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President Donald Trump unloaded on a cohort of Senate Republicans who voted to rein in his policing powers in Venezuela, arguing that they couldn’t give a good reason to vote against him.
During remarks at the Detroit Economic Club following a tour of a Ford plant in Dearborn, Mich., Trump harangued Republicans for not staying unified, while declaring that though congressional Democrats have bad policy, they “stick together like glue.”
“We got some real losers, mostly great,” Trump said of Republicans before tearing into Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Todd Young, R-Ind.
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That foursome joined all Senate Democrats to vote in favor of Sen. Tim Kaine’s, D-Va., war powers resolution, which, if passed, would require Trump to receive congressional approval before further military force is used in Venezuela.
Lawmakers are expected to take a final vote on the resolution on Wednesday.
When Kaine’s effort initially advanced, Trump blasted the defectors and declared that they should “never be elected to office again.” With the vote fast-approaching, Trump didn’t hesitate to make clear that their votes were still fresh on his mind.
He panned Paul for routinely voting against GOP policies, and then turned his sights to Murkowski, Collins and Young.
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“Then you have Lisa Murkowski and you have Susan Collins, disasters,” Trump said. “And you had a gentleman from Indiana that, I don’t believe it, Todd Young, he voted against.”
“And you say, ‘Why are you voting against?’ They can’t give you an answer. They’re unable to give you an answer. It’s like, why are they against the attack on Venezuela? They’re against the attack,” he continued. “After they found out who was the most successful attack. Probably, probably the most talented, most brilliant tactical attack that we’ve had maybe in 100 years. And they’re against it. Why?”
Paul has routinely voiced opposition to military action with congressional oversight; he’s a co-sponsor of Kaine’s resolution. Murkowski, Collins and Young had no issue with the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, but they argued that their vote for the resolution last week was to ensure Congress’ authority to weigh in before future action.
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The White House and Senate Republican leadership have been working to flip the lawmakers in order to prevent the resolution from passing, but it may not be the successful pressure campaign that they had hoped for.
Collins, when asked if she would still vote in favor of the resolution after leaving the Senate GOP’s weekly closed-door policy lunch, said, “Wes.”
There was also a fifth Republican, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who voted to advance the resolution. Trump notably did not mention him during his speech.
That comes after Hawley spoke with several administration officials on what the next steps in Venezuela would be. Hawley said that he was told by officials that the administration would “abide by the statutory notification requirements, and also, if they took action that resulted in major ground operations would come back to Congress.”
Hawley didn’t say if that would flip his vote and noted that he was in “listening and receive mode at this time.” Still, it did go a long way to address his biggest issue of boots on the ground in Venezuela.
“The administration’s view is that the resolution is way broader than ground troops, and I said, ‘Well, you know, and I didn’t draft the resolution, but my concern is about ground troops in Venezuela without congressional authorization,’” Hawley said.
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