Senate Republicans are, at least publicly, showing some signs of division on the possibility of a U.S. strike to eliminate the deeply entrenched Iranian nuclear facility at Fordow, as the Trump administration appears to be increasingly discussing the prospect.

President Donald Trump held a Situation Room meeting with his national security team on Tuesday after publicly suggesting that the U.S. might join Israel’s operations in Iran. Israel is believed to need U.S. assistance to destroy Fordow, and officials have said their operations will not end without hitting the site.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), asked by reporters about striking the nuclear site, reiterated what he told Jewish Insider a day prior. “How can you be successful without taking out Fordow?”

A senior Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss internal conference dynamics, estimated that a vast majority of the conference, around 90% of Senate Republicans, are at least privately united on the issue of the U.S. supporting Israel in bombing the Fordow facility if Israel needs such support. 

Other Senate Republicans with whom JI spoke on Tuesday did not fully echo that view.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said he’d want the U.S. to get involved directly in Israel’s campaign if the U.S. believes there is an imminent threat to the U.S., or if Israel is not able to fully destroy Iran’s nuclear program on its own.

“If we have intelligence saying that they were a true threat and that they’re going to go after us, then I want to be proactive not reactive,” Mullin said. “And if for some reason Israel can’t finish the job, President Trump has made this point very clear, in no way are we going to allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. So if for some reason the job can’t be finished, then that’s the time for us to have to go finish it.”

Experts largely believe that Fordow will be able to continue operating and Iran’s nuclear program will survive if the U.S. does not join Israel’s strikes on Iran.

Asked about striking Fordow, Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) said, “I think we need to make sure we force Iran to the table and that we’re strong,” adding that diplomacy should be “the primary effort and we do it through being strong.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said that Fordow needs to be eliminated but warned that a strike on the site would leave the nuclear materials there buried.

“I’m a little confused on all the conversation about dropping a bunker buster on a mountain that’s filled with enriched uranium, and how that solves the problem,” Lankford said. “If you’re going to try to get enriched uranium out of the country, dropping a big bunker buster on it may disable the centrifuges in [Fordow], but you still have 900 pounds of enriched uranium sitting there.”

He also said that the U.S. may not be able strike Iran before Iran attacks U.S. personnel, unless Trump can present to Congress and the American people evidence of a direct threat toward the United States, as was the case in the 2020 strike that killed Quds Force head Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Meanwhile, multiple Senate Democrats who spoke to JI on Tuesday said they haven’t yet made up their minds about two separate pieces of legislation, led by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), which aim to block U.S. involvement in Iran without direct congressional approval. None said affirmatively that they plan to join either effort.

Sanders’ bill was introduced with seven Democratic co-sponsors. Kaine’s resolution is likely to come up for a vote under special procedures in the coming weeks.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who led legislation in the House in 2020 to block U.S. attacks against Iran in the wake of the killing of Soleimani, said she hasn’t yet decided whether she’ll support the new legislation.

“We’re just looking at it pretty closely now,” Slotkin said, noting her past work on the issue.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said he needed to look at Kaine’s resolution more closely, but said that from his understanding, “it seems to articulate what is our constitutional responsibility, and in no way constrains the president from any legitimate exercise of war powers and foreign policy.”

Asked about striking Fordow, Blumenthal added that Israel “seems to be prevailing tactically, and I believe it has the right to defend itself against the existential menace of a nuclear armed [Iran],” which would also be “a threat to the entire world, including the United States.”

“I support our providing the means for Israel to defend itself against Iran’s retaliation,” he continued. “I’m concerned about U.S. personnel in the region, and I hope that a wider conflict can be avoided.”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said she hasn’t yet had the opportunity to review the legislation.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said that he was planning to review the legislation on Tuesday evening.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), an isolationist-leaning Republican who supported a similar effort in 2020, said “you’ll know soon” if he’ll support the new legislation. He has argued that the administration would need congressional approval for operations against Iran barring an imminent threat.

An effort in the House led by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) that mirrors Kaine’s resolution to block U.S. military action against Iran without congressional authorization, on which the sponsors could force a vote, is picking up support from a group of progressive Democrats.

That resolution is co-sponsored by an expanding group of House progressives, including Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Don Beyer (D-VA), Greg Casar (D-TX), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Nydia Velázquez (D-NY), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Chuy Garcia (D-IL), Delia Ramirez (D-IL), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Summer Lee (D-PA), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Paul Tonko (D-NY), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Becca Balint (D-VT) and Val Hoyle (D-OR).