WASHINGTON — Republican leaders in the Senate are mounting a last-minute effort to snuff out dissent within their own party and block a resolution that would be a step toward requiring President Donald Trump to seek congressional approval for any U.S. military action related to Venezuela.

The effort has already succeeded in changing one mind, that of Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who last week voted with four other Republicans and all Democrats to advance the measure aiming to curb the president’s war powers.

Their dissent enraged Trump who, in a social media post, condemned their “stupidity” and said they should lose their seats in Congress. White House officials and Republican leaders have been pressing the five defectors to change their votes.

If the lobbying effort succeeds, party leaders could avoid a vote on the issue altogether.

The attention has now turned to Sens. Todd Young of Indiana and Susan Collins of Maine, who could provide the additional vote needed for Republicans to defeat the resolution.

Two other Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky, are seen as less likely to concede. They previously supported similar efforts to reassert congressional authority over Trump’s ability to use military force.

The effort to derail the vote has centered on arguments that U.S. forces were no longer operating in Venezuela and that the mission was complete. Administration officials and Republican leaders have sought to portray the military action as a discrete one rather than a protracted open-ended engagement, downplaying concerns raised by lawmakers about what could come next.

On Tuesday, Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, asked the White House in a letter to confirm that Operation Absolute Resolve had ended and that “U.S. military personnel are no longer involved in hostilities in Venezuela.”

In a response sent Wednesday morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized the limited scope of the operation and assured Risch that “there are currently no U.S. armed forces in Venezuela.” He also said that any future military actions that placed U.S. forces into hostilities would be undertaken “consistent with the Constitution” and that Congress would be notified in accordance with the War Powers Resolution.

Such notifications from the Trump administration have come only after military operations have been carried out, including the dozens of strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean and the operation to capture Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro.

Hawley said that assurances from Rubio in the letter, and in phone calls from the secretary and Trump, had convinced him that the resolution was no longer needed.

The resolution, led by Sens. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Adam Schiff of California and Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, all Democrats, together with Paul, would “direct the removal of United States armed forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress.”

If the measure were to pass the Senate, a vote would be required in the House, which rejected two similar resolutions last month. And even then, Trump would be all but certain to veto it.

Last week, Hawley said that efforts to reassure senators in classified briefings that Trump did not plan to put U.S. boots on the ground did not sway him.

“He thinks that’s unlikely, which is great — that’s terrific,” Hawley said at the time. “But what I had to vote on today was: Does Congress need to authorize future in-country military operations? And I think we probably will need to under Article One.”

Now, he said that recent assurances from Rubio to “follow the relevant statutes in the Constitution” and not place U.S. ground troops in Venezuela without consulting Congress were enough.

“Nobody knows what will happen,” Hawley said Wednesday morning, “and that is why the commitment today from him to follow the relevant statutes, the notification procedures and to come back to Congress, I think, is really significant.”

If at least one more of the five GOP senators changed their vote, it would trigger a tie that could be broken by the vice president to effectively kill the bill.

Such a move, a procedural sleight of hand to cut off debate and avoid the possibility of an embarrassing defeat for Trump, provides the Republican defectors an off-ramp without fully appearing to abandon their objections.

Paul, Collins and Murkowski affirmed their positions. Young did not disclose whether or not his position had changed.

Democrats argued that the U.S. military remained involved, and they insisted that congressional oversight was required.

“There are U.S. military seizing Venezuelan oil every day. There’s U.S. military striking Venezuelans on boats in the water every day. We’re not occupying their country without the military,” Kaine said. “We just went in and deposed their government. We are controlling who governs the country. We are controlling when Venezuelans are entitled to have elections again, we’re controlling their chief economic asset. That’s all being done by the U.S. military.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Robert Jimison and Megan Mineiro/Kenny Holston
c. 2026 The New York Times Company