Senator Adam Schiff of California (left) and Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, both Democrats, speak to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on November 6, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON – A vote in the U.S. Senate to halt President Donald Trump’s deadly attacks on suspected drug boats off the coast of Venezuela failed in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, nearly mirroring the outcome of a similar war powers vote last month.
Republican Senate members Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky joined Democrats again a 49-51 votecompact of the straightforward majority needed to advance legislation aimed at stopping Trump’s escalating campaign against what his administration calls “narcoterrorists.”
The joint decisionThe bill, brought to the floor by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., directs the “withdrawal of the armed forces of the United States from hostilities within or against Venezuela not authorized by Congress.”
Paul and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., initially co-sponsored the bill, and a dozen other Democratic senators and an independent signed it.
Ship-like size failed 48-51 in early October.
Kaine forced Thursday’s vote under the War Powers Resolution, a Vietnam War-era resolution Statutes This gives Congress oversight over whether the president uses the military abroad.
Accordingly, the death toll from US military attacks has risen to 67 since September CNN. This is notable in the Trump administration move The country’s most advanced aircraft carrier from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean complements the other naval resources currently amassed there.
On October 16, Trump publicly confirmed A New York Times report said he authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela and told reporters he was “looking for land” to carry out possible further attacks.
Kaine and Schiff push for coordination between the war powers
“All of this, combined with the increasing pace of attacks in the Caribbean and the Pacific, suggests that we are on the verge of something that should not happen before the American people without a debate and vote in Congress,” Kaine said before the vote.
Kaine and Schiff told reporters Thursday they had seen the White House counsel’s opinion authorizing the deadly attack in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean near Venezuela.
The document, which senators are allowed to read in secret, “does not claim that there is a legal justification for invading a sovereign nation, it does not claim that it is about Venezuela or that it could be used in reference to Venezuela or any other country,” Kaine said.
Schiff described the opinion as “broad enough to approve almost anything.”
Kaine urged Senate Republicans, who received brief comments and reviews of the document earlier this week, to introduce and debate legislation authorizing the government to continue its military forces in the region.
“Anyone in Congress who thinks we should bomb ships in the Caribbean and the Pacific should introduce an AUMF (authorization for the use of military force) and debate and vote on it,” Kaine said, adding, “But don’t just give up that power.”
Hegseth posts video
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth posted On Tuesday, she posted a grainy video online of a ship ablaze after an attack, saying the United States had targeted the boat in the eastern Pacific that was being operated by “a designated terrorist organization.”
“Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was involved in illegal drug smuggling, traveling on a known drug trafficking route and transporting drugs. The attack was carried out in international waters in the Eastern Pacific.”
“No U.S. forces were injured in the attack and two male narco-terrorists – who were aboard the ship – were killed,” Hegseth wrote on social media.
It is unlawful intentionally for the US military kill Civilians not actively participating in hostilities against the United States
Before Thursday’s vote, Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, defended the administration’s “decisive actions to protect thousands of Americans from deadly drugs.”
“Some Democratic members and members of the media are claiming that President Trump does not have the authority to carry out these attacks. I’m telling you right now, that is simply false,” said Risch, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Risch said he and his Senate Republican colleagues had “hours of briefings and analysis by legal departments and government lawyers” on the strikes.
Schiff and Kaine told reporters that their access to information and briefings was more circumscribed.
Paul criticizes Trump’s moves
Before the Senate vote, Paul compared the attacks and buildup in the Caribbean to the U.S. military’s “misguided” intervention in the Middle East.
“We owe it to our military personnel to only send them into harm’s way when vital American interests are at stake. Whoever is in charge in Venezuela represents no such interest,” Paul said, claiming the attacks were about regime change in the South American country ruled by dictator Nicolás Maduro.
“We overthrew Sadam Hussein because we thought Iraq would turn into this great Jeffersonian democracy. Instead, there was an uprising that led to one of the most brutal sectarian violence in living memory,” Paul said.
Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973 after the Nixon administration secretly bombed Vietnam and Cambodia. Killing hundreds of thousands of people.
