{"id":33831,"date":"2026-01-15T00:02:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T00:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/?p=33831"},"modified":"2026-01-15T00:02:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T00:02:20","slug":"key-republicans-flip-kill-effort-to-restrain-trumps-policing-power-over-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/?p=33831","title":{"rendered":"Key Republicans flip, kill effort to restrain Trump\u2019s policing power over Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senate Republicans successfully spiked a bipartisan attempt to curb President Donald Trump\u2019s war powers authority after a pair of key GOP lawmakers reversed their positions.\u00a0
\nRepublicans turned to a rarely used Senate procedure previously used by Senate Democrats in a similar situation to nullify the Venezuela war powers resolution from Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. The successful effort came after five Senate Republicans joined all Senate Democrats to advance the resolution last week.\u00a0
\nTheir move drew heavy criticism and anger from Trump, who demanded that they \u2018should never be elected to office again.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

The resolution was tanked on a 51 to 50 vote, with Vice President JD Vance coming in to break a tie in favor of Trump.\u00a0
\nTurning to the arcane procedural move served as a victory for both the president and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., after last week\u2019s rare defeat on the floor.\u00a0\u00a0
\nThune, like several other Republicans, contended that the resolution was not germane to the issues at hand in Venezuela.\u00a0
\n\u2018We don\u2019t have troops in Venezuela. There is no kinetic action, there are no operations,\u2019 Thune said. \u2018There are no boots on the ground. And I think the question is whether or not there ought to be expedited consideration or privilege accorded to something that\u2019s brought to the floor that doesn\u2019t reflect what\u2019s what is current reality in Venezuela.\u2019
\n\u2018And so I think it\u2019s very fair for Republicans to question why we ought to be having this discussion right now, particularly at a time when we\u2019re trying to do\u00a0appropriations bills,\u2019 he continued.<\/p>\n

Thune, Senate Republican leadership, Trump and several administration officials launched a pressure campaign on the five original defectors who helped Senate Democrats advance the bill. While not every lawmaker flipped, Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Todd Young, R-Ind., proved the decisive votes to help kill the resolution.\u00a0
\nHawley\u2019s primary concern was whether the administration would place troops in Venezuela, but after several meetings and conversations with Trump administration officials, he was convinced that no further military action would take place.\u00a0
\n\u2018To me, this is all about going forward,\u2019 Hawley said of his reversal. \u2018If the president decides we need to put troops on the ground in Venezuela, then Congress will need to weigh in.\u2019
\nYoung kept tight-lipped about his plan until the vote opened, and explained before walking onto the Senate floor that the deliverables and guarantees he had received from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the administration were enough for him.\u00a0
\nAmong those were promises that if Trump did want to use force against Venezuela, he would first request authorization from Congress, and that Rubio would appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for a public hearing in the coming weeks to give an update on the situation in the region.
\n\u2018Those who understand how Congress works, the good and the bad and the ugly, understand that votes like this, in the end, are communications exercises,\u2019 Young said. \u2018They\u2019re important communications exercises, but unless you can secure sufficient votes, not only to pass the United States Senate, but to get out of the House, with which is highly questionable, right, and then to override what was an inevitable presidential veto, which is impossible. No one can tell me how we get there.\u2019\u00a0
\n\u2018I had to accept that this was all a communications exercise,\u2019 he continued. \u2018I think we use this moment to shine a bright light on Congress\u2019 shortcomings as it relates to war powers in recent history.\u2019
\nStill, Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined Senate Democrats to try and save the effort.\u00a0
\nMost Senate Republicans who were briefed on the matter last week argued that the strikes in Venezuela were justified and that the military was used to assist in a law enforcement operation to capture Maduro.<\/p>\n

Rubio, in a letter to Senate Foreign Relations Chair James Risch, R-Idaho, affirmed, \u2018There are currently no U.S. Armed Forces in Venezuela.\u2019
\n\u2018Should there be any new military operations that introduce U.S. Armed Forces into hostilities, they will be undertaken consistent with the Constitution of the United States, and we will transmit written notifications consistent with section 4(a) of the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148),\u2019 Rubio wrote.
\nKaine, who was confident that he would have the votes, panned that move ahead of the vote.
\n\u2018If people want to just say, \u2018Hey, President Trump, do whatever the hell you want,\u2019 Let them vote that way, but don\u2019t change the rules of the Senate in a way that might disable future Senates that do have a backbone,\u2019 Kaine told reporters.<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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