Will Senate curb Trump's war?

PRESIDENT TRUMP seemed angry after the Senate voted last Thursday to pass a war powers resolution to the next stage, where lawmakers could approve the measure and seek to curb the president's ability to wage war in Venezuela without congressional authorization.

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J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE Associated Press

LISA MURKOWSKI has supported a resolution to limit military action in Venezuela. Four other GOP senators have joined her.

Trump said that day that five Republican senators who supported bringing the measure to a vote — Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rand Paul (Ky.), Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Todd Young (Ind.) — “should never be elected to office again.”

Why should he get so riled up about this, to the point where he could put his own party’s control of the Senate at risk in November? Even if this resolution were to pass both houses of Congress, he could veto it and ultimately be unrestrained. He did this in 2019, when a war powers resolution mandating that the U.S. military cease its participation in the war in Yemen was passed in both the Senate and the House. Many people think that such legislation therefore can't make a difference.

But the president's ire is telling. These political moves on the Hill can get results even before the resolution has a final vote, or if it is vetoed by the president.

The Trump administration made significant concessions before the 2019 resolution was approved by Congress, in an attempt to prevent it from passing. For instance, months before it was approved, the U.S. military stopped refueling Saudi warplanes in midair. These concessions deescalated the war and saved tens of thousands of lives.

A war powers resolution is an act of Congress that is based on a 1973 law of the same name. That law spells out and reinforces the power that our Constitution has allocated to Congress, to decide when the U.S. military can be involved in hostilities.