How Congress Blew All Their Chances to Stop Trump’s War With Venezuela

After President Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela, Democrats publicly criticized him for starting a war without approval from Congress and Republicans privately grumbled that he did not notify them in advance.

The monthslong massing of U.S. forces in the Caribbean was hardly a secret — and Congress had plenty of chances to try to block an attack in advance.

Since the Trump administration began striking alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean in September, there have been four failed votes on resolutions seeking to stop unauthorized attacks on either the boats strikes or Venezuelan soil. They all fell short.

Lawmakers are now preparing for another vote this week on a resolution in the Senate, their latest opportunity to pump the brakes.

“We have had the violation of international law, the U.N. charter, the violation of the territorial integrity of Venezuela, and the kidnapping of a sitting head of state, without going to Congress, without telling Congress beforehand,” said Heather Brandon-Smith, the legislative director of foreign policy for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. “Everything here is extraordinarily illegal, and Congress has a mechanism to stop it through voting for these war powers resolutions.”

Four Failed Votes

Every member of Congress has had two opportunities to cast their vote on military action in or around Venezuela. Two resolutions each have come up for a public vote in the House and Senate.

The first round of debate came on October 8, when Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., sponsored a resolution aimed at blocking more of the strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats that had begun a month before.

Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Ala., were the only Republicans to vote for the measure, while Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., broke with the rest of the Democratic caucus to oppose it.

In the weeks that followed, the Trump administration assembled an armada in the Caribbean. Top officials, however, insisted that they were only interested in blowing up boats, not toppling Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro.

On November 6, the Senate voted on whether to block Trump from attacking Venezuela itself without congressional authorization. This time, Fetterman voted for the resolution. The measure still failed because it did not attract Republican support besides Paul and Murkowski.

MAGA’s antiwar caucus remained a paper tiger on December 17, when the House voted down two resolutions aimed at blocking boat strikes and war with Venezuela. The resolution aimed at blocking war failed on a mostly party-line vote. Only three Republican lawmakers supported it, while Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas was the sole Democrat opposed.

Even if those resolutions had passed both chambers, they would have faced an uphill battle to survive a veto from Trump. Still, they would have sent a powerful message to the White House, their supporters argue.

“If they passed, they would have been seen as a major political defeat for Trump,” said Erik Sperling, the executive director of the nonprofit Just Foreign Policy. “It’s such an extraordinary action for Congress to get out ahead of a war by opposing it, especially when Congress and the American public are aligned against the war. That’s when it is the biggest political defeat for an administration, and the hardest to proceed with an unpopular war.”

“Rubio Explicitly Lied”

Republicans who voted against the resolutions may find some cover by pointing to assurances from administration officials that the U.S. was not poised for war — particularly the hawkish Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“In a certain sense, they should have known, and they should have cast a clear vote against any kind of escalation,” Sperling said. “But in their defense, in both cases, the administration came to Congress, including Rubio, and promised they were not going to launch illegal strikes. In that sense, people could still claim that they were misled by Rubio.”

Ahead of the December 17 House vote on a pair of war powers resolutions, for example, Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told Congress that they did not have a legal case for launching war and were not preparing to target Venezuela.

Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., said that Rubio lied to lawmakers about the administration’s plans.

“In the most recent classified briefing, which I was in, and happened right before Christmas, Marco Rubio personally, explicitly lied, to me and the Congress and to the people’s representatives,” Ryan told CNN. “We asked over and over, what is the larger plan — is there an effort at regime change being planned?”

Rubio denied lying to Congress — relying on the argument that the attack on Venezuela that left dozens dead was nothing more than a “law enforcement operation.” That explanation doesn’t pass muster with Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group who previously served as a legal adviser to the State Department.

“It’s just kind of a silly argument,” he said. “Because it was an invasion. The U.S. did go to war with Venezuela. Just because you drag along a couple DEA agents doesn’t transform this massive military operation as a whole into a law enforcement operation.”

One More Chance

Some Republicans privately feel misled by Rubio, Politico reported Monday. If GOP lawmakers want to publicly voice their displeasure with the administration’s candor, they will have an opportunity this week when senators vote on a war powers resolution from Kaine.

“As with most things, it is going to come down to political will within Congress,” Finucane said, “particularly on the GOP side of the aisle.”

Kaine said he would also try to cut off funding for military action against Venezuela through the annual War Department funding bill.

“It is long past time for Congress to reassert its critical constitutional role in matters of war, peace, diplomacy and trade,” Kaine said in a statement on Saturday. “We’ve entered the 250th year of American democracy and cannot allow it to devolve into the tyranny that our founders fought to escape.”