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Republicans Quash Resolution Limiting Trump’s War Powers In Venezuela

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Wednesday succeeded in blocking a bipartisan resolution that would have required President Donald Trump to seek congressional approval before taking additional military action in Venezuela.

The resolution failed after two GOP senators — Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana — backed down after heavy pressure from Trump. The two lawmakers cited assurances from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that there are currently no U.S. troops inside Venezuela and that the Trump administration has no intention of taking more military action against the Latin American country following its capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

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“The Secretary of State said to me, ‘I can tell you we’re not going to do ground troops,’” Hawley told reporters on Capitol Hill. “And I said, ’Well, you know, you can follow the promise, the relevant promise, to follow the relevant statutes in the Constitution. And his commitments were terrific.”

Last week, Hawley and four other Republican senators crossed the aisle and voted to advance the resolution on Venezuela under the War Powers Act, which requires congressional approval for the use of military force abroad. The vote was mostly a symbolic rebuke, since the White House indicated Trump would veto it if it passed Congress.

But Trump was furious with the five GOP senators anyway, lashing out at them in social media posts and over the phone. Trump said that those Republicans should “never be elected to office again” after they voted with Democrats to limit his powers.

This week, Senate Republican leaders concocted a plan to table the resolution with a procedural maneuver asserting there are no ongoing hostilities between the U.S. and Venezuela. The distinction matters since, under the specific rules set out by the War Powers Act, senators are allowed to force a vote relating to matters of war only if the U.S. armed forces are engaged in hostilities or situations with imminent hostilities.

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“An argument that the Venezuela campaign is not ‘imminent’ hostilities is a violation of every reasonable meaning of that term,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Wednesday, citing U.S. air strikes against suspected drug smugglers in the region and the U.S. naval blockade of Venezuela.

Nevertheless, a point of order against Kaine’s war powers resolution was sustained in a 51-50 vote on the Senate floor Wednesday, with Vice President JD Vance breaking a tie.

Democrats who backed the effort chided Republicans for willingly giving up their power to declare war to an emboldened executive who is threatening military action not only against Venezuela, but also Iran, Mexico and Greenland.

“These are constitutional principles that are really being undermined right now,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told HuffPost. “This is a president who is taking actions like no other president has done in the history of our country. So we have a problem right now, and it’s unfortunate that the White House is putting pressure on [Republicans in] Congress... that’s yielding to his every demand and whim. That’s not what our founders intended.”