By Jack Phillips
Contributing Writer
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Sunday said he expects the Senate to vote on whether to formally authorize the U.S. military’s actions in Venezuela that led to the capture of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro.
When asked about what Congress can do, Schumer told ABC News’ “This Week” that “we have the War Powers Act,” adding that Republicans cannot block the resolution from being submitted on the Senate floor.
Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Rand Paul, R-Ky., and the Democratic leader are sponsoring a measure that will “come to the floor this week,” Schumer said. “And if it is voted for, if it’s voted positively in both houses, then the president can’t do another thing in Venezuela without the OK of Congress. We have to pass it.”
Democrats would need at least three additional Republican votes in order for the measure to pass.
“Maduro is a horrible, horrible person, but you don’t treat lawlessness with other lawlessness, and that’s what’s happened here,” Schumer said, adding that the U.S. government lacks the authority to conduct such an operation inside Venezuela, which he described as a “violation of the law,” without getting congressional authorization first.
Also on Sunday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., supported a resolution on the use of the military in Venezuela, although he provided few details.
“We have to make sure when we return to Washington, D.C., that legislative action is taken to ensure that no further military steps occur absent explicit congressional approval,” Jeffries said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
Several Republicans supported the military action taken in Venezuela as lawful.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wrote in a post on X that it may fall under “the president’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect U.S. personnel from an actual or imminent attack.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, indicated in a CBS News interview on Sunday that he backed the operation. Venezuela must now stop drugs and weapons trafficking, and needs to remove “the Iranians, the Cubans, the Islamic radicals like Hezbollah and just return to being a normal nation,” he stated.
Late last year, the State Department listed the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization and accused Maduro of running it. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later said that Maduro was using Venezuela as a “transshipment organization” for drug trafficking into the United States.
In 2020, during the first Trump administration, Maduro was indicted in a U.S. federal court for conspiring with Colombian terrorist groups to traffic cocaine into the United States.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
