President Donald Trump’s furious public pressure campaign succeeded Wednesday night in flipping the votes of two Republican senators who last week supported blocking further attacks on Venezuela.

A bipartisan war powers resolution was defeated in the full senate after Vice President JD Vance cast a tie-breaking vote. The bill was defeated during parliamentary maneuvering before a full up-or-down vote.

Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Todd Young, R-Ind., had voted to advance the resolution last week but voted against it this week following intense lobbying from the White House.

“The real threat of congressional pushback now hangs over the administration.”

Still, critics of the war on Venezuela said they were counting the debate as a partial victory, having forced Congress to confront an issue that GOP leaders would rather avoid.

“The extraordinary lengths the administration went to in order to kill this vote show that it takes congressional war powers authority seriously when Congress actually asserts it,” said Cavan Kharrazian, a senior advisor at the left-leaning group Demand Progress. “The real threat of congressional pushback now hangs over the administration as it decides how to proceed militarily in Venezuela and elsewhere.”

Procedural Chicanery

Last week, the Senate voted to advance to a full-fledged debate on the resolution cosponsored by Sens.........

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