Diyar Guldogan
08 January 2026•Update: 09 January 2026
WASHINGTON
The US Senate on Thursday advanced a measure aimed at curbing President Donald Trump’s authority to launch strikes on Venezuela.
The Senate agreed to the motion to discharge the War Powers Resolution by a vote of 52-47.
Five Republicans – Senators Josh Hawley, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Rand Paul, and Todd Young – voted in favor of the bill, which was introduced by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine.
Republican Sen. Steve Daines did not vote.
A decisive vote is expected next week.
Two previous efforts to move similar resolutions were rejected in the upper chamber last year by Republicans as the Trump administration escalated military pressure on Venezuela with strikes beginning in September.
Last weekend the US dramatically escalated the confrontation with a military operation in Venezuela, capturing President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Trump later said his administration would "run" Venezuela and its oil assets during a transition period.
Trump slams Republican senators after vote, calls measure 'unconstitutional'
Speaking ahead of the vote, Kaine said US troops should not be used in hostilities in Venezuela without a vote of Congress, as the Constitution requires.
"Before you send our sons and daughters to war, come to Congress ... and with that, I moved to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 98 to direct the removal of the United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress."
Kaine underlined that his resolution does not challenge last week's execution of an arrest warrant for Maduro, saying that the valid warrant bringing him to justice in the US would be good for both America and Venezuela.
After the vote, Trump slammed the group of Republican senators for joining Democrats, saying they "should never be elected to office again."
"Republicans should be ashamed of the Senators that just voted with Democrats in attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America," Trump said on his social media company Truth Social.
He argued that the vote "greatly hampers" American self-defense and national security, and also impedes the president's authority as commander-in-chief.
"In any event, and despite their 'stupidity,' the War Powers Act is Unconstitutional, totally violating Article II of the Constitution, as all Presidents, and their Departments of Justice, have determined before me," Trump said, adding that a "more important" Senate vote will be taking place next week.
Vice President JD Vance also said they talked to some of the senators who voted "the wrong way, in my view."
"Much of their argument was based more on a legal technicality than any disagreement in policy. If you look at the people who actually voted, every single one of them has supported the administration's plan," Vance told the reporters at the White House.
Vance argued that every president from both parties believes the war powers act is "fundamentally a fake and unconstitutional law." "It's not going to change anything about how we conduct foreign policy over the next couple of weeks, the next couple of months," he said.
The 1973 War Powers Resolution, passed just months after the last US combat troops left Vietnam, was meant to check the president's power to commit the US to an armed conflict without the consent of Congress – a mistake many said was made during the long Vietnam conflict, beginning in 1965, resulting in the deaths of over 58,000 members of the military.
