{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.schiff.senate.gov/news/press-releases/watch-as-uss-abraham-lincoln-returns-home-after-300-days-of-deployment-sen-schiff-renews-call-for-end-to-trumps-war-in-iran/", "WATCH: As USS Abraham Lincoln Returns Home after 300+ Days of Deployment, Sen. Schiff Renews Call for End to Trump\u2019s War in Iran", "2026-09-24", "2026", "2026-09", "Democrat", "Senate", "CA", "Adam B. Schiff", "S001150", "www.schiff.senate.gov", "schiff", "https://www.schiff.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "Today, Senate Republicans again blocked a measure that would have confirmed Congress has not authorized the ongoing deployment of U.S. troops for Trump\u2019s Iran War\n\nWashington, D.C. \u2014 Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) took to the Senate floor to urge Senate Republicans to pass a War Powers Resolution to end President Trump\u2019s illegal war in Iran. Schiff highlighted constituent stories from servicemembers\u2019 families detailing the abysmal conditions onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, contrasting their sacrifices against the President\u2019s downplaying of the war\u2019s impact and obsessions with his vanity projects.\n\nSenate Republicans\u2019 blocking of this resolution follows a series of similar resolutions led by Democrats in Congress, including by Senator Schiff and colleagues in the Senate, to confirm that Congress has not authorized this use of the U.S. military and require the President to end the war. The resolution failed today in a 49 to 50 vote.\n\n\u201cIn fact, the Lincoln set a modern-day record for consecutive days at sea without a port visit. And a record away from its home port of San Diego. And even now, just recently after stopping in Thailand for its first regular port call in nearly nine months \u2014 hull rusted, paint peeling \u2014 the Lincoln and its crew were still a long way from home,\u201d said Senator Schiff on the Senate floor.\n\nSchiff emphasized how the prolonged deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln has sent shockwaves throughout the San Diego community and continued his call for an end to this war.\n\nWatch the full speech HERE. Download the remarks HERE.\n\nRead the full transcript of his remarks as delivered below:\n\nEver since the USS Abraham Lincoln was commissioned in the waning days of the Cold War, it has been known for many things.\n\nAfter a volcano erupted in the Philippines in 1991, the Lincoln led the largest peacetime evacuation of U.S. military personnel and their families. A baby was even born onboard during the evacuation \u2014 and named Abraham Lincoln.\n\nIn 1993, the Lincoln became the first carrier in the Pacific Fleet to integrate female aviators.\n\nBut today, as a result of the President\u2019s war with Iran, the Lincoln has achieved another distinction \u2014 one it neither sought nor wished to claim.\n\nAnd that is for more than 300 days, over 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard the Lincoln were at sea.\n\nWithout visits to their family.\n\nOr other loved ones.\n\nWithout visits to friends apart from their fellow servicemembers.\n\nIn fact, the Lincoln set a modern-day record for consecutive days at sea without a port visit.\n\nAnd a record away from its home port of San Diego.\n\nAnd even now, just recently after stopping in Thailand for its first regular port call in nearly nine months \u2014 hull rusted, paint peeling \u2014 the Lincoln and its crew were still a long way from home.\n\nAs the President\u2019s senseless war has dragged on, it has taken a heavy toll on the lives and well-being of our servicemembers and their families, many of whom are in California.\n\nSo how does the Commander-in-Chief respond?\n\nWhen asked last month if carriers like the Lincoln had been deployed too long, Donald Trump said \u2014 and this is a direct quote \u2014 \u201cNo, no, no, not nearly long enough.\u201d\n\nNot nearly long enough?\n\nIt was long enough that our sailors have been working 12 to 16 hour shifts \u2014 at times facing the danger of enemy missiles.\n\nIt was long enough that they were forced to ration food and water \u2014 shortages that have reportedly caused severe weight loss and health impacts.\n\nIt was long enough that crew members have had severe mental health crises, which created significant distress for their families as well. To the point where some servicemembers sought to jump off the carrier into the sea.\n\nIt was long enough that servicemembers had to deal with black mold that drips, as one servicemember described, \u201conto your face, shoulders, arms or head\u201d while \u201cstanding in line for a meal or even walking out of the shower.\u201d\n\nDoug, a constituent from California, wrote a letter to me expressing his deep concerns over his son\u2019s service on the Lincoln. His son had to be medically evacuated from the ship after suffering a collapsed lung \u2014 which Doug believes was connected to malnutrition and overexertion.\n\n\u201cThe crew went about four weeks without hot water or laundry. They were on rations for two to three months while working 12 to 16 hour days. During that time, his family spent thousands of dollars sending him food, but only about half of it arrived.\u201d\n\nDoug went on: \u201cAfter time in the ICU [abroad], he returned home to us as a shell of the son who had left. He is 6\u20195\u2033 and left weighing 210 pounds; and he returned closer to 180 pounds. He resembled a starved prisoner of war. What he told me as a father and veteran turns my stomach and must be brought to light.\u201d\n\nAnother constituent of mine, Annabelle from San Diego, shared her story about her husband attempting to jump overboard from the Lincoln during his deployment.\n\n\u201cHe\u2019s scared,\u201d she said. \u201cHe thinks he\u2019ll get a dishonorable discharge, and just because he was burnt out, his 13-year-old career is ruined, just like that. That\u2019s not fair, that\u2019s not right. That\u2019s not what he should be worrying about right now.\u201d But this, is what Annabelle and her three kids are now living with.\n\nShelby, a high schooler whose mom is deployed on the Lincoln, spoke about how hard it is to start her senior year without her mom. She asked, \u201cWill she be back before homecoming? My birthday? Christmas? I have no idea, and that\u2019s all that I think about.\u201d\n\nThis week, we learned from the Acting Secretary of the Navy that eight U.S. Navy personnel assigned to the Lincoln\u2019s carrier strike group attempted suicide during the prolonged time at sea. The navy also confirmed that one sailor went overboard from the ship this summer, while another attempted to go overboard. After months of denials, the Defense Department confirmed what has been reported for months, and that is, deteriorating mental health aboard the Lincoln and multiple attempts by sailors to jump overboard.\n\nThese are just some of the alarming, dangerous, and shameful conditions our sailors and Marines have endured aboard the Lincoln \u2014 and also what our families are going through \u2014 while Pete Hegseth posts workout videos and Donald Trump renames lakes and pours over blueprints for the gilded ballroom.\n\nFor Donald Trump and his billionaire cronies \u2014 events in black tie.\n\nFor our servicemembers aboard the Lincoln \u2014 showers and meals with black mold.\n\nCould there be a clearer encapsulation of this administration\u2019s misplaced priorities?\n\nSo, the American people were told that the war would be over \u201cvery soon.\u201d\n\nThat was March 9th. Ten days after the war started.\n\nNow, the U.S. is more than six months into the disastrous war.\n\nMonths of negotiations to end the conflict have failed. But the President promises us that the war will soon come to an end \u2014 after the election.\n\nAnd what have we achieved in this war that has cost the lives of 19 U.S. servicemembers?\n\nPrices at the pump and grocery checkout have skyrocketed. Diesel prices, fertilizer prices are crushing farmers while the resultant food prices are crushing the rest of America.\n\nUtility bills and medical bills, out of control.\n\nEveryone but the President and his buddies are painfully aware that we\u2019re experiencing an affordability crisis in America.\n\nWhile the President says\u2026 \u201cNot long enough.\u201d\n\nIn the closing days of the Mexican-American War, our sixteenth president \u2014 whose name the Lincoln proudly carries \u2014 was a freshman here in Congress. He wrote to his law partner.\n\n\u201cThe provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons,\u201d Lincoln wrote.\n\n\u201cKings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut your view,\u201d Lincoln wrote, \u201cdestroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.\u201d\n\nWe need to take Lincoln\u2019s words to heart. This Congress is not a royal court, to do the bidding and bow and scrape before an all-powerful sovereign. We are a coequal branch of government and two hundred and fifty years into this experiment in self-governance, we should show Lincoln\u2019s resolve.\n\nWill we continue to place the president where kings have stood?\n\nOr will we say, at long last, \u201cenough?\u201d\n\nWill we make it clear that this war, illegal from the start, has gone on too long?\n\nWill we insist on the removal and return of our troops?\n\nI pray that we will, and I urge support of this resolution.\n\n###", 1, "2026-09-25T10:04:52Z", "2026-09-25T10:05:46Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.schiff.senate.gov/news/press-releases/watch-as-uss-abraham-lincoln-returns-home-after-300-days-of-deployment-sen-schiff-renews-call-for-end-to-trumps-war-in-iran/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.7527251038700342, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}