A last-minute shift by two GOP senators and a tie-breaking vote by Vice President JD Vance stopped a bipartisan effort to impose congressional checks on President Donald Trump’s future use of military force in Venezuela.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The Senate narrowly moved Wednesday to shut down consideration of a war powers resolution that would have restricted President Donald Trump from authorizing future military action in Venezuela, after two Republican senators reversed earlier positions and Vice President JD Vance cast the decisive tie-breaking vote.
Lawmakers voted 51–50 to table the resolution, effectively ending the effort to block Trump from using military force absent explicit congressional approval. Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana, who had previously voted to advance the measure earlier this month, flipped their votes following intense lobbying from the White House. Vance intervened to break the tie in favor of the procedural motion, adopting a GOP point of order that stripped the resolution of its ability to advance.
Had the Senate failed to reject the measure, Trump would have faced a rare rebuke from his own party after Hawley, Young, and three additional Republicans joined Democrats last week to move the war powers resolution forward.
Hawley, who has repeatedly voiced skepticism toward regime-change efforts, said he reviewed classified briefings outlining the administration’s justification for potential military action ahead of Wednesday’s vote. He also told reporters that he spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who assured him the administration would seek congressional authorization before deploying U.S. troops to Venezuela.
Young cited similar assurances. After what he described as extensive discussions with Trump administration officials, the Indiana Republican said he received a commitment that the president would go to Congress if he decided to pursue future military operations in the country.
Despite Trump sharply criticizing dissenting Republicans following the successful procedural vote, GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Rand Paul of Kentucky again supported advancing the war powers resolution. Trump had warned in a Jan. 8 Truth Social post that all five Republicans who broke with him earlier “should never be elected to office again.”
Murkowski said she was unmoved by a brief conversation with the president. “No, I am not considering changing my mind,” she told reporters.
All Democrats voted against tabling the resolution. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, and Paul were among the leading proponents of forcing congressional oversight of Trump’s future military decisions regarding Venezuela.
Republican leadership argued the resolution no longer met the requirements for expedited consideration under the War Powers Act. Senate GOP leaders moved to strip the measure of its privileged status, contending that there are no active hostilities or U.S. troops deployed in Venezuela, rendering the resolution moot. Rubio reinforced that argument in a letter to senators, first reported by Punchbowl News, stating that no U.S. service members are currently operating in the country.
Republicans also pointed to precedent for the maneuver. In 2024, Democrats voted to table a war powers resolution introduced by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz that sought to block the Biden administration from constructing a humanitarian pier in Gaza.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune criticized the Venezuela resolution as an overreaction, calling it another episode of “anti-Trump hysteria.” Thune argued that the operation involving Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s capture amounted to “an isolated special forces raid in support of a valid warrant.”
“I don’t remember Democrats trying to tie the president’s hands when Democrat presidents took far more extensive military action that involved thousands of troops and air strikes over weeks and months in Libya, Bosnia, Serbia, and Haiti,” Thune said on the Senate floor. “Today, they are claiming the opposite for a couple of hundred troops who were in Venezuela for a matter of mere hours and who have already returned to their bases in the United States or on U.S. Navy ships in international waters.”
The collapse of the effort to constrain Trump’s authority follows a months-long buildup of U.S. assets in and around Venezuela that culminated in Maduro’s capture on Jan. 3. The Senate had previously rejected a similar war powers resolution in November, with only Paul and Murkowski joining Democrats.
“When we did the first [resolution], I had a lot of people say, ‘Okay, you’re amassing some military assets around Venezuela, but it’s probably a bluff…There was a sense that maybe it was premature the first time,’” Kaine told reporters earlier this week. “It was not theoretical by the time we had that vote last week.”
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