Far-right Sen. Josh Hawley joined four other Republicans to advance a war powers resolution in a symbolic rebuke to Trump.
January 8 2026 (TheIntercept.com)
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., speaks to reporters during a vote at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 27, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Five Republican senators joined Democrats to advance legislation that would block President Donald Trump from launching future attacks on Venezuela without congressional approval, handing the president a symbolic rebuke hours after he said the U.S. could oversee the country’s affairs for years.
While the vote will have no immediate impact on the U.S. forces assembled in the Caribbean, it sends a stark message to Trump that even some Republicans are displeased with his open-ended plans for Venezuela.
The president immediately lashed out at the Republicans who voted for the measure, stating that they should “never be elected to office again.”
A U.S. attack on Venezuela on Saturday left dozens of people dead, American service members injured, and President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in U.S. custody.
All Democrats voted to advance the war powers resolution co-sponsored by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
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Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, Todd Young of Indiana, Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska also voted in favor, bringing the final vote to 52-47. Republican Sen. Steve Daines of Montana did not vote.
The procedural vote moves the bill forward for consideration. It will require an additional vote to pass.
Ahead of Thursday’s vote, Democrats pointed to Trump’s comments in a New York Times interview that seemed to point to a potentially yearslong entanglement in Venezuela.
“Donald Trump is ready for an endless war in Venezuela, and Lord knows where else,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “The American people are not. The American people want us to focus on the number one issue they face: the rising costs that they can’t afford, the things they need, the affordability crisis.”
Republican leaders, meanwhile, tried to cast the resolution as an attempt by Democrats to damage the president politically. Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, argued that the resolution would be meaningless because there are no active hostilities with Venezuela.
“The purpose of this resolution is to slap the president in the face. It will do nothing it purports to do, because it can’t stop something that isn’t going on right now,” Risch said. “Unlike the former president, President Trump demonstrated he is a man of action. He was decisive and did what he promised the American people he would do, and that is to keep them safe.”
Trump quickly blasted the Republicans who voted for the measure in a statement on social media, saying they should be “ashamed” of joining with Democrats “in attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America.”
He also noted that the procedural vote sets up another floor debate next week on whether to give final approval to the measure.
Collins, Young, and Hawley flipped their votes after previously opposing similar resolutions that would have prevented Trump from acting against Venezuela.
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Collins faces what is likely to be a tough reelection challenge later this year. Young is not up for reelection until 2028, and Hawley until 2030.
“I believe invoking the War Powers Act at this moment is necessary, given the President’s comments about the possibility of ‘boots on the ground’ and a sustained engagement ‘running’ Venezuela, with which I do not agree,” Collins said in a statement.
Young, a Marine veteran, teamed up with Kaine last month to formally repeal the authorization for the use of military force against Iraq that had remained on the books since the 2003 U.S. invasion of that country.
Hawley was something more of a surprise. In a statement on social media, he said, “my read of the Constitution is that if the President feels the need to put boots on the ground there in the future, Congress would need to vote on it.”
Kaine, the lead Democratic sponsor, had leaned heavily on the constitutional role for Congress in declaring war to convince Republicans.
Kaine also made a significant concession to wavering Republicans on the Senate floor ahead of the vote, stating that the execution of an open arrest warrant for Maduro may have been valid by itself.
“This is bigger than an arrest warrant. More than 200 enemies have been killed. U.S. troops have been injured. Two are still hospitalized. And now we understand after the hearing yesterday, and what has been made public, this will go on for a long period of time,” Kaine said. “This is not an attack on the arrest warrant, but it is merely a statement that going forward U.S. troops should not be used in hostilities in Venezuela without the vote of Congress as the Constitution requires.”
The strike and capture of Maduro were broadly popular with Republicans in early polls, although a plurality of Americans disapproved of the operation.
If ultimately passed by the Senate, Kaine’s resolution would also need to pass the House of Representatives and survive a likely veto from Trump in order to become effective. Its slim margin of victory in the Senate means that it would not be able to clear the two-thirds share needed for victory at present.
One advocacy group said that even if the measure ultimately falls short, it could restrain the White House. In his first term, Trump backed off on providing some support for Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen in the face of a war powers resolution.
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“Today’s vote itself has real value,” said Cavan Kharrazian, a senior policy adviser at the left-leaning nonprofit Demand Progress. “It puts Congress on record, including a growing number of Republicans who are no longer willing to simply rubber-stamp the administration’s unauthorized military adventurism or half-baked plans to ‘run’ sovereign nations. That strong political signal can help temper further escalation in Venezuela as this process moves forward.”
Separately, a bipartisan group of House members announced Thursday that they are reintroducing a war powers resolution in the lower chamber. The House voted 213-211 last month against a similar war powers resolution.
Sponsors in the House said at a press conference that they hoped to grow GOP support from the three Republican representatives who voted for the last measure.
“Without naming any individuals, I’ve had multiple conversations with veterans of our last two forever wars in the Republican Party who are specifically troubled,” said Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., a combat veteran of Iraq. “We can debate the initial action — I think it was unconstitutional and incorrect — but the concern about extending this into another forever war is where I think there’s real opportunity, especially for those that have been on the receiving end of really shitty foreign policy in the last two forever wars.”
This developing story has been updated.
Contact the author:
Matt Sledgesledge@theintercept.com@sledge.41on Signal
