Americans woke up on Jan. 3, 2025, to blaring headlines: “US CAPTURES MADURO, TRUMP SAYS,” declared The New York Times, using all capital letters. The U.S. had mounted an overnight military raid in Venezuela that immediately raised questions of procedure and legality. Prime among them was what role Congress had – or should have had – in the operation.

Politics editor Naomi Schalit interviewed political scientist Sarah Burns, author of the book “The Politics of War Powers” and an expert at Rochester Institute of Technology on the historical struggle between Congress and U.S. presidents over who has the power to authorize military action.

Is this a war?

I wouldn’t call it a war. This is regime change, and whether or not it has a positive impact on the United States, whether or not it has a positive impact on Venezuela, I think the likelihood is very low for both of those things being true.

How does Congress see its role in terms of military action initiated by the United States?

Congress has been, in my view, incredibly supine. But that’s not just my word. Having said that, it is true that Congress – in the House, predominantly – tried to pass a war powers act recently, saying that President Donald Trump was not allowed to do any action against Venezuela, and that failed on very close votes.

So you see some effort on the part of Congress to assert itself in the realm of war. But it failed predominantly on party lines, with Democrats saying we really don’t want to go into Venezuela. We really don’t want to have this action. Republicans predominantly........

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