Democrats pushed a bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act in the Rules Committee that would repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), a joint Congressional resolution granting the President the authority to use military force.
“House Republican leadership just suffered an embarrassing defeat in the Rules Committee, posted Punchbowl news Founder Jake Sherman on X. “… Democrats moved to make the amendment in order and won.”
Sherman added that the maneuver indicated a growing Republican fracture over Trump’s wide war powers.
READ MORE: This could end the galling stupidity that keeps Trump in power
“The Rules Committee is supposed to be an organ of the majority leadership. It’s slipping away,” Sherman wrote.
The 2001 AUMF, passed after the September 11th terrorist attacks, kicked off the U.S. Global War on Terror (GWOT) by giving then-president George W. Bush the power to use the military against people responsible for the attacks and those who harbored them.
Democrats nabbed their Tuesday victory as traditional conservatives appear to be wary of Trump’s muddled abuse of the military in recent weeks without thorough or credible explanation.
“President Peacemaker is preparing to let slip the dogs of war on Venezuela,” wrote American Conservative Managing Editor Jude Russo, who also referenced the absence of “any legal reasoning for the [administration’s] June strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites.”
READ MORE: 'What more do you need to see?' Conservatives stumped by MAGA 'running cover' for Trump
“Now the administration is playing semantic games with the word ‘terrorist,’ a favorite pastime in the post-GWOT era,” Russo argued. “Secretary of State Marco Rubio is braying that Maduro is ‘NOT the president of Venezuela,’ but a drug cartel boss. Fentanyl is the going cover story right now, although Venezuela is not a meaningful participant in the fentanyl trade (unlike, say, Mexico). Call me paranoid, but this looks an awful lot like an effort to justify a war on an actual sovereign nation — admittedly, not a very nice one.”
U.S. Rep Thomas Massie, (R-W. Va.) was one of the Republican lawmakers joining with Democrats to press the amendment.
After the amendment survived leadership’s attempt to block it, the House Rules Committee officially reported the rule, meaning there will likely be a vote on the House floor to repeal the 1991 and 2002 AUMFs, Sherman writes.