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Omar Brings War Powers Resolution After Trump Bombed Boat in Caribbean With 'No Legal Justification'
"It was not self-defense or authorized by Congress," the Minnesota congresswoman said of Trump's strike on a boat bound from Venezuela, which killed 11 people last week.
Sep 12, 2025
US Rep. Ilhan Omar introduced a war powers resolution in the US House of Representatives on Thursday, seeking to restrain President Donald Trump from conducting attacks in the Caribbean after he ordered a drone strike on a ship from Venezuela last week, killing 11 people.
The Trump administration has claimed, with little evidence, that the boat was a drug trafficking vessel that posed an imminent threat to the United States. But that narrative has come increasingly into doubt in recent days.
In a statement on the resolution provided to The Intercept, Omar (D-Minn.) said:
There was no legal justification for the Trump administration’s military escalation in the Caribbean... It was not self-defense or authorized by Congress. That is why I am introducing a resolution to terminate hostilities against Venezuela, and against the transnational criminal organizations that the administration has designated as terrorists this year. All of us should agree that the separation of powers is crucial to our democracy, and that only Congress has the power to declare war.
Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution gives Congress the "sole authority to declare war," but presidents have often carried out military actions without congressional approval, citing their role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, particularly since the passage of the Authorization for Use of Military Force in 2001.
The War Powers Act of 1973 allows Congress to check the president's war-making authority, requiring the president to report military actions to Congress within 48 hours and requiring Congress to authorize the deployment of troops after 60 days.
Omar unveiled the resolution alongside several of her fellow members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, including Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) and caucus whip Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.).
"Donald Trump cannot be allowed to drag the United States into another endless war with his reckless actions," Casar said. "It is illegal for the president to take the country to war without consulting the people's representatives, and Congress must vote now to stop Trump from putting us at further risk."
In the days following Trump's strike on the ship, the administration's narrative that it contained members of Venezuela's Tren de Aragua gang bound for the United States has been called into question by news reports and by those briefed by the Department of Defense, which the Trump administration recently rebranded as the "Department of War."
After his staff was briefed on Tuesday, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNN that the Pentagon has "offered no positive identification that the boat was Venezuelan, nor that its crew were members of Tren de Aragua or any other cartel."
While Trump has stated that the boat was en route to the US, the briefers themselves acknowledged that they could not determine its destination. Secretary of State Marco Rubio contradicted the president, saying "these particular drugs were probably headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean, at which point they just contribute to the instability these countries are facing."
The New York Times, meanwhile, reported Wednesday that the boat "had altered its course and appeared to have turned around before the attack started," which further contradicts the claim of imminent harm to the US.
“There is no evidence—none—that this strike was conducted in self-defense," Reed said. "That matters, because under both domestic and international law, the US military simply does not have the authority to use lethal force against a civilian vessel unless acting in self-defense.”
Even if the people aboard the boat were carrying drugs, as the administration claims, there is no legal precedent for the crime of drug trafficking justifying such an extraordinary use of military retaliation.
The White House has attempted to argue that the president has the legal authority to summarily kill suspected drug smugglers using an unprecedented legal rationale, which labels cartel members as tantamount to enemy combatants, who are allowed to be killed in war, because the product they carry causes thousands of deaths per year in the US. Legal analysts have described this as a flimsy pretext for extrajudicial murder.
Scott R. Anderson, a senior fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School and a former legal adviser at the US State Department, wrote for the Lawfare blog:
There is no colorable statutory authority for military action against Tren de Aragua and other similarly situated groups. Occasional suggestions in the press that the Trump administration’s description of Tren de Aragua as a terrorist organization is meant to invoke the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) are almost certainly mistaken: That authorization extends only to the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and select associates, and no one—not even in the Trump administration—has accused Tren de Aragua of being that.
Marty Lederman, who served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel from 2009 to 2010, wrote for Just Security:
Regardless of which laws might have been broken, what’s more alarming, and of greater long-term concern, is that U.S. military personnel crossed a fundamental line the Department of Defense has been resolutely committed to upholding for many decades—namely, that (except in rare and extreme circumstances not present here) the military must not use lethal force against civilians, even if they are alleged, or even known, to be violating the law."
The resolution introduced by Omar is the first seeking to restrain Trump's ability to launch military strikes against Venezuela. But it's not the first seeking to rein in his wide-ranging use of unilateral warmaking authority.
In June, following his launch of airstrikes against Iran, war powers resolutions introduced in the House and Senate to limit Trump's actions in the Middle East narrowly failed despite receiving some Republican support.
Though specific attempts to rein in Trump's power have failed, the House did pass a bipartisan resolution earlier this week to repeal the AUMFs issued by Congress in the lead-up to the Iraq War, and which presidents have used for over two decades to justify a wide range of military actions across the Middle East without congressional oversight.
If passed, Omar's measure would require Trump to obtain congressional approval before using military force against Venezuela or launching more strikes on transnational criminal organizations that he has designated as terrorist groups since February, including Tren de Aragua.
García, the Progressive Caucus whip, said the resolution was an effort to begin restoring Congress' authority to check a president operating with impunity.
"The extrajudicial strike against a vessel in the Caribbean Sea is only the most recent of Trump’s reckless, deadly, and illegal military actions. Now, he’s lawlessly threatening a region already profoundly impacted by the destabilization of U.S. actions,” said García. "With this War Powers Resolution, we emphasize the total illegality of his action, and— consistent with overwhelming public opposition to forever war—reclaim Congress' sole power to authorize military action.”
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Dems Say They'll Stand Firm Against Budget Deal Unless GOP Halts Attack on Healthcare
Health insurance premiums are expected to rise significantly for approximately 22 million Americans after Republicans ended a tax credit for those enrolled in programs under the Affordable Care Act.
Sep 11, 2025
Democratic leaders said Thursday that they plan to hold up negotiations on a potential government shutdown unless Republicans agree to forfeit a policy change that is expected to dramatically raise health insurance premiums for millions of Americans.
Health insurance premiums are expected to rise significantly for approximately 22 million Americans enrolled in Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace plans after Republicans refused to extend enhanced tax credits when passing Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" in July.
In remarks on Capitol Hill Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he and Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) were in total agreement not to negotiate unless Republicans agree to extend the tax credits.
“On this issue, we’re totally united. The Republicans have to come to meet with us in a true bipartisan negotiation to satisfy the American people’s needs on healthcare, or they won't get our votes, plain and simple,” Schumer warned at a press conference.
"We will not support a partisan spending agreement that continues to rip away healthcare from the American people. Period. Full stop,” Jeffries said.
The enhanced tax credits, which were created in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan Act and later extended through the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, are credited with reducing the insurance premiums of millions of people who purchase health insurance through government exchanges.
The tax credits have reduced insurance premiums by 44% on average—over $700 per enrollee—and have contributed to the number of people purchasing insurance on the exchanges more than doubling to over 24 million in 2025.
According to a report released Wednesday by KFF:
Nine in 10 enrollees (92%) receive some amount of premium tax credit. If these enhanced tax credits expire at the end of 2025, out-of-pocket premiums would rise by over 75% on average for the vast majority of individuals and families buying coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplaces.
The increases come as insurance companies, citing "slumping share prices," per the Financial Times, are planning the largest hike to premiums in 15 years, including an 18% increase for those buying from ACA exchanges.
These increases will come on top of those already expected as a result of a Trump administration rule passed in June, which increased the maximum percentages of income and raw dollar amounts that insurance plans could charge patients out-of-pocket for care.
According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, these changes "will make coverage less affordable for millions of people." The CBPP estimates that "a family of four making $85,000 will have to pay an additional $197 in premiums for coverage in 2026" while a "family of two or more people on the same plan could face an additional $900 in medical bills if a family member is seriously ill or injured in 2026, and an individual enrolled in self-only coverage could face an additional $450 in medical bills."
In all, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in May that as a result of these mounting costs, over 5 million people will no longer be able to afford their health insurance plans.
"The death star of American healthcare, the insurance companies are preparing to blow up the lives of millions of middle-class families," warned journalist David Sirota in a podcast for The Lever.
Republicans in Congress are facing mounting pressure to extend the tax credits and stave off the premium hikes. Last week, 11 Republicans in Congress signed onto a bill that would extend the credits through 2026, allowing them to avoid the issue until after the midterm elections.
A survey conducted in July by two of Trump's most trusted pollsters, Tony Fabrizio and Bob Ward, found that for Republicans in the most competitive districts, "a 3-point deficit becomes a 15-point deficit" against the generic Democrat if they allow the healthcare premium tax credit to expire.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has stayed coy about whether he and the Republican caucus plan to support extending the credits.
"I'm not going to forecast that right now," Johnson told reporters earlier this week, while also saying, "There's a lot of opposition to it as well."
Democrats, meanwhile, have proposed a competing bill to make the subsidies permanent and are hoping to use this month's budget showdown to force Republicans to make concessions on the issue.
As David Dayen wrote Monday for the American Prospect, it sets up a challenging strategic and moral dilemma for Democrats:
On the one hand, Democrats fighting for healthcare benefits speaks to an issue where they have the highest level of support from the public. They would credibly be able to tell voters that they fought for lower costs during an affordability crisis and won, and that more of that will happen if they are given power in the midterms.
On the other hand, Republicans willingly drove the healthcare system toward the point of oblivion, and some may question why Democrats would offer a lifeline to bail them out. In this reading, relieving Republicans of the consequences of their health care plans would be harmful to Democratic midterm chances; Trump would take credit for keeping health care costs low.
What's clear, Dayen said, is that "unless action is taken, it will be an enormous example of Trump's failure to rein in the runaway cost of living."
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, urged Democrats to stand firm as the fight over a potential government shutdown heats up.
"If Republicans refuse to negotiate and move away from their cost-increasing agenda, then it is Republicans who will be forcing a government-wide shutdown," Gilbert said. "There should be no deal without assurances that the budget will be honored and not impounded, and one that returns care to the American people.”
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The Big Ugly Bill Hurts Families Like Mine; Let’s Make Sure Congress Knows
Instead of making it harder for families to get by and thrive, Congress should focus on ensuring that the fundamental human rights of housing, healthcare, food, and public education are more readily available, not less.
Sep 05, 2025
My family and I finally secured stable housing again, years after being priced out of a duplex we’d been renting. I’m both relieved and worried.
Now the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” threatens healthcare and food for my four kids—just to pay for massive tax breaks for the very wealthy. This bill cuts $1 trillion from healthcare over the next decade. It’s the largest cut to federal support for healthcare for families in history.
I grew up well cared for. My mom was a nurse who held down our finances while my stepdad attended school. Medicaid and food stamps helped fill in the gaps for us kids. Our grandparents worked for the federal government and were there for us, too.
With the familial and safety net support I had, I was able to graduate high school with an Associate’s Degree. I started a family soon after.
Then one of my children was diagnosed with autism, Covid-19 happened, and my husband lost his job. And a few days before Christmas one year, our landlord told us: “I want to raise the rent to higher than you can pay, so you need to get out.” And just like that, we were evicted. We’d never been even a day late with our rent.
Life happens—to all of us. We can follow the rules and do the right thing, but structural barriers like these can put economic thriving out of reach for so many of us. My kids and I spent a few years doubling up with my grandparents—and only just recently got into a rent-reduced apartment.
So now, at nearly 30, I’m starting over. I’m in college working toward my Bachelor’s Degree in social work. My kids have healthcare through Medicaid—which is especially important for my daughter with autism—and we qualify for food assistance through Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). My youngest children are getting a good start in life through the Head Start program.
This bill betrays families so billionaires can have more wealth and live in even greater luxury.
Once again, I’m following the rules and keeping my family afloat. But then this bill is passed, which will greatly increase the already confusing and burdensome red tape to keep proving that we qualify for assistance. Studies show that millions who qualify for both Medicaid and SNAP will lose access simply due to paperwork errors.
The “Big Beautiful Bill” also calls for cuts to early childhood education programs and threatens the Head Start program and the Department of Education, which helps students with disabilities get an education equal to other students and ensures all kids have a hot meal every day. Without Head Start, many parents won’t be able to work, as the cost of childcare is out of reach for most of us.
Instead of making it harder for families to get by and thrive, Congress should focus on ensuring that the fundamental human rights of housing, healthcare, food, and public education are more readily available, not less.
I’ve never been one to sit around and let adversity beat me down. We’re accessing the programs our tax dollars pay for so my kids can have a better life. That’s what community, society, and government are for.
But this bill betrays families so billionaires can have more wealth and live in even greater luxury. This is not what Americans want. Polls show how wildly unpopular this bill is, with nearly two-thirds of Americans opposed.
The lawmakers passing these bad bills aren’t listening to most Americans. But I see what’s starting to happen: People like me are realizing we have a powerful voice—and more and more of us are using it. When we raise our voices together, the lawmakers who are trying so desperately to ignore us will no longer be able to.
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