President Donald Trump’s move to seize a Venezuelan oil tanker is injecting fresh urgency into efforts to require approval from Congress for any military operations in the region, as fears of an armed conflict grow.
House and Senate war powers resolutions requiring congressional authorization for military action against Venezuela ripen for floor action next week. And rank-and-file lawmakers in both parties say the White House hasn’t justified its escalating campaign.
“They need to come to Congress and say what they’re doing. We don’t know what’s going on. Nobody knows what the mission is in Venezuela,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said. “The president’s made zero case — and his team — for what they’re doing in Venezuela.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a cosponsor of one of the resolutions centered on actions against Venezuela, said the oil tanker seizure — video of which U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi posted Wednesday — made it even more important to secure a vote this month. A bipartisan group of senators has introduced a similar resolution, which could be taken up next week.
“It’s a bipartisan effort, I think, to say, ‘No, we are not just unilaterally letting him declare a war on Venezuela,’” Jayapal said.
One of those GOP backers, Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.), said of Trump’s escalating tactics against Venezuela: “I don’t think it’s ever really been about the drugs … they’re in front of their skis right now.”
Trump said his administration’s control of an oil tanker — the “largest one ever seized” — on Wednesday and that “other things are happening” in Venezuela, without elaborating.
Legislative divide. Yet not all lawmakers expressed concern about the action. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Brian Mast (R-Fla.) said he hoped for a briefing — he had a missed call from Secretary of State Marco Rubio — but was broadly supportive of Trump’s campaign.
Asked if he was concerned by the escalating U.S. military action in the region, Mast said he was “not in the slightest.”
“In fact, I encourage using our Article II authority,” Mast said, arguing U.S. Coast Guard forces can’t handle the drug threats without additional Navy and Marine resources in the area.
But Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), co-author of a separate House war powers resolution focused on the targeting of terrorist organizations in the Western Hemisphere, demanded Congress “reassert itself.”
“This is how conflicts start and how they tumble out of control,” Crow told us.
