On October 8, 2025, the U.S. Senate found itself at the center of a heated debate over presidential power, military action, and the future of congressional oversight. The flashpoint: President Donald Trump’s recent invocation of sweeping new authorities under National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, a policy that grants both the president and the Attorney General unprecedented leeway to investigate and designate individuals or groups as domestic terrorists or threats to national security. The fallout from this move, and the related military campaign in the Caribbean targeting drug cartels, has sent shockwaves through both political parties and raised urgent questions about the balance of power in American government.
According to Michigan Advance, Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly), herself a former CIA officer and Pentagon official, took to the Senate floor to denounce the policy as “unprecedented” and “straight out of an authoritarian playbook, where the President gets to play judge, jury and executioner.” Slotkin’s remarks came during debate on a war powers resolution spearheaded by fellow Democrats Tim Kaine of Virginia and Adam Schiff of California. Their resolution sought to curtail the president’s ability to launch further military strikes in the Caribbean—a region where, as the White House claims, U.S. forces have already destroyed four vessels, killed at least 21 people, and intercepted narcotics bound for American shores.
The policy at the heart of the controversy—published by the White House on September 25—allows for the designation of groups as domestic terrorists based on a broad set of criteria. These include not only violent acts but also advocacy of positions such as “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.” The memorandum explicitly mentions “anti-fascist” groups as potential targets, raising alarms about the breadth and subjectivity of the policy’s reach.
Slotkin warned that the administration’s refusal to provide Congress with a list of designated terrorist organizations—both foreign and domestic—represents a dangerous departure from past practice. “As a nation, I think we should have as a basic principle that you can’t have a secret list of terrorist organizations that the American public and certainly the U.S. Congress don’t get to even know the names of,” she said. Slotkin recounted receiving a letter from the Trump administration declaring that the U.S. is in “a non-international armed conflict” against “designated terrorist organizations” in the Caribbean, but when she requested a list from the Department of Defense, she was told none could be provided. “If this administration is not telling us who’s on their secret designated terrorist list for groups in the Caribbean, they’re definitely not going to tell us who’s on their list of domestic terrorist organizations,” she added.
Under the new memorandum, recommendations for designating domestic terrorist groups come from the Attorney General and are submitted to the President through the Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor—leaving Congress entirely out of the loop. This marks a significant shift from previous protocols, where congressional notification was standard when new groups were classified as terrorist organizations.
While the Trump administration has not confirmed whether any groups have already been investigated or designated under these new powers, a Reuters report published one day after Slotkin’s speech suggested that prominent Democratic donors like George Soros and Reid Hoffman could be potential targets for investigation. The White House, for its part, has framed the policy as a necessary response to what it claims is a surge in left-wing violence. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson stated, “Left-wing organizations have fueled violent riots, organized attacks against law enforcement officers, coordinated illegal doxing campaigns, arranged drop points for weapons and riot materials, and more.” Jackson did not provide evidence for these claims, nor have law enforcement officials publicly corroborated them, but she insisted that Trump’s executive actions would “address left-wing violence” and “put an end to any illegal activities.”
The Senate’s own response to these developments has been anything but unified. On the same day as Slotkin’s speech, Senate Republicans voted down the war powers resolution aimed at limiting Trump’s military authority in the Caribbean. The vote, which fell mostly along party lines at 48-51, saw only two Republicans—Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski—break ranks to support the measure, while Democratic Senator John Fetterman voted against it. The resolution would have required the president to seek congressional authorization before launching further military strikes on cartel vessels.
Supporters of the resolution, including Senators Kaine and Schiff, voiced deep concerns about the lack of transparency and legal justification for the strikes. “Congress must not allow the executive branch to become judge, jury and executioner,” Paul said during a floor speech. Kaine and Schiff also highlighted the absence of detailed information in the classified briefing senators received about the strikes—no representatives from intelligence agencies or the military command structure for Central and South America were present, leaving lawmakers with more questions than answers.
Republican leaders, however, dismissed the resolution as a political stunt. Senator Jim Risch, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, praised Trump’s actions, saying, “People were attacking our country by bringing in poisonous substances to deposit into our country that would have killed Americans. Fortunately most of those drugs are now at the bottom of the ocean.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio reinforced the administration’s stance, telling Republican senators that drug trafficking organizations now control large portions of some Caribbean nations and pose a direct threat to U.S. security. “The president is the commander in chief, has an obligation to keep our country safe,” Rubio told reporters.
Yet even among Republicans, unease lingers. Senator Kevin Cramer acknowledged “there may be some concern” within the GOP about the strikes, especially given the limited information provided. Senator Todd Young, who ultimately voted against the resolution, nevertheless expressed “highly concerned about the legality” of the strikes and called for additional Senate hearings and more robust congressional oversight. Young also worried that the military buildup in the Caribbean could divert resources from countering China’s military elsewhere.
Democrats, meanwhile, are adamant that the administration’s moves—both in terms of military action and the new domestic terrorism policy—represent a dangerous erosion of congressional oversight. “The slow erosion of congressional oversight is not an abstract debate about process,” warned Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “It is a real and present threat to our democracy.” Schiff cautioned that the current trajectory could “unexpectedly and unintentionally” lead the U.S. into war, particularly with Venezuela, given the increasing military presence in the region.
As the dust settles from this week’s tumultuous debates, the questions raised by Trump’s new powers and the Senate’s divided response remain far from resolved. The struggle between executive authority and legislative oversight—never a simple tug-of-war—has entered a new and volatile phase, with the stakes for American democracy as high as they’ve been in generations.
