Jay Inslee Tells Joy Reid a Secret House Vote Would End Iran War 'Tomorrow'

Former Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said on Friday that House Republicans privately believe the Iran war is wrong and would vote to end it if their votes were secret.

"Joy, if we had anonymous votes in the U.S. House of Representatives right now, that war in Iran would be over tomorrow," Inslee told Joy Reid on The Joy Reid Show.

The claim is Inslee's reading of private Republican views, which the public record cannot show. The record does show that the House has twice voted to end the war, and that only four Republicans joined Democrats both times.

Jay Inslee on Republicans and Trump Primaries

Inslee started with Republican governors. He said they know the war is hurting their states and that "Farmers in Iowa and Ohio and Wisconsin are getting killed by this war."

If they could speak in private, he said, "they would tell you, I know this is wrong, chief. But I do it because Donald Trump will take me out in a primary if I cross him."

"These people are afraid of their shadows," Inslee said. He also said, "I respect a lot of Republicans. They're smart people, too."

He then applied the same argument to the House and to immigration enforcement: "If we had to have a vote even on immigration policy of rounding up schoolteachers and daycare workers and construction workers and agricultural workers, that would stop tomorrow if these were confidential votes."

"So, yes, I have a theory and I'm sticking to it because I've seen up front and it's not pretty," he said.

What the House War Powers Votes Show

On June 3, the Republican-led House passed a war powers resolution 215 to 208 directing Trump to end hostilities with Iran. Four Republicans voted yes: Representatives Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Trump called the vote "meaningless."

Fitzpatrick said the 60-day window under the War Powers Act had passed: "You either follow the law or you change the law."

On July 23, the House approved a similar resolution 214 to 208. Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat, sponsored it, and the same four Republicans voted for it. Neither measure ended the war, which began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on February 28, and an interim truce has since effectively collapsed.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted July 24-26 found just 33 percent of Americans supported the war, and 69 percent, including four in 10 Republicans, said Trump had not clearly explained its goals.

Inslee's 'Cost, Corruption, Chaos' Pitch on Gas Prices

Inslee said every Democrat on the ballot should run on four issues: "cost, corruption, chaos and the climate emergency." "We know why diesel prices are killing the agricultural community," he said. "It's because he's closed the Straits of Hormuz."

The price increase is clear in federal data. The national average for regular gasoline was $2.94 a gallon in the week of February 23, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In the week of October 19 it was $4.28. Over the same period, diesel rose from $3.81 to $6.28.

The responsibility is more divided than Inslee described. In April, Trump announced a U.S. Navy blockade of ships entering or leaving the strait. GasBuddy's head of petroleum analysis Patrick De Haan wrote on Bluesky that without a deal with Iran, the strait was likely to remain under Iranian control, "thus gasoline, diesel and jet fuel prices keep rising due to the likely continued closure of the Strait."

Inslee described the corruption issue as "a corrupt bargain between Trump and the fossil fuel industry." He said Trump told the industry, "give me a billion dollars and I'll take care of you." The line refers to a reported April 2024 dinner at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump told oil executives they should raise $1 billion for his campaign and promised to roll back Biden-era energy rules. Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, then the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, later questioned the oil companies about it. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to CNBC at the time.

Democrats are already running on fuel costs. Senator Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic candidate for Minnesota governor, has called ending the war the fastest way to lower gas prices. PolitiKool's polling average puts approval of Trump's handling of the economy at 29.5 percent, with 67.8 percent disapproving.

What to Watch Before Election Day

Election Day is November 3. Democrats lead the generic congressional ballot by 8.5 points in PolitiKool's polling average. The election will test whether the Republican lawmakers Inslee described pay a price for sticking with Trump, or whether the four who voted against the war are the only ones who differed with him.