Schumer Says Senate Will Vote on War Authorization in Venezuela

The Democratic leader says that a resolution brought by Sens. Rand Paul, Tim Kaine, and himself will be considered ’this week.’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) speak during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 3, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Jan. 4 said he expects the Senate to vote on whether to formally authorize the U.S. military’s actions in Venezuela that led to the capture of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When asked about what Congress can do, Schumer told ABC News’s “This Week” that “we have the War Powers Act,” adding that Republicans cannot block the resolution from being submitted on the Senate floor.

Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and the Democratic leader are sponsoring a measure that will “come to the floor this week,” Schumer said. “And if it is voted for, if it’s voted positively in both houses, then the president can’t do another thing in Venezuela without the OK of Congress. We have to pass it.”

Democrats would need at least three additional Republican votes in order for the measure to pass.

“Maduro is a horrible, horrible person, but you don’t treat lawlessness with other lawlessness, and that’s what’s happened here,” Schumer said, adding that the U.S. government lacks the authority to conduct such an operation inside Venezuela—which he described as a “violation of the law”—without getting congressional authorization first.

Also on Jan. 4, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) supported a resolution on the use of the military in Venezuela, although he provided few details.

“We have to make sure when we return to Washington, D.C., that legislative action is taken to ensure that no further military steps occur absent explicit congressional approval,” Jeffries said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Jan. 4.

Maduro and his wife were captured overnight and taken from their residence on a military base to the United States, where they will face charges brought under a Justice Department indictment for participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.

Several Republicans supported the military action taken in Venezuela as lawful.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) wrote in a post on X that it may fall under “the president’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect U.S. personnel from an actual or imminent attack.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, indicated in a CBS News interview on Jan. 4 that he backed the operation. Venezuela must now stop drugs and weapons trafficking, and needs to remove “the Iranians, the Cubans, the Islamic radicals like Hezbollah and just return to being a normal nation,” he stated.

A plane carrying the deposed leader landed on Jan. 3 at an airport just north of New York City. Maduro was escorted off the jet and led across the tarmac surrounded by federal agents. Several agents filmed him on their phones as he walked.

“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition,” President Donald Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference on Jan. 3. Trump said that this “extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives.”

In late 2025, the State Department listed the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization and accused Maduro of running it. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later said that Maduro was using Venezuela as a “transshipment organization” for drug trafficking into the United States.

In 2020, during the first Trump administration, Maduro was indicted in a U.S. federal court for conspiring with Colombian terrorist groups to traffic cocaine into the United States.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.