The US House has rejected a resolution that would have prevented Donald Trump from sending US military forces to Venezuela, after a vote on the legislation fell just short of the majority needed for passage.
The tied vote was the latest sign of House speaker Mike Johnson’s tenuous hold on the majority, as well as some of the growing pushback in the Republican-controlled Congress to the US president’s aggressions in the western hemisphere. A Senate vote on a similar resolution was also tied last week until JD Vance broke the deadlock.
To defeat the Democratic-backed resolution on Thursday, Republican leaders had to hold the vote open for more than 20 minutes while Republican congressman Wesley Hunt, who had been out of Washington all week campaigning for a Senate seat in Texas, rushed back to Capitol Hill to cast the decisive vote.
On the House floor, Democrats responded with shouts that Republican leaders were violating the chamber’s procedural rules. Two Republicans –Don Bacon of Nebraska and Thomas Massie of Kentucky – voted with all Democrats for the legislation.
The war powers resolution would have directed Trump to remove US troops from Venezuela. The Trump administration told senators last week that there are no US troops on the ground in Venezuela and committed to obtaining congressional approval before launching major military operations there.
But Democrats argued that the resolution is necessary after US troops captured the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month that left Congress in the dark.
Thursday’s vote was the latest test in Congress of how much leeway Republicans will give a president who campaigned on removing the US from foreign entanglements but has increasingly reached for military options to impose his will. So far, almost all Republicans have declined to put checks on Trump through the war powers votes.
Brian Mast, the Republican chair of the House armed services committee, accused Democrats of bringing the war powers resolution to a vote out of “spite” for Trump.
Still, Democrats stridently argued that Congress needs to assert its role in determining when the president can use wartime powers. They have been able to force a series of votes in both the House and Senate as Trump, in recent months, ramped up his campaign against Maduro and set his sights on other conflicts overseas.
“Donald Trump is reducing the United States to a regional bully with fewer allies and more enemies,” Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House foreign affairs committee, said during a floor debate.
Last week, Senate Republicans were only able to narrowly dismiss the Venezuela war powers resolution after the Trump administration persuaded two Republicans to back away from their earlier support.
Trump’s recent military actions – and threats to do more – have reignited a decades-old debate in Congress over the War Powers Act, which dates back to the Vietnam war era.
Trump’s insistence that the US will possess Greenland over the objections of Denmark, a Nato ally, has alarmed some Republicans on Capitol Hill. They have mounted some of the most outspoken objections to almost anything the president has done since taking office.
Trump this week backed away from military and tariff threats against European allies as he announced that his administration was working with Nato on a “framework of a future deal” on Arctic security.
But Bacon still expressed frustration with Trump’s aggressive foreign policy and voted for the war powers resolution even though it only applies to Venezuela.
“I’m tired of all the threats,” he said.
