Trump Fumes as Five Republicans Vote to Block Him on Venezuela

President Trump thinks that any Republican who dares to push back on his senseless incursion into Venezuela should “never be elected to office again.”

“Republicans should be ashamed of the Senators that just voted with Democrats in attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, Josh Hawley, and Todd Young should never be elected to office again,” Trump wrote Thursday on Truth Social. “This Vote greatly hampers American Self Defense and National Security, impeding the President’s Authority as Commander in Chief.”

This comes as the Republicans named—along with Senate Democrats—voted 52–47 to advance the War Powers Resolution, which would force Trump to seek Congress’s approval before conducting any further uniliteral military offensives in Venezuela. A final Senate vote on the legislation is expected next week, and it would then need to pass the House and be signed by Trump himself—making it unlikely it will actually become law.

Trump’s poor-tempered response—which may kneecap his own party given that Collins is up for reelection this year—only goes to show why he should not have unfettered ability to engage in war.

“In any event, and despite their ‘stupidity,’ the War Powers Act is Unconstitutional, totally violating Article II of the Constitution, as all Presidents, and their Departments of Justice, have determined before me,” Trump continued, maintaining that Article II gives him the inherent power to go to war. “Nevertheless, a more important Senate Vote will be taking place next week on this very subject.”

Collins, the only senator on the list up for reelection, seemed unfazed.

“The President obviously is unhappy with the vote,” she said, according to Semafor’s Burgess Everett. “I guess this means that he would prefer to have Governor Mills or somebody else.”

Did President Donald Trump actually cut Tulsi Gabbard out of the White House’s preparations to invade Venezuela?

Starting last summer, the White House began excluding Trump’s director of national intelligence from the government’s plans to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Vice President JD Vance denied the reporting later that day.

A few White House aides even joked that Gabbard’s title as “DNI” stood for “Do Not Invite,” three people told Bloomberg. A White House spokesperson denied that the director was actually a punchline.

In the days preceding the large-scale operation, Gabbard posted from Hawaii, hundreds of miles away from Trump’s makeshift situation room at his Mar-a-Lago estate. “My heart is filled with gratitude, aloha and peace,” she wrote in a post on X, as the president prepared to invade.

Gabbard was reportedly kept in the dark because in the past, she had repeatedly expressed her strong disapproval of American intervention—specifically in Venezuela.

In January 2019, she wrote on X that the United States “needs to stay out of Venezuela.” A few weeks later, she wrote that the U.S. “needs to stop using our military for regime change & stop intervening in Venezuela’s military.”

She voiced her criticism again a few months after that. “Throughout history, every time the US topples a foreign country’s dictator/government, the outcome has been disastrous,” she wrote. “Civil war/military intervention in Venezuela will wreak death & destruction to Venezuelan people, and increase tensions that threaten our national security.”

Days after the Venezuela operation, Gabbard finally posted a brief statement on X.

“President Trump promised the American people he would secure our borders, confront narcoterrorism, dangerous drug cartels, and drug traffickers,” she wrote. “Kudos to our servicemen and women and intelligence operators for their flawless execution of President Trump’s order to deliver on his promise thru Operation Absolute Resolve.”

The Trump administration is sticking with ICE.

Vice President JD Vance on Thursday vehemently defended a federal agent’s decision to kill Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, shifting blame to practically every entity beyond the ICE agent that held the gun—including Good herself.

During a hostile White House press conference, Vance claimed that Good had been “brainwashed” by left-wing politics, and argued that the 37-year-old mother was to blame for her own death.

“There’s a part of me that feels very, very sad for this woman. Not just because she lost her life but because I think that she is a victim of left-wing ideology,” Vance said.

“What young mother shows up and decides they are going to throw their car in front of ICE officers that are enforcing legitimate law? You have to be brainwashed to get to that point to where you’re willing—not just to protest, that’s fine—but throw your vehicle in front of law enforcement officers,” he continued, adding that he believed “to get to that point you have to be radicalized in a very, very sad way.”

Yet administration officials—and fans of the president’s violent immigration agenda—seem to be the only ones who interpreted video footage of the attack that way.

Video evidence of the incident suggested Good was letting other vehicles pass her on the road before she pulled out, in an attempt to comply with ICE’s orders, but was momentarily halted when the masked agents approached her window.

As she began to move her vehicle away from the agents, an officer standing in front of the red Honda Pilot sidestepped the car, moving toward her open driver-side window before he pulled the trigger multiple times, video recording illustrates.

The officer then extended his arm and chased after the vehicle, signaling that he was not injured. Her SUV then accelerated down the road, seemingly uncontrolled, before smashing into several parked vehicles.

The Minnesota Star-Tribune reported Thursday that the attacking ICE agent is named Jonathan Ross.

Agents then prevented her petrified neighbors from assisting her, one of whom identified themselves as a physician.

Eyewitnesses to the shooting told MPR News that Good posed “no threat” to the agents.

But Vance insisted on excoriating reporters who verbally described the attack the way it was depicted.

“You still believe that she deliberately tried to ram him despite this video?” prompted one incredulous reporter.

“We’re not going to get the chance to ask this woman what was going on,” Vance replied. “But she accelerated in a way where she rammed into the guy.

“Everybody that is repeating the lie that this is some innocent woman who was out for a drive in Minneapolis, when a law enforcement officer shot at her, you should be ashamed of yourselves,” he added.

JD Vance had a complete meltdown Thursday over the media’s coverage of an ICE shooting in Minneapolis that left a U.S. citizen dead.

At a White House press briefing, Vance’s remarks went off the rails while he lectured the press about not writing headlines the way he wants them to.

“‘Outrage After ICE Officer Kills US Citizen in Minneapolis,’” Vance said, reading a headline from CNN. “Well, that’s one way to put it—and that is the way that many people in the corporate media have put this attack in the last 24 hours. And I say attack very, very intentionally.”

“The way that the media, by and large, has reported this story has been an absolute disgrace, and it puts our law enforcement officers at risk every single day,” Vance said, before launching into an outrageous rant about a very neutral headline.

“What that headline leaves out is the fact that that very ICE officer nearly had his life ended, dragged by a car six months ago, 34 stitches in his leg, so you think maybe he’s a little bit sensitive about somebody ramming him with an automobile?” Vance vented.

“What that headline leaves out is that that woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation in the United States of America,” he continued. “What that headline leaves out is that that woman is part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault, and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job.”

Setting aside Vance’s absurd suggestion that any officer hurt in the line of duty has a free pass to shoot dead civilians if they get scared, the vice president left out that there is no actual evidence to support any of his claims.

There is no evidence to suggest that Renee Good was attempting to impede law enforcement, and there is no evidence that she was connected to a “left-wing network” of activists. In fact, Good’s ex-husband told reporters that she was not an activist, but a mom who had just dropped her child off at school.

Footage of the incident showed Good, who was blocking traffic, wave at the agents and urge them to “go around” her vehicle. Instead, the ICE agents swarmed her vehicle, pulling on the doors and demanding she “get out of the fucking car!” One witness even said that another officer ordered her to leave. When Good attempted to drive away from the group of officers, one officer standing in front of the vehicle shot her in the head at least three times.

But even if everything Vance was saying was true—and multiple videos indicate it’s not—that would not mean that Good should be killed. The penalty for not complying with ICE cannot be death.

“If the media wants to tell the truth, they ought to tell the truth,” Vance raged Thursday. It seems that what he really meant was, “If the media wants to tell the truth, they ought to say what I want to hear.”

Kash Pate’s FBI is restricting Minnesota investigators from accessing evidence related to ICE’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good on Wednesday in Minneapolis. 

While the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension was originally set to investigate Good’s killing, the FBI’s refusal to cooperate has forced them to withdraw from the process entirely. And that lack of FBI cooperation is likely intended to obstruct what seems grimly apparent: that Good was brutally shot and killed in her own neighborhood for virtually nothing. 

“Without complete access to the evidence, witnesses and information collected, we cannot meet the investigative standards that Minnesota law and the public demands. As a result, the BCA has reluctantly withdrawn from the investigation,” the BCA said. “BCA Force Investigations Unit was designed to ensure consistency, accountability and public confidence, none of which can be achieved without full cooperation and jurisdictional clarity.”  

Minnesota and Minneapolis officials have condemned the decision. “We have learned that the Trump administration has now denied the state that ability to participate in the investigation. And I want to make this as clear as possible to everyone: Minnesota must be part of this investigation,” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said. 

The FBI will now have full control over the investigation.