WASHINGTON — The Senate rejected a bipartisan effort to rein in President Donald Trump’s war authority in Venezuela after it failed to garner enough Republican support to overcome a procedural vote on Thursday evening.
Senators voted 49-51 to restrict Trump’s ability to attack Venezuelan territory, falling short of the majority threshold required to discharge the bill from the Foreign Relations Committee and bring it to the floor for a final vote. Only two Republicans backed the effort: Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
Both Utah Sens. John Curtis and Mike Lee opposed the measure.
The resolution, if passed, is largely a symbolic measure expressing disapproval of the Trump administration’s recent strikes against alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea, which Democrats have criticized over questions of legal justification. Democrats have argued those strikes violate the law because the targeted boats are not designed to carry out armed attacks on U.S. civilians.
The bill would specifically block Trump from escalating those efforts to carry out land strikes after the president told reporters in October it was under consideration.
“Americans don’t want to send their sons and daughters into more wars — especially wars that carry a serious risk of significant destabilization and massive new waves of migration in our hemisphere,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., one of the lead co-sponsors on the bill, said in a statement. “If my colleagues disagree and think a war with Venezuela is a good idea, they need to meet their constitutional obligations by making their case to the American people and passing an Authorization for Use of Military Force.”
The bill was co-sponsored by Paul, who warned of being dragged into an “endless war” without congressional approval or public debate.
While the president is the commander in chief, Congress holds certain war powers that gives it control over authorizing military action and issuing formal declarations of war. The resolution on Thursday would have emphasized that power.
The failed vote comes after Senate Democrats sought a similar bill in October to block the Trump administration from attacking alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, although that effort only gained the support of the same two Senate Republicans, Paul and Murkowski.
But the latest iteration was more narrowly focused to try to attract GOP support, and it includes carveouts for the Trump administration to use military force “to prevent the United States from defending itself from an armed attack or threat of an imminent armed attack.”
A number of Republicans still rejected the effort after receiving a briefing from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday, during which they told senators the White House has no plans to initiate land strikes in Venezuela.
“There is no apparent plans to expand this beyond what they say that they are doing,” Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters after the briefing.