Fetterman Joins GOP to Kill War Powers Resolution Against Trump's Extrajudicial Venezuela Bombings

With Democratic Sen. John Fetterman joining Republicans in opposing a measure to rein in President Donald Trump's ability to unilaterally bomb ships in the Caribbean Sea, the US Senate narrowly failed to advance a war powers resolution Wednesday.

Since the beginning of September, Trump has conducted four strikes on vessels off the coast of Venezuela which the administration has alleged, with little evidence, are carrying "narco-terrorists" spiriting illegal drugs to the United States.

Trump has also deployed thousands of sailors and marines to the Venezuelan coast and is reportedly considering strikes on the Venezuelan mainland, which has stoked fears within the country and across Latin America of another regime-change war.

In a quote to Responsible Statecraft, John Ramming Chappell, an advocacy and legal fellow at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, said that even if the ships attacked by Trump do contain drug-runners, the strikes carried out by Trump have been "summary executions and extrajudicial killings" that are "manifestly illegal under both US and international law."

But by a 51-48 vote, largely along party lines, the Senate opted not to discharge a resolution introduced by Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) from the Foreign Relations Committee that would have halted Trump's ability to carry out more strikes without congressional approval.

"The president has used our military to strike unknown targets on at least four occasions, and he is promising more," Schiff said in his speech introducing the resolution on the Senate floor. "With at least 21 people dead, and more killing on the way, with the president telling us that strikes on land-based targets may be next, we ask you to join us and reassert Congress' vital control over the war power."

Kaine added: "Americans want fewer wars—not more—and our Constitution clearly grants Congress alone the power to declare one. Yet President Trump has repeatedly launched illegal military strikes in the Caribbean and has refused to provide Congress with basic information about who was killed, why the strikes were necessary, and why a standard interdiction operation wasn't conducted."

Two Republican senators, Rand Paul (Ky.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), joined Democrats in voting to advance the resolution.

Paul, a libertarian who is typically more skeptical of foreign interventions than others in the GOP, has been an outspoken critic of Trump's assertion of unchecked authority to bomb ships and the lack of evidence provided.

He previously sparred with Vice President JD Vance online after Vance said, "I don't give a shit" that striking unarmed civilians without due process is a "war crime" under international law.

On the Senate floor, Paul said: "Perhaps those in charge of deciding whom to kill might let us know their names, present proof of their guilt, show evidence of their crimes... Is it too much to ask to know the names of those we kill before we kill them?"

Paul previously said in an interview with Bloomberg: "I think it might lead to regime change. And some of the more skeptical among us think that maybe this is a provocation to lead to real regime change, a provocation to get the Venezuelans to react so we can then insert the military."

Murkowski added: "We all want to get rid of the drugs in this country, absolutely. But the approach that the administration is taking is new, some would say novel, and I think we have a role here."

Even with two Republican defectors, it was not enough for the resolution to advance, especially with an assist from Fetterman (Pa.), the Democratic Party's leading war hawk, who joined Republicans in voting the motion down.

It's the second time in a matter of months that he's voted against imposing a congressional check on Trump's ability to carry out acts of war. In June, he was also the lone Democrat to vote against a Senate resolution to require congressional approval for future strikes against Iran, even as the president made regime change threats.

Nick Field, a correspondent for the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, noted that "voting against a war powers resolution seeking to curb Trump's executive powers" was "not how John Fetterman campaigned in 2022, 2018, or 2016," when he acted as a strident opponent of everything Trump stood for.

Fetterman has not publicly commented on his decision to vote against the resolution. His office did not respond to a request for comment from Common Dreams.

Despite the vote's failure, Schiff said it likely will not be the last attempt to limit Trump's war-making authority. Similar resolutions were introduced late last month in the House of Representatives by Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Jason Crow (D-Col.).

"Sadly, as these strikes get worse, support will only grow for another War Powers Resolution to stop them," Schiff said. "Let's hope by then we are not in a full-fledged war."