What are you doing to preserve Congress’s exclusive power to declare war?

Two days ago, Donald Trump ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford into the Caribbean, along with eight other warships and a nuclear submarine. The same day, Stephen Miller dodged a question about sending American troops to Venezuela. And yesterday, on CBS News, Senator Lindsey Graham mentioned Trump’s plan to brief members of Congress on expanding operations, “from the sea to the land.” Clearly, Donald Trump wants a war. Colin Powell had something to say about the bars that must be met before using force. Here are just 4 of his 8 points: First, is a vital national security interest threatened? The nation of Venezuela poses no threat to the USA. We use the Coast Guard and law enforcement to stop drug boats rather than million-dollar munitions to perform extrajudicial killings of unknown people. I don’t know if you learned this as a Navy SEAL, but a board and search is the way to determine who is on the boat and what is on it. Second, do we have a clear, attainable objective? The administration’s goal appears to be to show the world how tough Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are. The truth, however, is that both are insecure and out of their depth. Both are trying to consolidate more power. And, perhaps, they hope to distract from the “Epstein Files” and Trump’s destruction of the White House. Third, have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed? We risk making more enemies and further isolating our country. We will spend millions per day to deploy the Ford carrier battle group – while federal employees line up at food banks, kids lose school lunches, and poor families lose basic health care. And finally, have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted? Have we tried diplomacy? Foreign Aid? Voice of America? And how about USAID designed to help those in need, rather than bombing them? We know those haven’t been exhausted because DOGE cut them all. Still, history shows that generosity and compassion, as we saw with the Marshall Plan's rebuilding of Europe – including assistance to former enemy combatants – turned those nations into staunch allies. Powell emphasized the importance of a nation exhausting all "political, economic, and diplomatic means", which, only if *all* were futile, would result in the condition that the nation should resort to military force. We have exhausted *none* of those means. The American people don’t want another war — least of all the veterans who fought the last ones, as you should well know. You claim to be working during the shutdown, so what are you doing to preserve Congress’s exclusive power to wage war?