Senate Republicans Derail Effort To Rebuke Trump On Venezuela

The Senate scuttled legislation requiring President Donald Trump to seek congressional approval before taking further military action against Venezuela — a big win for a White House that’s strongly resisted efforts to curb its powers.

Republicans won a razor thin procedural vote that effectively killed the measure. The procedural gambit saw two GOP senators who broke ranks with their party and Trump last week — Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana — switch sides to help defeat the resolution.

With the chamber deadlocked at 50-50, Vice President JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote to defeat the legislation.

The victory is a sign of the president's continued sway over the GOP — after a rare rebuke last week when five Republicans defied the president and helped Democrats bring the resolution to the Senate floor. Still, the narrowness of the margin — and the full-court press from the administration and GOP leadership required to beat back the Democrats — suggests the fight over Trump’s war powers isn’t ending anytime soon.

Democrats have promised more votes, including on Greenland as Trump threatens to seize the Danish territory.

In addition to Hawley and Young, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) supported the measure last week. Collins, Murkowski and Paul, though, voted with Democrats on Wednesday.

Trump and other top administration officials worked in recent days to win over enough GOP dissenters to sideline the effort. The president called out the five senators, saying they "should never be elected to office again."

Young said in a statement that while he's "deeply skeptical" of committing U.S. troops to Venezuela, he switched his vote after receiving a letter from Secretary of State Marco Rubio committing to seek congressional approval ahead of any "major military operations" in the South American nation. He also said Rubio committed to testify publicly before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the situation in Venezuela later this month.

"After numerous conversations with senior national security officials, I have received assurances that there are no American troops in Venezuela," Young said. "I’ve also received a commitment that if President Trump were to determine American forces are needed in major military operations in Venezuela, the Administration will come to Congress in advance to ask for an authorization of force."

Hawley cited his conversations with Rubio, who told him there are no plans to send ground troops into Venezuela and pledged to abide by notification procedures if so. Rubio was still speaking with senators into Wednesday as Republicans tried to lock down the votes.

"My concerns have been about troops" being sent into Venezuela, Hawley said. "I want to take yes for an answer."

Wednesday's vote challenged the resolution's "privilege" — the procedural status that allows supporters to force an expedited vote and pass it with a simple majority, bypassing the Senate's typical 60-vote hurdle. Republicans, led by Majority Leader John Thune, argued the resolution isn't privileged because the U.S. troops aren't currently engaged in hostilities in Venezuela.

Republicans cited Democrats' use of the tactic in 2024 to sink a war powers resolution from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to halt the military's deployment of a pier to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.

But Democrats fumed over the about-face, questioning why Republicans who voted for it last week, when there also weren’t troops in Venezuela, would turn against the resolution now.

“I think he sees the Constitution the same way as me, none of that without a vote of Congress, so why would he want to be against Congress having a role in it,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said about Hawley’s about-face.

He added that despite GOP claims troops aren’t currently involved, “The seizure of their primary asset is being done by the U.S. military. The ongoing strikes in the water are done by the U.S. military. We just went in and deposed their government.”

Joe Gould and Leo Shane contributed to this report.