WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Senate Republicans voted to dismiss a war powers resolution Wednesday that would have limited President Trump\u2019s ability to conduct further attacks on Venezuela after two GOP senators reversed course on supporting the legislation.<\/p>\n
Trump put intense pressure on five Republican senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week and ultimately prevailed in heading off passage of the legislation. Two of the Republicans \u2014 Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana \u2014 flipped under the pressure.<\/p>\n
Vice President JD Vance had to break the 50-50 deadlock in the Senate on a Republican motion to dismiss the bill.<\/p>\n
The outcome of the high-profile vote demonstrated how Trump still has command over much of the Republican conference, yet the razor-thin vote tally also showed the growing concern on Capitol Hill over the president\u2019s aggressive foreign policy ambitions.<\/p>\n
Democrats forced the debate after U.S. troops captured Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month<\/p>\n
\u201cHere we have one of the most successful attacks ever and they find a way to be against it. It\u2019s pretty amazing. And it\u2019s a shame,\u201d Trump said at a speech in Michigan on Tuesday. He also hurled insults at several of the Republicans who advanced the legislation, calling Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky a \u201cstone cold loser\u201d and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine \u201cdisasters.\u201d Those three Republicans stuck to their support for the legislation.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s latest comments followed earlier phone calls with the senators, which they described as terse. The president\u2019s fury underscored how the war powers vote had taken on new political significance as Trump also threatens military action to accomplish his goal of possessing Greenland.<\/p>\n
The legislation, even if it had passed the Senate, had virtually no chance of becoming law because it would eventually need to be signed by Trump himself. But it represented both a test of GOP loyalty to the president and a marker for how much leeway the Republican-controlled Senate is willing to give Trump to use the military abroad.<\/p>\n
GOP leaders seek to move on<\/p>\n
Republican Senate leaders are trying to defuse the conflict between their members and Trump as well as move on quickly to other business. On Wednesday evening, they were moving to dismiss the measure under the argument that it is irrelevant to the current situation in Venezuela. That procedure was subject to a vote.<\/p>\n
In a floor speech Wednesday morning, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) vented his frustration as he questioned whether this war powers resolution should be prioritized under the chamber\u2019s rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have no troops on the ground in Venezuela. We\u2019re not currently conducting military operations there,\u201d he said. \u201cBut Democrats are taking up this bill because their anti-Trump hysteria knows no bounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who has brought a series of war powers resolutions this year, accused Republicans of burying a debate about the merits of an ongoing campaign of attacks and threats against Venezuela.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this cause and if this legal basis were so righteous, the administration and its supporters would not be afraid to have this debate before the public and the United States Senate,\u201d he said in a floor speech.<\/p>\n
Two Republicans reconsider<\/p>\n
Hawley, who helped advance the war powers resolution last week, said that Trump\u2019s message during a phone call was that the legislation \u201creally ties my hands.\u201d The senator said he had a follow-up phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio that was \u201creally positive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hawley said that Rubio told him Monday \u201cpoint blank, we\u2019re not going to do ground troops.\u201d The senator said he also received assurances that the Trump administration will follow constitutional requirements if it becomes necessary to deploy troops again to the South American country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re getting along very well with Venezuela,\u201d Trump told reporters at a ceremony for the signing of an unrelated bill Wednesday.<\/p>\n
As senators went to the floor for the vote, Young also told reporters he was no longer in support. He said that he had extensive conversations with Rubio and received assurances that the secretary of state will appear at a public hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.<\/p>\n
Young also shared a letter from Rubio that stated the president will \u201cseek congressional authorization in advance (circumstances permitting)\u201d if he engaged in \u201cmajor military operations\u201d in Venezuela.<\/p>\n
Presidential authority tested<\/p>\n
Under the Constitution, Congress alone has the ability to declare war. But U.S. presidents have long stretched their powers to use the might of the U.S. military around the globe.<\/p>\n
Ohio State University professor Peter Mansoor, a military historian and retired U.S. Army colonel with multiple combat tours, said that trend since World War II allows Congress to shirk responsibility for war and put all the risk on the president.<\/p>\n
In the post-Vietnam War era, lawmakers tried to take back some of their authority over wartime powers with the War Powers Resolution of 1973. It allows lawmakers to hold votes on resolutions to restrict a president from using military force in specific conflicts without congressional approval.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoliticians tend to like to evade responsibility for anything \u2014 but then this gets you into forever wars,\u201d Mansoor said.<\/p>\n
Trump shifts his rationale<\/p>\n
Trump has used a series of legal arguments for his campaign against Maduro.<\/p>\n
As he built up a naval force in the Caribbean and destroyed vessels that were allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, the Trump administration tapped wartime powers under the global war on terror by designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations.<\/p>\n
The administration has claimed the capture of Maduro himself was actually a law enforcement operation, essentially to extradite the Venezuelan president to stand trial for charges in the U.S. that were filed in 2020.<\/p>\n
In a classified briefing Tuesday, senators reviewed the Trump administration\u2019s still-undisclosed legal opinion for using the military for the operation. It was described as a lengthy document.<\/p>\n
But lawmakers, including a significant number of Republicans, have been alarmed by Trump\u2019s recent foreign policy talk. In recent weeks, he has pledged that the U.S. will \u201crun\u201d Venezuela for years to come, threatened military action to take possession of Greenland and told Iranians protesting their government that \u201c help is on its way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior Republicans have tried to massage the relationship between Trump and Denmark, a NATO ally that holds Greenland as a semi-autonomous territory. But Danish officials emerged from a meeting with Vance and Rubio on Wednesday saying a \u201cfundamental disagreement\u201d over Greenland remains.<\/p>\n
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump\u2019s recent aggression amounted to a \u201cdangerous drift towards endless war.\u201d<\/p>\n