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Early congressional fallout from the U.S. military incursion into Venezuela to capture the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, has been marked by Republican triumphalism and effusive praise for the Trump administration as well as outrage over what Democrats see as a stark violation of the Constitution’s war powers clause that risks an expensive and draining U.S. embroilment in more nation-building.

This early on, it’s unclear if Democratic fears will prove correct that President Donald Trump has instigated another long-running, open-ended U.S. military commitment in a country with competing power factions and long-standing animosity toward U.S. interference.

Early congressional fallout from the U.S. military incursion into Venezuela to capture the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, has been marked by Republican triumphalism and effusive praise for the Trump administration as well as outrage over what Democrats see as a stark violation of the Constitution’s war powers clause that risks an expensive and draining U.S. embroilment in more nation-building.

This early on, it’s unclear if Democratic fears will prove correct that President Donald Trump has instigated another long-running, open-ended U.S. military commitment in a country with competing power factions and long-standing animosity toward U.S. interference.

Still, Democrats are not expected to wait to see if their fears are proved correct. This week, Sen. Tim Kaine plans to force another floor vote on a resolution under the War Powers Act that would ban U.S. military operations in Venezuela that are not authorized by Congress.

In November, the Senate narrowly rejected a similar resolution from Kaine, with nearly all Republicans accepting the administration’s assertion that its campaign of lethal strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific was aimed at combating alleged “narcoterrorists” and not at forcing regime change in Venezuela.

“Many of my Republican colleagues told me that President Trump was only bluffing and voted no for that reason,” Kaine

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