The House also killed a War Powers Resolution aimed at stopping Trump’s bombing campaign against alleged drug boats.
NOTE: Dave DeCamp also reports: “President Trump did not discuss plans for war with Venezuela during an evening address he gave on Wednesday. Earlier, Antiwar.com had reported, citing a high-placed source on Capitol Hill, that he would announce plans for military action against the country. The address focused on criticism of the Biden administration and claims about the economy under the current administration. It came a day after he announced a “total and complete” blockade on “sanctioned tankers” going into and out of Venezuela, which came after US forces boarded and seized a tanker carrying Venezuelan oil. The Trump administration has made clear that its goal is to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. According to earlier media reports, he has been briefed on several options, including strikes on government targets, sending in a special operations force to kill or capture Maduro, or deploying a larger force to capture airbases and oil fields”
The House on Wednesday voted down a War Powers Resolution meant to block President Trump from launching a war with Venezuela without congressional authorization, as required by the Constitution.
The bill failed in a vote of 211-213, with nine representatives not voting. Just three Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the bill: Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), and Don Bacon (NE). One Democrat, Henry Cuellar (TX), voted against the legislation.
The legislation would have directed the president to remove “United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress.”
Before the Venezuela bill, another War Powers Resolution aimed at stopping President Trump’s bombing campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific Ocean also failed. That bill failed in a vote of 210-216, with two Republicans (Massie and Bacon) voting in favor and two Democrats (Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez (TX) voting against.
The votes came a day after President Trump declared a “complete and total blockade” on “sanctioned” tankers going into and leaving Venezuela, an action that’s widely considered an act of war under international law. President Trump and his top officials have also been clear that their goal is regime change.
“Do we want a miniature Afghanistan in the Western Hemisphere?” Massie, a co-sponsor of the bill, asked on the House floor before the vote.
“If that cost is acceptable to this Congress, then we should vote on it as a voice of the people and in accordance with our Constitution,” Massie continued. “And yet today, here we aren’t even voting on whether to declare war or authorize the use of military force. All we’re voting on is a War Powers Resolution that strengthens the fabric of our Republic by reasserting the plain and simple language in the Constitution that Congress must decide questions of war.”
Several polls in recent months have found that the idea of the US going to war with Venezuela is extremely unpopular among Americans.
