By Anvee Bhutani, Lindsay Wise and Siobhan Hughes

WASHINGTON -- President Trump lashed out at five GOP senators after they sided with Democrats in advancing a motion designed to block him from taking further military action in Venezuela without explicit congressional approval.

The vote marked a rare bipartisan rebuke of the White House and underscored growing unease over the administration's use of war powers.

The 52-47 vote on the motion came less than a week after the U.S. seized Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and his wife in a nighttime raid. Members of the Democratic caucus were joined by five Republicans in advancing the measure.

Trump blasted the GOP defectors by name in a post on Truth Social after the vote. "Republicans should be ashamed of the senators that just voted with Democrats." He said that the lawmakers "should never be elected to office again." He said the vote "greatly hampers" U.S. self-defense and said the law the vote invoked wasn't constitutional.

Proponents said the measure was needed to rein in further actions by Trump, who has piled pressure on other regimes in the Western Hemisphere, including in Cuba and Colombia in recent days, while also openly talking about acquiring Greenland.

"Meaningful checks and balances require the president's party to stand up to and resist unconstitutional usurpations of power," said Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), the Republican co-sponsor of the legislation. He said Republicans had given too much ground to the president, abandoning "all pretense of responsibility and any semblance of duty."

Paul was joined by GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Todd Young of Indiana and Josh Hawley of Missouri in supporting the resolution. Sen. Steve Daines (R., Mont.) didn't vote.

Of the group, Collins is the only one up for re-election this year, defending one of the most competitive seats in the country in a blue-leaning state. Trump "obviously is unhappy with the vote," Collins told reporters. "I guess this means that he would prefer to have Gov. Mills or somebody else," a reference to Janet Mills, one of the Democratic candidates in the race.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) said Republicans need Collins to maintain their majority and "of course" he wants her re-elected.

"This was a short-term, immediate reaction to something [Trump] felt strongly about," Thune said of the president's social-media post. "I think in the end, he, like all of us, want to make sure that we have a Republican majority in the Senate, and we all know in the state of Maine, the way to make that happen."

The resolution required only a simple majority to advance because it is considered a privileged measure under the War Powers Act, allowing it to bypass the Senate's usual 60-vote filibuster threshold.

The measure is almost certain not to become law. It still requires a final vote in the Senate and would also need to be approved by the House. Even if it did clear Congress, the White House said Trump would veto it, and a congressional override would require a two-thirds vote in each chamber.

Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said the vote changes nothing. "The president has full authority to do what he's continuing to do," Barrasso said.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R., Ohio) said the vote was a "slap in the face and a poke in the eye of a commander in chief who took a big bet." He said he wished that Collins had voted differently, but that she is "very good for Maine" and Democrats would take the seat if she left.

Democrats have questioned the legality of Trump's actions and warned the U.S. could get drawn into another expensive and deadly foreign war.

"It should not be done on a presidential say-so without a vote of Congress," said Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.), who also sponsored the legislation, on the Senate floor. "No more endless wars," added Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.).

Many Republicans defended the president, arguing that the administration's moves were a limited operation rather than an act of war requiring congressional authorization.

"President Trump has all the constitutional authority he needs," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said on the Senate floor. "If you think he's doing something unlawful, under international law, you can impeach him."

Senior officials have said they have a three-pronged Venezuela strategy: stabilize and rebuild the country, take the nation's oil, and begin the transition process to a new government. Trump told the New York Times in an interview Wednesday evening that the U.S. could oversee policy in the country for many years.

That statement made some lawmakers hesitant.

"I believe invoking the War Powers Act at this moment is necessary, given the president's comments about the possibility of 'boots on the ground' and a sustained engagement 'running' Venezuela, with which I do not agree," Collins said.

Other Republican backers of the resolution echoed those sentiments.

"If this was fundamentally a military operation about changing a government, that sounds a lot like war," Hawley told reporters. "That's something Congress would need to authorize."

The GOP-led Congress has largely deferred to Trump during his second term on issues ranging from tariffs to clawing back government spending to foreign military actions, even when some Republicans have voiced concerns.

In June last year, a war-powers resolution to prevent Trump from taking further military action in Iran, after the U.S. strikes on nuclear facilities, failed largely on party lines.

Trump administration officials have characterized the raid to seize Maduro as a law-enforcement action. Senior administration officials told lawmakers this week that the Justice Department had drawn up a new legal opinion to justify the operation. Most Republican lawmakers were persuaded.

"It is not an act of war, not even close," said Sen. Jim Risch (R., Idaho), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) who has often clashed with Trump, sided with him on Thursday's vote, saying such strikes have historical precedent. "You don't have to agree with a president's approach to national security policy to acknowledge his compliance with the law," McConnell said.

The measure's prospects in the House look stronger than during previous war-powers showdowns late last year, when similar resolutions narrowly failed. Even if the measure passed the House, there could be more hurdles to overcome before Congress could send the measure to Trump's desk, because of the procedure Democrats used to force the votes.

In December, a resolution brought by Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.) directing the removal of U.S. forces from unauthorized hostilities in Venezuela fell just two votes short after a small bloc of Republicans broke with party leadership. McGovern is set to bring a similar resolution again later this month with Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.).

Write to Anvee Bhutani at anvee.bhutani@wsj.com, Lindsay Wise at lindsay.wise@wsj.com and Siobhan Hughes at Siobhan.hughes@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 08, 2026 19:09 ET (00:09 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.