Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has described the United States president’s military invasion of Venezuela and the capture of Nicolás Maduro as reckless.
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In an official statement on Saturday on X, Schumer noted that Trump is attempting to throw Americans into more international chaos and uncertainty.
According to him, the US president is using Maduro as a distraction from the skyrocketing costs Americans face.
He faulted Trump for invading Venezuela without congressional authorization and a credible plan.
Schumer said Trump’s administration is not being fair with Americans in its handling of Venezuela’s Maduro.
“But launching military action without congressional authorization and without a credible plan for what comes next is reckless.
“The administration has assured me three separate times that it was not pursuing regime change or taking military action in Venezuela. Clearly, they are not being straight with Americans.
“The idea that Trump plans to now run Venezuela should strike fear in the hearts of all Americans. The American people have seen this before and paid the devastating price.
“The administration must brief Congress immediately on its objectives and its plan to prevent a humanitarian and geopolitical disaster that plunges us into another endless war, or one that trades one corrupt dictator for another.
“To distract from skyrocketing costs Americans face and the historic cover-up of the Epstein files, Donald Trump is attempting to throw Americans into more international chaos and uncertainty,” he wrote on X.
In response to these events, Schumer is supporting a bipartisan war powers resolution led by Senators Tim Kaine, Rand Paul, and Adam Schiff, which is scheduled for a vote next week to halt unauthorized military actions in Venezuela. Despite his criticism of the operation’s legality, Schumer continues to describe Maduro as an “illegitimate dictator”.
The resolution to block the administration from engaging in further hostilities against Venezuela is privileged, which means Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) cannot stop it from coming to the floor.
The measure is sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
It needs only a simple majority to pass the Senate.
“It is long past time for Congress to reassert its critical constitutional role in matters of war, peace, diplomacy and trade,” Kaine said in a statement. “My bipartisan resolution stipulating that we should not be at war with Venezuela absent a clear congressional authorization will come up for a vote next week.
“We’ve entered the 250th year of American democracy and cannot allow it to devolve into the tyranny that our founders fought to escape,” the senator added.
Schiff warned that Trump’s action against Maduro risks plunging the region into “chaos.”
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“Acting without Congressional approval or the buy-in of the public, Trump risks plunging a hemisphere into chaos and has broken his promise to end wars instead of starting them,” the California Democrat said in a statement.
He urged Congress to reassert its power to authorize force or to refuse to do so.”
“We must speak for the American people who profoundly reject being dragged into new wars,” Schiff said.
The Senate war powers resolution has a chance of passing next week as all Democrats and Paul, a libertarian-leaning conservative, are expected to vote for it.
Three more Republicans would need to vote for it to give it the 51 votes needed to pass.
Moderate Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and populist conservative Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has long expressed misgivings about U.S.-led foreign military engagements, could potentially vote for the measure.
Thune, the Senate GOP leader, praised the arrest of Maduro as “an important first step to bring him to justice for the drug crimes for which he has been indicted in the United States.”
“I am grateful for the brave men and women of our armed forces who carried out this necessary action,” he wrote on social platform X.
A House proposal sponsored by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) to stop Trump’s use of military force against Venezuela failed in the lower chamber last month.
The House voted 213 to 211 to defeat McGovern’s proposal, which would have directed the president to remove all U.S. forces from hostilities with or against Venezuela without congressional authorization.
The lower chamber also voted 216 to 210 against a resolution sponsored by Rep. Gregory Meeks (N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities with “any presidentially designated terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere” unless authorized by Congress.
Meeks’s resolution was aimed at stopping military strikes against Venezuelan boats suspected of smuggling drugs into the U.S.
Any war powers resolution passed by the Senate would need to be approved by the House and signed by Trump to have the force of law.
The president is expected to veto any resolution to restrict his power as commander in chief and there are not enough votes in either chamber to override such an action.
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