U.S. Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) had a rhetorical question Tuesday for the Ohioans paying more than $4.78 a gallon for gas since the Iran war began: “What do you want me to do?”

The line came during an appearance on Northeast Ohio’s “Strictly Speaking Unfiltered” with host Bob Frantz, one of two Ohio podcasts Husted used Tuesday to defend the conflict. Hours later, the senator again voted against a resolution that would have forced President Donald Trump to seek congressional authorization to continue it.

That resolution advanced anyway, 50-47 — the first time after seven failed attempts that a Senate war powers effort cleared the procedural hurdle. Four Republicans crossed over to join nearly all Democrats: Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Husted was not among them.

‘What do you want me to do?’

On the Frantz show, Husted framed constituent concerns about gas prices as a dilemma with only one acceptable answer — continuing the war:

“I have been urging the president and the team to make this brief and successful because you talk to people and you say, you know, they’re concerned about their gas prices, and I’m concerned about their gas prices, but then you go the next level, and you say ‘Well, what would you do? What do you want me to do? Should we walk away from the situation? Do we let the leading sponsor of state terrorism just go back to the process of having a nuclear weapon?’” and [they] say, ‘Well, no, I don’t think you should do that either.’ So, it’s a dilemma that we need to bring to a quick end, and I believe the president is sensing the urgency.”

Absent from Husted’s framing was the option in front of the Senate that same afternoon: requiring the president to come to Congress for authorization, the constitutional path supporters of the war powers resolution say would force a clearer strategy and a defined endpoint. Husted voted to block it.

Ohio’s costs

Ohio drivers have been paying roughly $2 more per gallon for gas than they did before the war began Feb. 28, according to CNN. Three Ohio service members have been killed in the conflict. Ohio Capital Journal reporting republished on TiffinOhio.net has placed the cost to American taxpayers at more than $1 billion a day. A PBS News/NPR/Marist poll cited in that reporting found just 33% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the war.

On a second podcast Tuesday — the Findlay-based “Good Mornings Podcast Edition” with host Chris Oaks — Husted recounted what he described as a conversation with a truck driver to illustrate the same framing:

“I talked to a truck driver the other day, and he told me, he’s like, ‘Hey, we need to get these diesel prices down.’ I said, ‘Well, what do you think about, you know, the- Iran being a nuclear power? What do you think about that?’ and he’s like, ‘Well, we got to do- we got to get the Strait of Hormuz open, we got to get gas prices down, and we can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.’ I think that that’s what I want to hear from a lot of folks.”

’Weekly conversations’ with the administration

Later in the Good Mornings interview, Husted said he is in regular contact with the Trump administration about the war — though he did not say whether those talks have included any push for the kind of congressional authorization Tuesday’s resolution would require:

“Well, in my- I’m in my Senate office right now, so I’m not going to talk about politics, but I can talk about timing, and that is the sense that, yeah, I believe that this could be something that’s resolved soon, but I don’t know that Chris, like that’s why we’re going to have a conversation. I’m going to continue to have conversations, weekly conversations with the administration, urging them to articulate the plan to the American people and to resolve this quickly.”

The Tuesday appearances mark a notable shift after weeks in which Ohio’s two Republican senators were characterized as “mum” on the war in earlier TiffinOhio.net coverage. Senate roll call records show Husted voted against the previous war powers attempt on May 13, part of a consistent pattern of opposing every such resolution since the conflict began.

Political stakes

Husted, the former lieutenant governor under Gov. Mike DeWine, was appointed to the Senate in January 2025 to fill the seat vacated by JD Vance when Vance became vice president. He faces former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown in a November special election. Brown has made the war’s economic and human costs a centerpiece of his campaign.

“It’s clear this war is hurting people financially and in other ways. There’s no end in sight,” Brown said at an Austintown campaign stop earlier this month, according to the Tribune Chronicle. “(Republicans) have no idea how to end this war. They didn’t plan anything. Husted hasn’t raised one voice against this war or any idea about how to end it.”

The war powers resolution Husted opposed Tuesday now awaits a final passage vote in the Senate, the timing of which has not been announced.