War powers resolution would have forced President Donald Trump to seek congressional approval for any U.S. military action related to Venezuela; Vice President Vance provides tie-breaking vote.
Republicans in the Senate blocked a war powers resolution on Wednesday that would have forced President Donald Trump to seek congressional approval for any U.S. military action related to Venezuela.
Vice President JD Vance provided a tie-breaking vote to use a procedural move to effectively kill the resolution after five Republicans joined all Democrats last week to advance the measure in a rare bipartisan rebuke of the White House.
Trump had condemned the Republicans on social media, saying they “should never be elected to office again” and accused them of undermining national security and impeding his authority as commander-in-chief.
Administration officials and Republican leaders had in recent days been lobbying the five senators to change their votes.
Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, one of the Republicans who broke with Trump last week, said he changed his stance Wednesday after receiving assurances from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the administration will not put ground troops in Venezuela.
“What the Secretary of State said to me, very clearly, is we’re not doing that — we don’t have ground troops in Venezuela, this is not another Iraq, we’re not going to occupy Venezuela,” Hawley said. “And you know what? That’s good enough for me.”
Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., also flipped his vote from last week, explaining that the administration had committed to seeking congressional authorization for any future major military operations in Venezuela.
Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who co-sponsored the measure, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska maintained their support for the resolution.
Republican leaders argued Wednesday that the measure was irrelevant and no longer needed because there were no boots on the ground in Venezuela and the military operation that removed the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, was over.
“The U.S. is not currently engaged in hostilities in or against Venezuela,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. “We’re not currently conducting military operations there. The Democrats are taking up this bill because their anti-Trump hysteria knows no bounds.”
He said it was “pretty clear” that the lack of hostilities meant the measure should not come up for a vote.
Democrats countered that the Trump administration was continuing to use military force against Venezuela, pointing to the large naval presence still operating in the Caribbean. Trump said the U.S. may be involved in Venezuela for years to come and has not ruled out deploying troops to the country.
“Everything that’s being done to control Venezuela, its politics and its economy are being facilitated by the United States military,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a lead sponsor of the resolution. “The boat strikes of Venezuelan boats in international waters is still being carried out by the United States military. The United States military is engaged in a naval blockade of Venezuela, transit out and transit in.”
Paul said the administration has offered differing legal opinions about its operations in Venezuela and told lawmakers that a determination of whether the actions amounted to war could only be made after their scope, extent and duration, including casualties, were known.
“This, to me, is an absurdity. It is logic that runs in circles,” Paul said. “The reason the Founding Fathers gave this power to the legislature is because they wanted to make war less frequent, they wanted to make war hard to initiate, they wanted to see war more as a defensive notion, not as an offensive enterprise.”
The Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war. The war powers resolution, also led by Democrats Adam Schiff of California and Chuck Schumer of New York, would have directed “the removal of United States armed forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress.”
Its future in the House, which previously rejected two similar measures, was uncertain. Even if the measure passed both chambers of Congress, Trump was expected to almost certainly veto it.
- Security