Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff and Tim Kaine have introduced a joint resolution under the War Powers Act to block the U.S. military from engaging in hostilities with certain nonstate actors without congressional authorization. The move is in response to recent U.S. strikes on vessels off the coast of Venezuela. The strikes, which the Trump administration has said targeted “narcoterrorists” transporting illegal drugs to the United States, have raised alarm bells in Washington and beyond—with many questioning the justifications for and legality of the actions.
At least 14 people were killed by U.S. strikes on alleged drug cartel boats on Sept. 2 and 15. U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday also suggested that a third boat had been targeted, but he didn’t provide specific details.
Trump has characterized the strikes as necessary to protect national security. “These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to U.S. National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital U.S. Interests,” Trump said in a recent post on his Truth Social platform.
But critics have said the strikes were illegal under both U.S. and international law, rejecting the notion that drug traffickers qualify as combatants.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, an adversary and a sharp critic of the United States, decried the Sept. 2 strike as a “military attack on civilians.” The strikes, combined with the buildup of U.S. military assets in the Caribbean, have led to speculation that Trump’s goal in Venezuela is regime change. Trump has denied this.
Schiff on Friday told Foreign Policy that it’s “very difficult to tell” what the Trump administration’s end game is with the strikes. “Certainly, they’re aiming to look strong on counternarcotics, but they’re also looking very reckless,” Schiff said. “This is a dangerous, lawless thing to do,” he added, referring to the strikes as “essentially extrajudicial killings.”
Schiff said he was particularly struck by Trump’s vague comments about a third boat being targeted and that there was no notification to Congress on this.
“Someone is going to make a serious mistake,” Schiff said. “It’s possible they already have. We just don’t know, and that is one of the reasons why we’re forcing a vote on the War Powers Resolution to put members of the Senate on record.”
In a statement on Friday, Kaine said the Trump administration had not provided Congress with “basic information about the multiple strikes it has carried out, including who was killed, why it was necessary to put servicemembers’ lives at risk, and why a standard interdiction operation wasn’t conducted.”
The Pentagon reportedly conducted a classified briefing on the strikes with members of the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, but attendees apparently emerged unsatisfied with the information provided, per the New York Times.
While the U.S. Constitution grants Congress alone the power to declare war, it also designates the president as the commander in chief of the military, which is generally interpreted as bestowing broad authority to take actions necessary for national security. Presidents from both parties have taken military action without congressional approval, and Trump is not the first to face criticism from lawmakers along these lines.
But lethally targeting alleged drug traffickers is seemingly an unprecedented use of military force, and opponents of the recent strikes contend that Trump’s actions dangerously stretch the limits of presidential authority. Maritime counternarcotics operations are generally carried out by the U.S. Coast Guard and involve disabling vessels, not destroying them.
Questions have also been raised as to whether the boats targeted truly belonged to drug cartels.
When asked whether it was possible that people who are not involved in drug trafficking were on any of the vessels targeted, Schiff said, “We just don’t know. We’ve gotten little or no information from the White House and the Defense Department about this.”
Schiff said it’s possible the United States knows exactly who was on the boats, but “given the ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ attitude of this administration, I don’t want to count on that being the case.”
Kaine and Schiff’s resolution expresses support for providing the executive branch with resources and authorities to counter the spread of illegal drugs in the United States. It also states that they’re not aiming to prevent the United States from “defending itself from an armed attack or threat of an imminent armed attack” but that the “trafficking of illegal drugs does not itself constitute such an armed attack or threat.”
In recent years, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pushed for presidential war powers to be reined in and for Congress to reassert its authority over the military.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed Authorizations for Use of Military Force that have been used by multiple presidents as a blank check to wage war against jihadi terrorist groups in countries around the world. Though Trump designated the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua and other drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations or specially designated global terrorists not long after returning to the White House, Congress has not authorized the use of military force against such groups.
While many Republican lawmakers have applauded the recent strikes near Venezuela, Sen. Rand Paul has issued sharp criticism of the Trump administration over these actions—taking particular issue with comments by U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance on the matter.
“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” Vance wrote in a Sept. 6 post on X. In an X post responding to the vice president, Paul wrote: “What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”
When asked whether Paul or other Republicans had expressed support for the resolution, Schiff said there has been engagement with Republican senators at the staff level. “I would love to have bipartisan support for this,” he said.
War powers resolutions are privileged, which means the Senate will have to vote on this in the near future. However, Schiff said the precise timing of a vote is unclear.
In response to a request for comment on Kaine and Schiff’s resolution, White House deputy spokesperson Anna Kelly told Foreign Policy, “It’s shameful that Democrats are running cover for evil narcoterrorists trying to poison our homeland as over 100,000 Americans die from overdoses every year.”
“The President acted in line with the laws of armed conflict to protect our country from those trying to bring poison to our shores, and he is delivering on his promise to take on the cartels and eliminate these national security threats from murdering more Americans,” Kelly added.
Meanwhile, draft legislation is reportedly circulating in the White House and on Capitol Hill that would grant Trump sweeping authority to go after groups he considers to be terrorists and engaged in drug trafficking and the countries that harbor them. Schiff said he would be “astonished if something as broad and problematic as that could get through even this Congress, which has frankly given the president just about everything he wants,” adding that such a move “would be a new and breathtaking low” for the legislative branch.
Given the ways in which post-9/11 authorizations have since “taken a life of their own,” the “last thing” Congress should want to do is pass “new, broad, vague authority to give the president the ability to use deadly force,” Schiff said.
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