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Venezuela War Powers Resolution Fails 01/15 06:13
Senate Republicans voted to dismiss a war powers resolution Wednesday that
would have limited President Donald Trump's ability to conduct further attacks
on Venezuela after two GOP senators reversed course on supporting the
legislation.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Republicans voted to dismiss a war powers
resolution Wednesday that would have limited President Donald Trump's ability
to conduct further attacks on Venezuela after two GOP senators reversed course
on supporting the legislation.
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 -- Sens. Josh
Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana -- flipped under the pressure.
Vice President JD Vance had to break the 50-50 deadlock in the Senate on a
Republican motion to dismiss the bill.
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's aggressive
foreign policy ambitions.
Democrats forced the debate after U.S. troops captured Venezuelan leader
Nicols Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month
"Here we have one of the most successful attacks ever and they find a way to
be against it. It's pretty amazing. And it's a shame," Trump said at a speech
in Michigan Tuesday. He also hurled insults at several of the Republicans who
advanced the legislation, calling Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky a "stone cold
loser" and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine
"disasters." Those three Republicans stuck to their support for the legislation.
Trump's latest comments followed earlier phone calls with the senators,
which they described as terse. The president's 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.
The legislation, even if it had cleared 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. Republican angst over his recent foreign policy moves
-- especially threats of using military force to seize Greenland from a NATO
ally -- is still running high in Congress.
Two Republicans reconsider
Hawley, who helped advance the war powers resolution last week, said Trump's
message during a phone call was that the legislation "really ties my hands."
The senator said he had a follow-up phone call with Secretary of State Marco
Rubio Monday and was told "point blank, we're not going to do ground troops."
The senator added that 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.
"We're getting along very well with Venezuela," Trump told reporters at a
ceremony for the signing of an unrelated bill Wednesday.
As senators went to the floor for the vote Wednesday evening, 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.
Young also shared a letter from Rubio that stated the president will "seek
congressional authorization in advance (circumstances permitting)" if he
engaged in "major military operations" in Venezuela.
The senators also said his efforts were also instrumental in pushing the
administration to release Wednesday a 22-page Justice Department memo laying
out the legal justification for the snatch-and-grab operation against Maduro.
That memo, which was heavily redacted, indicates that the administration,
for now, has no plans to ramp up military operations in Venezuela.
"We were assured that there is no contingency plan to engage in any
substantial and sustained operation that would amount to a constitutional war,"
according to the memo signed by Assistant Attorney General Elliot Gaiser.
Trump's shifting rationale for military intervention
Trump has used a series of legal arguments for his campaign against Maduro.
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.
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.
Paul criticized the administration for first describing its military
build-up in Caribbean as a counternarcotics operation but now floating
Venezuela's vast oil reserves as a reason for maintaining pressure.
"The bait and switch has already happened," he said.
Trump's foreign policy worries Congress
Lawmakers, including a significant number of Republicans, have been alarmed
by Trump's recent foreign policy talk. In recent weeks, he has pledged that the
U.S. will "run" Venezuela for years to come, threatened military action to take
possession of Greenland and told Iranians protesting their government that "
help is on its way."
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 Wednesday saying a
"fundamental disagreement" over Greenland remains.
"What happened tonight is a roadmap to another endless war," Senate
Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said at a news conference following the vote.
More than half of U.S. adults believe President Donald Trump has "gone too
far" in using the U.S. military to intervene in other countries, according to a
new AP-NORC poll.
How Republican leaders dismissed the bill
Last week's procedural vote on the war powers resolution was supposed to set
up hours of debate and a vote on final passage. But Republican leaders began
searching for a way to defuse the conflict between their members and Trump as
well as move on quickly to other business.
Once Hawley and Young changed their support for the bill, Republicans were
able to successfully challenge whether it was appropriate when the Trump
administration has said U.S. troops are not currently deployed in Venezuela.
"We're not currently conducting military operations there," said Senate
Majority Leader John Thune in a floor speech. "But Democrats are taking up this
bill because their anti-Trump hysteria knows no bounds."
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.
"If 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," he said in a floor speech.
Kaine vowed to force votes on war powers resolutions that would apply to a
number of potential military conflicts, including Greenland. House Democrats
have also filed a similar war powers resolution and can force a vote on it as
soon as next week.
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