Senior Democrats accused Republicans in the US Congress of becoming “gelatinous blobs” who won’t stand up to Donald Trump and “rubber stamps” for his war on Iran.

Elizabeth Warren, a US senator for Massachusetts, and Chris Van Hollen, a US senator for Maryland, argued that the Republican-controlled Congress had surrendered its constitutional authority to the president.

In interviews with the Guardian, the senators urged their Republican colleagues to stand with Democrats and assert Congress’s authority as a separate branch of the federal government – with power over declaring war.

“The Republicans have all had their spines surgically removed,” Warren said in Michigan, while stumping for the Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. “I mean, they’re just gelatinous blobs that kind of make it through the United States Senate.”