House Republicans barely defeat Venezuela war powers resolution to check Trump’s military actions

WASHINGTON– The House on Thursday rejected a Democratic-backed resolution that would have blocked President Donald Trump from sending U.S. military forces to Venezuela after a tie vote on the legislation failed just short of the majority needed for passage.

The tie vote was the latest sign of Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s tenuous grip on the majority, as well as some growing reluctance in the Republican-controlled Congress to face Trump’s assaults in the Western Hemisphere. A Senate vote on a similar resolution was also tied last week until Vice President JD Vance broke the deadlock.

To defeat the resolution on Thursday, Republican leaders had to hold the vote open for more than 20 minutes while Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt, who had been out of Washington all week campaigning for a Texas Senate seat, rushed to Capitol Hill to cast a decisive vote.

In the House, Democrats responded by shouting that Republican leaders were violating the chamber’s procedural rules. Two Republicans — Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and Thomas Massie of Kentucky — voted with all Democrats for the bill.

The War Powers Resolution would have ordered Trump to withdraw U.S. troops from Venezuela. The Trump administration told senators last week that there were no U.S. troops on the ground in the South American country and pledged to get congressional approval before launching major military operations there.

But Democrats argued the resolution was needed after the U.S. raid to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and since Trump announced plans to control the country’s oil industry for years to come.

Thursday’s vote is the latest test in Congress of how much leeway Republicans will grant to a president who campaigned on extricating the United States from foreign entanglements but has increasingly resorted to military options to impose his will in the Western Hemisphere. So far, almost all Republicans have refused to check Trump through war powers votes.

Rep. Brian Mast, Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, accused Democrats of putting the war powers resolution up for a vote out of “spite” for Trump.

“It’s about the fact that you don’t want President Trump to arrest Maduro, and you will condemn him no matter what he does, even though he brought Maduro to justice with perhaps the most successful law enforcement operation in history,” Mast added.

Still, Democrats argued forcefully that Congress must assert its role in determining when the president can use his wartime powers. They managed to force a series of votes in the House and Senate as Trump, in recent months, has intensified his campaign against Maduro and set his sights on other conflicts abroad.

“Donald Trump is reducing the United States to a regional tyrant with fewer allies and more enemies,” Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said during a floor debate. “This doesn’t make America great. It makes us isolated and weak.”

Last week, Senate Republicans were only able to narrowly defeat the Venezuela war powers resolution after the Trump administration persuaded two Republicans to abandon their previous support. As part of that effort, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has committed to holding a briefing next week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Still, Trump’s insistence that the United States own Greenland over the objections of Denmark, a NATO ally, alarmed some Republicans on Capitol Hill. They have voiced some of the most vocal objections to almost everything the president has done since taking office.

Trump this week backed away from military and tariff threats against his European allies by announcing that his administration was working with NATO on a “framework for a future agreement” on Arctic security.

But Bacon has consistently expressed frustration with Trump’s aggressive foreign policy and voted for the War Powers Resolution, even though it only applies to Venezuela.

“I’m tired of all these threats,” he said.

Trump’s recent military actions — and his threats to do more — have reignited a decades-old debate in Congress over the War Powers Act, a law passed in the early 1970s by lawmakers seeking to reclaim their authority over military actions.

The War Powers Resolution was passed around the time of the Vietnam War, as the United States sent troops into conflicts across Asia. He has attempted to force presidents to work with Congress to deploy troops if there has not already been a formal declaration of war.

Under this legislation, lawmakers can also force the passage of legislation that directs the president to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities.

Presidents have long tested the limits of these parameters, and Democrats say Trump, in his second term, has pushed those limits further than ever before.

The Trump administration left Congress in the dark ahead of the surprise raid to capture Maduro. It has also used an evolving set of legal justifications to blow up suspected drug boats and seize sanctioned oil tankers near Venezuela.

As the Trump administration oversees the sale of Venezuelan oil around the world, Senate Democrats are also questioning who benefits from the contracts.

In one of the first deals, the United States granted Vitol, the world’s largest independent oil broker, a license worth about $250 million. A senior Vitol associate, John Addison, donated about $6 million to political action committees aligned with Trump during the presidential election, according to donation records compiled by OpenSecrets.

“Congress and the American people deserve full transparency regarding any financial commitments, promises, agreements or other arrangements related to Venezuela that could favor donors to the President’s campaign and political operations,” 13 Democratic senators wrote to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles on Thursday in a letter led by Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California.

The White House said it was protecting the South American country’s oil for the benefit of both the Venezuelan people and the United States.