United States Capitol, photo: October 8, 2025 (Photo: Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate failed to pass a resolution Wednesday night aimed at limiting the president’s authority over military action abroad after the Trump administration ordered four attacks on boats in the Caribbean.
The resolution failed to advance 48:51. Sense. Democrats Adam Schiff of California and Tim Kaine of Virginia forced a procedural vote on the measure, which would prevent the Trump administration from engaging in hostilities abroad without congressional approval.
Two Republicans, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined nearly all Democrats in voting in favor. Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the only Democrat to vote against the measure.
The 1973 War Powers Resolution 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 action abroad.
Since September, President Donald Trump has approved four high-profile military attacks in the Caribbean that have so far killed 21 people and, without providing evidence, claimed that the boats were used by drug cartel members.
“We call them water drugs,” Trump said of the last known boat strike on Oct. 3. “Drugs that go through water.”
The White House released few details of the strikes.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, also without providing any evidence, – he said on social media that there were drugs on boats bound for the United States
“Our intelligence confirmed without a doubt that this ship was carrying drugs and that the people on board were drug terrorists and operating on a known drug trafficking transit route,” Hegseth wrote. “These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people end!!!!”
Hegseth added that these attacks occurred in international waters off the coast of Venezuela.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in a statementcondemned the attacks as an “illegal incursion by warplanes from the United States.”
Use of the military
The intentional killing of civilians who are not actively participating in hostilities against the U.S. is illegal
Senate Democrats and some Republicans expressed skepticism about the Trump administration’s claims that the boats are linked to drug cartels and pressed the White House for more information about the boat strikes.
Kaine said it’s possible more people died in the boat strikes, but police were seeking that information. He added that the strikes circumvented Congress’s power to declare war.
“We have the authority to declare war. We are asking basic questions,” said Kaine, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Give us information about these specific boats and find out that they are, in fact, carrying drugs.”
The Trump administration argued that the boat attacks did not require congressional notification because they did not rise to the level of war and the attacks were self-defense. Kaine said he rejects those arguments.
“It’s just a made-up justification,” he said. “Self-defense has always been understood (as) an imminent attack, an imminent invasion of the United States. Defining the actions of a drug trafficker falls outside the norm of self-defense.”
Paul said he was working to get information from the White House about the strikes and was skeptical that the four people killed in the latest strike had ties to drug cartels.
“If they are gang members and you know they are terrorists and you are convinced enough to kill them, why shouldn’t you know their names?” Paul said.
Schiff said that since the first U.S. military strike near Venezuela in early September, the White House has not responded to his or other lawmakers’ questions about those missions.
“We simply have little or no information about who was on board these ships, what intelligence was used or what the rationale for that decision 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 limiting the president’s power 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.
