change and lengthy, expensive nation-building. We owe it to our service members and every American family to ensure we do not repeat the mistakes of the past,” Warner said. “The president owes the country clear answers: What is the goal? What is the strategy to prevent escalation? And how does it make Americans safer?”

Rep. Jim Himes, a ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, called the operation “a war of choice without a strategic end.” Himes is a member of the Gang of Eight. He was notified before the operation began, a person familiar with the matter told CBS News.

Himes said he told Secretary of State Marco Rubio during that briefing that “military action in this region almost never ends well for the United States, and a conflict with Iran can easily spiral and escalate in ways that we cannot predict.”

“Donald Trump doesn’t seem to have learned the lessons of history,” Himes said.

Senator Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona and an Iraq War veteran, criticized the operation.

“I lost friends in Iraq because of the illegal war,” Gallego he said on social media. “Young working-class children should not have to pay the ultimate price for regime change and a war that has not been explained or justified to the American people. We can support the democratic movement and the Iranian people without sending our soldiers to die.”

Representative Thomas Massie, a frequent critic of Mr. Trump, appeared to describe operation as “acts of war not authorized by Congress” on social media. In June 2025.

Massie introduced the resolution directing the president to “terminate the use of U.S. armed forces in hostilities against Iran” without an act of Congress. Democrats planned to force a vote on a war powers resolution introduced by Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna.

Khanna he said on Saturday morning that Congress “must meet on Monday” to vote on a resolution “to stop this” and urged members of Congress to share their plans for a vote over the weekend. Himes said Mr Trump’s “own statement acknowledges that this is a war”.

“Donald Trump has launched a war against Iran. Congress must reconvene on Monday to vote on Thomas Massie’s resolution and my war powers to stop this war. Trump says his goal is to topple the Iranian regime,” Khanna said in the video. “But the American people are tired of regime change, wars that cost us billions of dollars and risk our lives. We don’t want to be at war with a country of 90 million people in the Middle East.”

Senator Tim Kaine also called on the Senate to “immediately return to session” and vote on a bipartisan war powers resolution “to block the use of US forces in hostilities against Iran.”

“Has President Trump learned nothing from decades of US meddling in Iran and perpetual wars in the Middle East? Is he too mentally incapable to realize that we had a diplomatic deal with Iran that kept its nuclear program in check, until he tore it up during his first term?” he said. “For months I’ve been raising hell about the fact that the American people want lower prices, not more war — especially wars that are not authorized by Congress, as required by the Constitution, and have no clear objective.”

Representative Nancy Mace supported the president’s action, writing on social networks: “President Trump understood what the weak couldn’t bring themselves to say: that peace cannot be found in appeasement — it is conquered. The Iranian people bled for their freedom. Their cries fell on deaf ears. Not on Trump’s watch.”