Republicans Block Measure to Bar Military Strike on Venezuela

Republicans on Thursday blocked a resolution that would prevent President Trump from attacking Venezuela without explicit congressional authorization, turning back an effort to ensure that Congress has a say in his escalating military campaign against drug cartels.

The 51-to-49 vote against bringing up the resolution came as the president was weighing possible military action against President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, with some senior aides advising Mr. Trump to oust Mr. Maduro from power.

Democrats and a small number of Republicans have grown increasingly alarmed about Mr. Trump’s expanding war, carried out without consultation with or authorization by Congress. They have pressed for more information and involvement in a campaign whose legal basis remains murky.

But on Thursday, even Republicans who voiced serious concern about the strikes and the administration’s lack of consultation or transparency on them voted against the effort to insist on a definitive role for Congress.

Senator Todd Young, Republican of Indiana, said in a statement that his vote should not be read as an endorsement of the administration’s “current course” in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

“As a matter of policy, I am troubled by many aspects and assumptions of this operation and believe it is at odds with the majority of Americans who want the U.S. military less entangled in international conflicts,” Mr. Young said. “The strategic objective of militarizing a ‘war on drugs’ is unclear at best,” he added, and lamented “the creeping expansion of executive war-making — under presidents of both parties — without congressional input or oversight,” calling it “dangerous.”

Only two Republicans, Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined Democrats on Thursday in voting for the measure.

The resolution had no real path to enactment; even if the Senate had passed it, it was all but certain to fail in the Republican-led House, which has been exceedingly deferential to Mr. Trump. And if the measure had passed both chambers, Mr. Trump could have vetoed it.

But Mr. Paul, a libertarian who routinely opposes U.S. military intervention overseas, said before the vote that Republican support for the measure would signal that some within the president’s own party were increasingly uncomfortable with his policies abroad.

Last week, the Senate voted three times to end Mr. Trump’s sweeping tariffs, and the Venezuela vote was just one more sign, Mr. Paul said, of “growing discontent.”

Last month, Republicans voted to block a resolution that would halt Mr. Trump’s boat strikes. Since that vote, the Pentagon has carried out another dozen attacks, bringing the total to 16 and the number of people killed to at least 67.

Ms. Murkowski was the only Republican to join Mr. Paul in voting for that measure.

Mr. Schiff said it “strains credulity” that the Trump administration would deploy dozens of military aircraft and ships and around 10,000 troops to the region to counter small drug-running boats.

“I think it’s really an open secret that this is much more about potential regime change, and if that’s where the administration is headed, if that’s what we’re risking and along with a war, then Congress needs to be heard on this,” he said.

Given the military buildup in the region, Mr. Paul said, the “risk of imminent involvement in hostilities is evident.”

Mr. Paul said the U.S. had learned from conflicts in Iraq and Libya that “foreign military interventions often ends up making things worse.”

The White House in recent days gave Congress access to the classified memo outlining its legal justification for the strikes at sea. Some top lawmakers have also received classified briefings.

But Democrats said that memo is thin and overly general, and does not cite any specific legal authority for direct military action on land to counter narcotics trafficking.

“It makes no effort to claim that there’s a legal rationale for invading the sovereign nation. No effort to claim that it’s about Venezuela or could be used with respect to Venezuela,” said Mr. Kaine.

Many G.O.P. senators voiced full-throated support for the president’s decision to engage in armed conflict with cartels carrying drugs across the U.S. border.

“Whatever power that President Trump would like to use to stop that, I think he has the authority under the Constitution,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.

Republicans who voted against the resolution said the president’s strikes so far did not constitute wartime action, but that if the Senate was going to attempt to enforce the War Powers Act, it should focus on the boat strikes, not on a land strike that had yet to unfold.

“If you want to have a serious conversation about war powers, I’m ready to have it. But I don’t think this is that,” said Senator John Curtis, Republican of Utah.

Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, voted against the resolution but said that if the strikes continued, Congress might need to act.

“If we’re having the same discussion and the same things are going on a few months from now, and it’s not a dozen or so, but 50 or so, then we have to have a real discussion about whether or not we’re engaging in some sort of a hybrid war,” Mr. Tillis said.