Naijajingles
The Democratic lawmakers, Senator Chuck Schumer and House of Representatives minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, have said the Congress must stop what they called President Donald Trump’s folly by invoking the War Powers Act.
Jeffries told reporters in Washington that it was “outrageous” for President Donald Trump to claim that his administration was justified in failing to notify Congress of the planned attack on Venezuela to prevent leaks to the media.
The lawmaker said that the administration had “a responsibility to notify Congress.”
Jeffries added that in context of the United States Constitution, it’s the Congress that has the sole power to declare war.
“So the Constitution isn’t a matter of inconvenience; it is a requirement,” he said.
“There is no Trump exception to the United States Constitution,” said the New York congressman who hopes to be House speaker after the November elections.
“And there’s no evidence that the Trump administration has ever presented of Congressional leaders being briefed in a classified setting and that information then being leaked in a way that undermined America’s national security interests.”
Also speaking against Trump’s action, Democratic senator from New York, Schumer said that the danger in Venezuela is only beginning.
He said that the US leader has opened a Pandora’s box, adding that things will get out of hand very quickly.
“And if Donald Trump tries to do to Colombia and Greenland what he did in Venezuela, the disasters and consequences could compound exponentially,” he said.
Reading from prepared remarks, the Democratic senator tripped over his words several times, at one point referring to “the war in Viet-” according to the Guardian UK, before correcting himself to say “the war in Venezuela”.
“The next step for Congress is clear: we must stop Trump’s folly by invoking the War Powers Act,” Schumer said, before pledging to join a push later this week on a war powers resolution that could constrain Trump.
