Senate advances war powers resolution to rein in Trump on Venezuela
Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, following an all-Senate briefing on Venezuela at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate on Thursday advanced a war powers resolution, which would block the president’s use of the U.S. armed forces to engage in hostilities within or against Venezuela unless authorized by Congress.
A small group of Senate Republicans joined with all Democrats to narrowly advance the resolution by a vote of 52-47. It needed 51 votes to move forward.
Republican Sens. Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski, Todd Young, Susan Collins and Josh Hawley voted with all Democrats in favor of the legislation.
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, pushed for the resolution to receive a vote immediately after President Donald Trump announced U.S. forces carried out a large-scale attack in Venezuela, capturing dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife, who are facing federal charges including narcoterrorism conspiracy and conspiracy to import cocaine.
“Where will this go next? Will the President deploy our troops to protect Iranian protesters? To enforce the fragile ceasefire in Gaza To battle terrorists in Nigeria To seize Greenland or the Panama Canal? To suppress Americans peacefully assembling to protest his policies? Trump has threatened to do all this and more and sees no need to seek legal authorization from people’s elected legislature before putting servicemembers at risk,” Kaine said in a statement on Jan. 3.
Kaine added it was “long past time for Congress to reassert its critical constitutional role in matters of war, peace, diplomacy and trade.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Republican Sen. Paul and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff co-sponsored Kaine’s resolution.
The legislation, if finally approved by the Senate, would still need to be approved by the House and signed by the president. The bill did not pass the Senate with a veto-proof majority and it seems unlikely that Trump would sign it into law.
The Senate considered a similar resolution last November that narrowly failed to get the 50 votes it needed to pass. Sens. Paul and Murkowski voted with all Democrats to advance it at the time.
Ahead of Thursday’s vote, many Republicans distanced themselves from the effort.
“Let’s be clear about what that resolution does and what it does not do. It does not reassert Congress’s powers. It does not make America stronger. It makes America weaker and less safe,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said in a statement on Wednesday.
“It would weaken the President’s legitimate, constitutional authority. This body, the United States Senate, is being asked whether the President of the United States has the authority to arrest indicted criminals. Of course he does. Democrats want to weaken the President’s ability to enforce the law. That is the wrong message to send to hardened drug traffickers and to dictators,” Barrasso added.
Donald Trump Jr., co-founder of World Liberty Financial, during the Token2049 conference in Singapore, on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. The crypto conference runs through Oct. 2. (Photographer: Suhaimi Abdullah/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency firm, World Liberty Financial, sold a $500 million stake to a member of the Emirati royal family shortly before his inauguration last January, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, sparking concerns over a potential conflict of interest.
According to the Journal, which reviewed undisclosed corporate documents, a firm associated with Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, an Abu Dhabi royal who operates an enormous state investment fund, purchased a 49% stake in World Liberty, which is co-owned by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and his family, just four days before the Trump administration swept into office.
Months later, the Trump administration agreed to supply the UAE with highly coveted American-made AI chips despite the prior administration’s concern that they may fall into the hands of the Chinese.
David Wachsman, a spokesperson for World Liberty Financial, acknowledged the existence of the deal in a statement to ABC News, but insisted that “neither President Trump nor Steve Witkoff had any involvement whatsoever in this transaction” and that “any claim that this deal had anything to do with the Administration’s actions on chips is 100% false.”
“We made the deal in question because we strongly believe that it was what was best for our company as we continue to grow. The idea that, when raising capital, a privately-held American company should be held to some unique standard that no other similar company would be held is both ridiculous and un-American,” the statement continued.
David Warrington, the White House counsel, told ABC News in a statement that “the President has no involvement in business deals that would implicate his constitutional responsibilities,” and that “President Trump performs his constitutional duties in an ethically sound manner and to suggest so otherwise is either ill-informed or malicious.”
But the Journal’s report adds yet another wrinkle to the U.S. decision to sell highly coveted advanced chips to the Emiratis.
As ABC News previously reported, shortly before the chips deal was announced, a UAE-backed investment firm called MGX announced last May that it would use a digital token minted by World Liberty Financial to finance a $2 billion investment in a crypto exchange Binance, a major boon for the firm.
Shiekh Tahnoon, who is the brother of the UAE’s president, also serves as MGX’s chairman.
The Biden administration declined to provide the UAE with the chips, which power some of the most sophisticated weapons on the planet, for fear they might be redirected into China.
Peter Wildeford, the head of policy at the AI Policy Network, a nonpartisan advocacy group, warned that could close the U.S.’s advantage in the AI race and compromise American security.
“If China gets their hands on these chips at scale, they would be able to launch cyberattacks against the U.S., they could build autonomous weapons that could find and sink our Navy ships — they could close the military technology gap that’s currently keeping us safe,” he said.
World Liberty has emerged as perhaps the most lucrative of the Trump family’s various business ventures, either in cryptocurrency or real estate. ABC News reported last year that the Trump family secured a roughly $5 billion windfall when trading of World Liberty’s digital token opened.
According to the Journal, Shiekh Tahnoon agreed to pay half of his investment in World Liberty up front. Based on the ownership structure of the company at the time, that meant a payment of as much as $187 million into the Trump family’s coffers on the eve of his return to office.
Ethics experts said the concept of a foreign government official secretly directing hundreds of millions of dollars to a company owned in part by the president has no known precedent — and raises a host of ethical and national security concerns.
“Maybe the President would have reached the same decision over the transfer of high techn [chips] to UAE if he wasn’t also getting money from them,” said Robert Weissman, the co-president of the advocacy group Public Citizen. “But we’ve got no way to know that, and we do know there was a lot of opposition inside the government to do exactly what he has OK’d.”
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly maintained that the president “only acts in the best interests of the American public,” and said that no conflict of interest exists in part because the president’s assets are held in a blind trust managed by his children. Typically, a blind trust would operate with an independent trustee.
“President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children,” Kelly added. “There are no conflicts of interest.”
The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Congressional Democrats leapt at new details in the report, characterizing the transaction as further evidence of alleged pay-for-play. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., alleged “mind blowing corruption,” in a post to X.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., issued a statement calling the deal “corruption, plain and simple.”
“Foreign countries are bribing our president to sell out the American people,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., claimed in a post to X.
Shortly before the chips deal was announced last May, a UAE-backed investment firm called MGX said it would use a digital token minted by World Liberty Financial to finance a $2 billion investment in a crypto exchange Binance. Tahnoon also serves as MGX’s chairman.
MGX is also one of the few companies with a major ownership stake in the new TikTok U.S. joint venture, with a 15% stake in the new entity.
Voters cast their ballots in the New Hampshire presidential primary election at The Barn at Bull Meadow, January 23, 2024, in Concord, New Hampshire. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Friday marks a key procedural deadline for how Democrats will figure out which states will hold the first presidential nominating contests of 2028, amid broader debates within the party over diversity and voter representation, and which states will show which candidates are viable for the long haul.
The Democratic National Committee set a Friday afternoon deadline for state parties to apply to have their 2028 presidential nominating contests be held in the period before Super Tuesday, the first Tuesday in March during a presidential calendar year where the most primaries are held.
The order of the primaries and caucuses matters because the early contests help indicate which candidates have momentum and are striking a chord with voters, and often narrow the candidate field ahead of Super Tuesday.
The debate about the order is also about diversity and voter representation in the Democratic Party. Some Democrats have argued that states with larger Black and minority populations should be prioritized, to reflect the diversity of the country, while others say the party should prioritize traditional “early states,” such as New Hampshire, to spur turnout and buzz, even though their populations may be less diverse.
Traditionally, Iowa has held first-in-the nation caucuses and New Hampshire has first-in-the-nation primaries. But in 2024, a reshuffled DNC primary calendar pushed the states from the first two slots on the party’s official calendar and officially put South Carolina first.
While Iowa Democrats found a compromise with the DNC by switching their in-person caucus to an entirely mail-in voting process, New Hampshire’s primaries were kept in January, causing conflict between the state and national party.
Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart, in a statement to ABC News, said that the party is applying to hold its caucuses before Super Tuesday, and said Democrats need to keep Iowa toward the front of the line in order to stay competitive with Republicans.
“No matter what the Rules and Bylaws Committee decides, Republican presidential candidates will be in Iowa,” Hart wrote. “It was a mistake for the DNC to cut us out of the calendar, letting Republicans’ attacks go unanswered in Iowa while millions of dollars in advertising, organizing and the worldwide media flooded our state.”
Some state party leaders have said their states being early in the calendar will help candidates show if they can stick it out throughout 2028.
New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Raymond Buckley said the case his party is making to the DNC is that New Hampshire is a prime state for 2028 candidates to build up support and to show their viability. He said its small size allows for easy campaigning in a purple state, “which is exactly what you need in the November general election.”
New Hampshire also has a state law requiring it to hold the nation’s first presidential primaries, which is what led in large part to the disarray in 2024 between the state party and the DNC. But Buckley said that it’s not a factor right now.
“It’s not about the tradition, it’s not about the law; it’s really about our involvement, and we just think that we have an unmatched record of being able to give the opportunity for candidates to talk to voters one-on-one,” Buckley said.
Buckley said New Hampshire’s population of union members, as well as the large percentage of students of color in the public school systems of the state’s two largest cities make it a great state for candidates to test the waters.
But the South Carolina Democratic Party said it wants to stay first in the calendar.
Party Executive Director Jay Parmley told ABC News that the state is making its case to the DNC to remain in the early window because it’s compact and allows unknown candidates to compete. Also, Parmley said the state does not have a major population center, so candidates need to fan out across it.
Regarding the debates surrounding diverse primary states, Parmley pointed to how the state has a “diverse electorate,” and highlighted its Black community. Around 1 in 4 registered voters in South Carolina are Black, according to data from the South Carolina Election Commission.
“Our Black electorate — it legitimizes and rewards the role of Black voters and as the backbone and soul, if you will, of the Democratic Party.”
Nevada’s Democratic Party also confirmed it’s submitting a bid to go early, arguing that galvanizing the state’s minority and working-class populations is critical for the Democrats.
In a draft of their application, the state party wrote, “The Democratic Party is facing a critical moment where we must be strategic in our efforts to earn back Latino support, craft an economic message that resonates across the country, begin the work to reach working-class voters, and turn out diverse communities. We cannot afford to have overwhelmingly college-educated, white, or less competitive states kick off the process of selecting our party’s nominee.”
Michigan is also submitting a bid to be among the early states similar to how it was in 2024, the state’s party confirmed to ABC News — arguing in part that Michigan is the most important and diverse of the battleground states.
“For Democrats to have the strongest presidential candidate, the early nominating states should closely mirror Democratic voters nationwide and be representative of America,” Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel said in a statement to ABC News.
Illinois’, North Carolina’s and Georgia’s state Democratic parties also confirmed to ABC News that they are submitting bids. As Georgia’s state’s presidential primaries are usually held after Super Tuesday, they’d have to work with the Republican-dominated state legislature to move up the date.
Border czar Tom Homan speaks during a news conference about ongoing immigration enforcement operations on January 29, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump took to social media to show his support for two of his administration leaders amid the leadership shakeup following last week’s fatal shooting in Minneapolis.
The president praised the work of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who came under fire following the deaths of Minneapolis residents Alex Pretti and Renee Good at the hands of federal agents, and thanked Border Czar Tom Homan, who he sent to Minneapolis this week to smooth over boiling tensions.
Despite several videos showing the 37-year-old Pretti did not have a firearm in his hands when he encountered federal agents on Jan 24, Noem initially claimed, without evidence, that the nurse brandished a weapon, was “wishing to inflict harm” and the officers were “attacked.”
Multiple videos of the incident taken by civilians show that Pretti, a licensed gun owner, was disarmed by a law enforcement officer just before the first shot rang out.
The FBI is leading the investigation into Good’s shooting on Jan. 7. DHS said that Good was allegedly attempting to run over law enforcement officers when an ICE agent shot her, which local leaders and her family have disputed.
Trump, who has backed Noem all of this week, lashed out at her critics in a social media post posted early Saturday.
“The Radical Left Lunatics, Insurrectionists, Agitators, and Thugs, are going after Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, because she is a woman, and has done a really GREAT JOB!,” he said.
Noem walked back her initial comments on the shooting of Pretti later in the week, contending that DHS were getting information from “what we knew to be true on the ground.”
Homan was sent to Minneapolis this week and Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino was ordered by the administration to return to California, sources told ABC News.
Although Homan said he had “productive” discussions with Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, he criticized sanctuary city laws and called on local leaders to assist with federal immigration law enforcement. Homan announced a “draw down” of federal agents in Minneapolis later in the week.
“Border Czar (Plus!) Tom Homan is doing a FANTASTIC JOB. He is one of a kind. Thank you Tom!!!,” Trump said in another post.
