A Senate bid to curb President Donald Trump’s authority to attack suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers failed late Wednesday, with senators voting 51–48 against advancing the measure. Two Republicans, Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined Democrats in support, while Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania opposed the resolution.
The vote followed a series of U.S. military strikes on small boats in the Caribbean Sea that the administration says were used by Venezuelan cartels. The operations have killed at least 21 people.
The White House has told Congress the United States is now in “armed conflict” with designated groups and has described the targets as “narco-terrorists.”
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Congressional debate
Backers of the resolution, led by Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., argued that the Constitution requires Congress to authorize hostilities and invoked the War Powers Act to force a vote.
“This is the kind of thing that leads the country unexpectedly and unintentionally into war,” Schiff said before the vote, according to The New York Times. Kaine said the proposal “just says, ‘Congress, be Congress,’” The Washington Post reported.
Some Republicans also raised concerns. Paul denounced the Caribbean campaign as “extrajudicial killings.”
“Is it too much to ask to know the names of those we kill before we kill them,” Paul said, “to know what evidence exists of their guilt?”
What the administration and allies say
The Trump administration maintains that the strikes are lawful acts of self-defense under Article II of the Constitution. In a notice to lawmakers, officials wrote the U.S. must “use force in self-defense and defense of others against the ongoing attacks by these designated terrorist organizations.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the resolution “dangerous,” arguing it would “strip President Trump of his constitutional authority to protect Americans by authorizing military strikes against narco-terrorists, the Houthis, and other Iranian proxies.”
Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, said the president “not only has the right, he has the duty” to act against traffickers labeled terrorists, according to the Times.
Lawmakers from both parties have requested additional classified briefings after Pentagon General Counsel Earl Matthews reportedly declined to clarify which groups the military considers enemy combatants. House Democrats plan to pursue a companion measure. Separately, the White House has ended diplomatic outreach to Venezuela.
