What is Donald Trump running away from so hard? Is it the fifth anniversary of his January 6 insurrection, which we will mark on Tuesday? It should be.
It could be Jack Smith’s newly released testimony, which is damning and damaging—and we haven’t even gotten the release date of Volume II of his special counsel report, due sometime in February unless Trump manages to hang it up in court. On balance, Congressman Jim Jordan’s “Weaponization” work is backfiring.
It could also be the Epstein Files. DOJ missed its reporting date to Congress over the weekend, and the full release of the files is still nowhere in sight.
Donald Trump has a lot to try to hide from. It could be all of the above, and it’s all closing in on him this week. In the past, he has always been able to delay or distract just long enough for the public to forget. But this week, the past seems to be catching up with the lame duck president.
That may be at least a partial explanation for Trump’s strike on Venezuela—distract, distract, distract. It’s a better explanation than Trump as a committed warrior against narcoterrorism. That one doesn’t work particularly well for Donald Trump, who pardoned Honduran ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández, a man who former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in our Substack Live on Sunday morning, “personally trafficked tons of cocaine into the United States and actually said at one point he wanted to shove cocaine up the noses of the gringos.” When Trump pardoned Hernández, he said, “If somebody sells drugs in that country, that doesn’t mean you arrest the president and put him in jail for the rest of his life.” As Jake pointed out, and I agree, “the drugs excuse holds no water.”
This week, we’ll be watching Congress—and watching Trump watch Congress, which has been showing a few signs of life lately. I don’t want to oversell that, but this is definitely a week that warrants paying attention, particularly with the privileged War Powers Resolution I mentioned in last night’s post coming to the Senate floor this week. The ball is in Congress’ court.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, as well as to “make rules concerning captures on land and water.” Presidents before and including Trump, as experts at the Brennan Center explain, have tried to claim some of that authority for themselves, using “outdated and overstretched war authorizations like the 2001 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force.” Multiple presidents have also “asserted an inherent authority to undertake airstrikes, raids, and other military interventions without prior congressional authorization. When Congress has authorized conflict, such as the War in Afghanistan and Iraq War, presidents have overread Congress’s approval and expanded U.S. military involvement into countries that Congress never contemplated. Compounding the problem, presidents often fail to give Congress the information it needs to oversee these conflicts.” This is not a Trump problem—presidents since at least George H.W. Bush have claimed a share of Congress’ power. But Trump, who is uniquely interested in amassing presidential power, has the potential to move on from Venezuela and keep going, if Congress doesn’t step in and assert itself.
It’s possible for two things to be true at once: it’s possible that Maduro was a corrupt, dangerous leader and also, that our Constitution and the separation of powers demand preserving. Our country does not, and indeed cannot, remove every dangerous leader around the globe from office with in-country strikes. We could strengthen local populations with stability-enhancing programs like USAID (which the Trump administration, of course, has cut) to increase the ability of local populations to act on their own impulses. We can engage in vigorous law enforcement, like the prosecution of Honduras’ former president. But we can do so without permitting our president to freelance as a warlord, especially one with dubious motives. So don’t buy into the false equivalency that says the smash and grab in Venezuela that resulted in Maduro’s arrest was a righteous exercise of the president’s power.
The constitutional prescription for fixing this problem of presidential overreach is Congress. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker had something to say about that over the weekend, in light of the Trump administration’s strike on Venezuela.
Cory Booker@CoryBooker
Today, many leaders will rightly condemn President Donald Trump’s unlawful and unjust actions in Venezuela, and I join them. But just as glaring, and far more damning, is Congress’ ongoing abdication of its constitutional duty. For almost a year now, the legislative branch has
4:40 PM · Jan 3, 2026 · 70.8K Views
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“Today,” he wrote, “many leaders will rightly condemn President Donald Trump’s unlawful and unjust actions in Venezuela, and I join them.
But then, Senator Booker put the blame precisely where it is due. He continued, “just as glaring, and far more damning, is Congress’ ongoing abdication of its constitutional duty. For almost a year now, the legislative branch has failed to check a president who repeatedly violates his oath, disregards the law, and endangers American interests at home and abroad.”
He called out the Republican-led Congress for choosing “spineless complicity over its sworn responsibilities.” He condemned its inaction in the face of Signalgate, with Trump’s “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth escaping any censure for “the reckless leaking of classified information that put American troops at risk.” The senator also pointed to the “stunning absence of accountability” for the administration’s “illegal use of military force destroying vessels and killing people in the Caribbean and the Pacific without congressional authorization.”
Booker cited a litany of Congressional failures:
No hearings.
No serious investigations.
No enforcement of checks and balances.
No accountability.
He called Congress cowardly and submissive.
We are long past due for someone to speak so plainly to the country about the Republican-led Congress’ failure to do its constitutional duty. The question is, who is listening, and will it lead to action this week? As my good friend Norm Eisen like to say, I am not optimistic, but I am hopeful.
Booker writes that “Republicans in Congress own this corrosive collapse of our constitutional order” and that their submission to Trump’s will “now stands as one of the greatest dangers to our nation and to the global order America claims to defend.” The fact that Maduro is “a brutal dictator who has committed grave abuses” does not, Booker concludes, suspend the Constitution. And so, he drives home the point of what must come next:
- “The Constitution is unambiguous: Congress has the power and responsibility to authorize the use of military force and declare war. Congress has a duty of oversight. Congress must serve as a check, not a rubber stamp, to the President.”
- “We face an authoritarian-minded president who acts with dangerous growing impunity. He has shown a willingness to defy court orders, violate the law, ignore congressional intent, and shred basic norms of decency and democracy. This pattern will continue unless the Article I branch of government, especially Republican congressional leadership, finds the courage to act.”
- “What happened today [in Venezuela] is wrong. Congressional Republicans would say so immediately if a Democratic president had done the same. Their silence is surrender. And in that surrender lie the seeds of our democratic unraveling.”
“Enough is enough,” Booker concludes. With three years left in this administration, it’s time to stop the (constitutional) bleeding.
Senator Booker wrote at length at a time when many Americans have lost the will or the ability to take in an argument laid out like this. For some people, it’s easier to ignore common sense and stay in the fold of the cult. But Booker’s words are well worth our time and well worth sharing with others. His argument is not subtle or nuanced, and it’s accessible to anyone who has taken a fourth-grade civics class: Congress should do its job, not Donald Trump’s bidding. The future of the Republic depends upon it. They would demand it if a Democratic president had done what Donald Trump did—something that has been true over and over, but is all the more poignant with the anniversary of January 6 staring us in the face. Maybe Congress will remember what that day felt like and how they reacted. Maybe enough of them can muster some courage—if for no other reason than that the history books, and likely voters at the midterms, will condemn them if they don’t.
Make sure you share Senator Booker’s message with your elected officials this week. They need to hear it. They need to know you heard it.
A final note: a development we won’t be following this week, because it won’t be happening, is the federal criminal trial of former FBI Director Jim Comey, which was slated to start on Monday. This trial will not take place because the case was dismissed, in a serious blow to the credibility of Pam Bondi’s Justice Department. There are, in fact, some guardrails that remain in place. And this year, we’re going to rebuild more of them. Get ready to vote.
Where you get your news and analysis is a choice. I’m very appreciative that you’re here, with me, at Civil Discourse. Your subscriptions make it possible for me to devote the time and resources it takes to research and write the newsletter, and I’m very grateful for all of you. This is what community looks like.
We’re in this together,
Joyce
(Kenneth Fowler/CNN)
