The US Senate has voted against a war powers resolution that would have prevented Donald Trump from taking further military action against Venezuela without giving Congress advance notice.
Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana, who had joined three other Republicans to advance the resolution alongside Democrats last week, flipped after they said they received assurances from the Trump administration.
With Hawley and Young’s votes, the Senate was split 50-50 on the resolution. JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote. Republican senators Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins cast their votes for the war powers resolution alongside Democrats.
The president had put intense pressure on his fellow Republicans to vote down the measure that would have checked his ability to carry out further military attacks on Venezuela.
Trump lashed out at the five Republican senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week. Yet even the possibility that the Republican-controlled Senate would defy Trump on such a high-profile vote revealed the growing alarm on Capitol Hill about the president’s expanding foreign policy ambitions.
Democrats forced the vote after US troops captured the deposed Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month.
Young, one of five Republicans who voted with Democrats last week, says he now sides with the president.
In a statement, Young said he “has received assurances that there are no American troops in Venezuela” and that if Trump were to pursue “major military operations” he would ask Congress “in advance for an authorization of force”.
More details soon …
