The U.S. Capitol, pictured October 8, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate failed Wednesday night to advance a resolution aimed at limiting the president’s power over military actions abroad after the Trump administration ordered four attacks on boats in the Caribbean.
The resolution failed to advance 48:51. Democratic Senators Adam Schiff of California and Tim Kaine of Virginia forced a procedural vote on the measure that would have prevented the Trump administration from engaging in hostilities abroad without congressional approval.
Two Republicans, Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined nearly all Democrats in voting for it. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the only Democrat to vote against advancing the measure.
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is a tool for Congress to check the balance of power in the executive branch by limiting the president’s ability to initiate or escalate military actions abroad.
Since September, President Donald Trump has authorized four known military strikes in the Caribbean that have killed 21 people so far, and without providing evidence, he said the boats were used by drug cartel members.
“We call them water drugs,” Trump said of the most recent high-profile boat attack on Oct. 3. “The drugs that come in through the water.”
The White House has released few details about the attacks.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, also without providing evidence, said on social media that the boats contained narcotics bound for the United States
“Our intelligence confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that this ship was a drug trafficking vessel, that the people on board were drug terrorists, and that they were operating on a known drug trafficking transit route,” Hegseth wrote. “These attacks will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”
These attacks took place in international waters off the coast of Venezuela, Hegseth added.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in a statementHe condemned the attacks as an “illegal invasion by fighter jets from the USA”.
Use of military
It is illegal for the US military to intentionally kill civilians who are not actively participating in hostilities against the US
Senate Democrats and some Republicans expressed skepticism about Trump administration claims that the boats were linked to drug cartels and pressed the White House for more information about the boat attacks.
Kaine said it’s possible more people died in the boat attacks, but they’re looking for that information. He added that the strikes circumvent Congress’s authority to declare war.
“We have the power to declare war. We ask fundamental questions,” said Kaine, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Give us information about these particular boats that they are actually transporting drugs.”
The Trump administration has argued that the attacks on the boats do not warrant congressional notification because they do not rise to the level of war and that the attacks are in self-defense. Kaine said he rejects those arguments.
“That’s just a made-up rationale,” he said. “Self-defense has always been understood as an impending attack, an impending invasion of the United States. It is not within the norm of self-defense to define a drug smuggler’s operation.”
Paul said he was working to get a briefing from the White House about the attacks and was skeptical that the four people killed in the latest attack were linked to drug cartels.
“If they’re gang members and you know they’re terrorists and you’re confident enough to kill them, why wouldn’t you know their names?” Paul said.
Schiff said the White House has not answered his and other lawmakers’ questions about those missions since the first U.S. military strike near Venezuela in early September.
“We have little or no information about who was on board these ships, what intelligence was used or what the reason was, and how confident we can be that everyone on that ship deserved to die,” he said.
Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973 to limit the president’s authority to wage war abroad after the Nixon administration secretly bombed Vietnam and Cambodia. Killing hundreds of thousands of people. Then-President Richard Nixon vetoed the resolution, but Congress overrode the veto.
