Trump Administration Appears Worried About Losing War Powers Vote Today

CEPR’s Director of International Research Jake Johnston made the following statement today:

For at least two months administration sources have been telling the media that land strikes in Venezuela are under consideration and that the US military buildup in the region is aimed at pressing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to resign or convincing his allies in the military to turn on him. But over the last few days, administration officials have changed their tune: the US is not currently planning military strikes inside Venezuela, they say, and has no plans to pursue regime change. Why the sudden change? It sure looks like a damage control operation ahead of today’s Senate vote on a bipartisan War Powers Resolution, which now appears to have a real chance of passing.
The message the administration is sending to Senate Republicans is that you don’t need to vote to block military action, because, surprise, it’s not happening! Lawmakers should be wary about falling for the bluff. Given the scale of the military resources being deployed, this could well be an effort to buy time until the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft group arrives in the southern Caribbean, and the administration can come up with a legal justification, however flimsy, to bypass congressional authorization for a regime change war that Marco Rubio, Peter Hegseth, and other hawkish officials have been clearly gunning for.

More than 40 nongovernmental organizations, including the American Friends Service Committee, Church World Service, Demand Progress, Justice Democrats, Military Families Speak Out, Peace Action, the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, and Veterans For Peace, as well as CEPR, sent a letter to US senators today urging them to support the War Powers Resolution.