By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Contributor
President Donald Trump has ordered the bombing of seven countries in 2025. They are Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen. There has been no congressional authorization for any of the military action. Trump is also threatening Columbia and Cuba.
On the afternoon of January 5, Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe met meet with members of Congress on their latest military action.
But a growing question is haunting some members of Congress: Is Congress now irrelevant? Trump is ignoring Congress’ Constitutional authority on domestic and foreign military actions regarding the declaration of war. There are many critics pressing Democrats to “take action” but no one in Congress or out appears to have a definitive answer on how to stop Trump from ignoring the constitution and the legislative branch.
During a January 4 emergency zoom call scheduled by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries with House Democrats, a senior Democrat “went there” on the question of Congress’ lack of power against a President who operates as if the legislative branch doesn’t exist. Though the emergency meeting was mostly focused on messaging, the larger question of congressional relevance in a nagging one.
Congress returns to session after the Christmas break on January 6. Democrats expected to be focused on the rise in health care costs for millions of Americans after the Republican controlled House and Senate failed to pass an extension of tax credits for the Affordable Care Act. The other topic that exploded in the news over the Christmas break was the partial release of the Epstein files. The latest document drop has included hundreds of photographs along with thousands of lines of redactions that appear to conceal the involvement of Donald Trump.
But when Trump bombed Venezuela on January 3 and abducted President Nicolás Maduro, the direction of the news cycle changed.
Congressman Greg Meeks, who is the senior member on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, was a prominent voice on the emergency call. Questions about the U.S. becoming the “world police” emerged in general several times.
“The U.S. military to attempt regime change in a sovereign foreign nation, without approval from Congress, without a defined objective or plan for the day after, and without support from our allies, risks entangling the United States in an open-ended conflict in Venezuela that could destabilize the entire region,” Rep. Meeks declared in a statement on January 3.
“There’s nothing “America-First” about deploying American sons and daughters to Latin America with no plan and no Congressional oversight,” said Senator Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee on January 4.
Members were heard to agree that Trump believes that he can do whatever he wants in the same model as Vladimir Putin — with no explanation presented other than the existence of raw power.
Democrats in Congress are expected to bring up the war powers resolution this week. When the Sunday emergency zoom call ended there was no stated conclusion as to what Democratic messaging will be this week.
Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke
