<\/p>\n
The US Senate on Thursday advanced a bipartisan war powers resolution to prevent Donald Trump<\/a> from taking further military action against Venezuela<\/a>, after he ordered a weekend raid to capture that country\u2019s president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, without giving Congress advance notice.<\/p>\n The measure passed with 52 senators in favor and 47 opposed. All Democrats voted for the resolution, as did Republicans<\/a> Rand Paul, Todd Young, Lisa Murkowski, Josh Hawley and Susan Collins.<\/p>\n Should the Senate approve the measure, it will need to pass the House and be signed by Trump to take effect.<\/p>\n The vote was a significant rebuke of the president, and Trump responded by saying that the Republican senators who supported the resolution \u201cshould never be elected to office again\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThis Vote greatly hampers American Self Defense and National Security, impeding the President\u2019s Authority as Commander in Chief,\u201d he wrote on Truth Social. Trump went on to call the War Powers Resolution, the Vietnam-war era legislation Congress passed to stop presidents from conducting unapproved wars, \u201cunconstitutional\u201d.<\/p>\n The resolution introduced by the Democratic senator Tim Kaine requires Trump<\/a> to seek permission before attacking or otherwise using the military against Venezuela. Following the Saturday raid that saw US special forces assault the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, and spirit Maduro to New York<\/a> to face trial on charges related to \u201cnarco-terrorism\u201d, the president said he did not tell lawmakers beforehand because \u201cCongress has a tendency to leak\u201d.<\/p>\n That sparked outrage among Democrats<\/a> and some Republicans, who argued that the raid was illegal, and risked plunging the United States into a prolonged conflict.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter the administration\u2019s actions over the weekend, which resulted in several injuries to US service members \u2026 Congress needs to tell the American public where it stands,\u201d Kaine said in a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Concern over US involvement in Venezuela is \u201cabout an instinctive wisdom among the American people that says war should be a last resort and it shouldn\u2019t be entered into upon the say-so of one person\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n The resolution was the latest to be proposed by Congress\u2019s Democratic minority to halt Trump\u2019s campaign against Venezuela\u2019s government, which intensified in September when Trump approved airstrikes on boats<\/a> off its coast that he alleges carried drugs.<\/p>\n Those attacks have killed at least 110 people, though experts have disputed Trump\u2019s claim that the vessels were carrying fentanyl to US shores. Controversy intensified after it emerged that the military opted to kill two survivors<\/a> of a strike rather than take them captive.<\/p>\n Previous war powers resolutions proposed in both chambers failed<\/a> \u2013 albeit narrowly \u2013 to garner enough support from the Republican majority to advance. Many in the Republican party have praised Trump\u2019s strikes<\/a> on Venezuela as well as the rendition of Maduro as effective uses of US power.<\/p>\n \u201cThe world is safer because Maduro is apprehended in the hands of the US justice system,\u201d said Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, on Wednesday after the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, briefed members of both chambers.<\/p>\n Johnson added: \u201cPresident Trump is a strong president who takes decisive action, and that sends an important message to other dangerous people, terrorists and tyrants around the world. I think that\u2019s an important role for America to play.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul, the Kentucky senator who co-sponsored the resolution, and Murkowski of Alaska had been the only Republicans to consistently break with their party and support the earlier war powers attempts. In comments to reporters the day prior, Paul argued that Congress must assert its authority over waging war even when a military operation is successful, or risk allowing the country to be \u201crun by emergency\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason you argue on principle against even things that appear to be good \u2026 isn\u2019t even always for the current president, it\u2019s for the next president,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s broadside swept up not just Collins, Murkowski and Paul \u2013 the few Republican senators who are known to defy the president \u2013 but also Young and Hawley, who have rarely opposed him. Following the vote, Hawley, who represents Missouri, said in a statement: \u201cMy read of the constitution is that if the president feels the need to put boots on the ground there in the future, Congress would need to vote on it.\u201d<\/p>\n Indiana senator Young noted that the resolution restrains future military actions and not the raid that captured Maduro, which the senator praised.<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Trump campaigned against forever wars, and I strongly support him in that position. A drawn-out campaign in Venezuela involving the American military, even if unintended, would be the opposite of President Trump\u2019s goal of ending foreign entanglements,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe constitution requires that Congress first authorize operations involving American boots on the ground, and my vote today reaffirms that longstanding congressional role.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked by reporters at the Capitol about the president\u2019s criticism, Young said he had \u201cno concerns, and no comments\u201d.<\/p>\n The Democratic senator John Fetterman, who represents swing-state Pennsylvania, praised the Saturday attack as a \u201cpositive for Venezuela\u201d but said he voted for the resolution \u201cso we can continue this important debate on the floor of the Senate\u201d.<\/p>\n Kaine said he expected lawmakers to introduce other war powers resolutions intended to stop hostilities towards Nigeria, Cuba, Mexico and Colombia \u2013 all countries Trump has struck in the past year, or threatened to attack.<\/p>\n Shortly after the Senate vote, a group of House Democrats introduced a similar war powers resolution dealing with Venezuela in that chamber.<\/p>\n \u201cMaduro was a horrible tyrant and a terrible human being. Nobody here disputes that. But when it comes to putting American troops in harm\u2019s way, Congress is in charge, and that\u2019s not me saying that, it\u2019s the constitution,\u201d said Jim McGovern, a congressman and the measure\u2019s sponsor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Senate #advances #war #powers #resolution #stop #Trump #military #action #Venezuela #Senate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The US Senate on Thursday adva… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10608"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}