United States leaders reacted early Saturday morning as President Trump confirmed in a single day army strikes in Venezuela and introduced the seize of the nation’s chief, Nicolás Maduro, and his spouse.
Mr. Trump mentioned Maduro and his spouse had been flown out of Venezuela and can be taken to New York. The U.S. Military’s Delta Drive, an elite particular forces unit, carried out the operation to seize them, officers instructed CBS Information. The Trump administration notified Congressional leaders in regards to the operation solely after it started, Congressional sources instructed CBS Information.
Maduro, 63, has led Venezuela since 2013. His most up-to-date election was disputed by worldwide observers and the U.S. acknowledged opposition candidate Edmundo González because the winner. The U.S. imposed sanctions in opposition to election officers for allegedly rigging the end result, however Maduro was nonetheless sworn in for a 3rd time period in January.
Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi mentioned on Saturday morning that Maduro and his spouse have been indicted within the Southern District of New York on narco-terrorism fees. Maduro was beforehand indicted in 2020 on allegations that he and different senior Venezuelan authorities officers collaborated with the Colombian guerrilla group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC, to visitors cocaine and weapons to the US.
The Justice Division additionally accused Maduro of main a prison group referred to as Cártel de Los Soles. The Trump administration designated the group as a overseas terrorist group final yr, although some specialists have questioned that characterization. The U.S. has been providing a $50 million reward for info resulting in Maduro’s seize.
A CBS Information ballot in November discovered that 70% of Individuals would oppose the U.S. taking army motion in Venezuela, and 75% mentioned the Trump administration would wish Congressional approval. Most surveyed additionally mentioned they didn’t see Venezuela as a significant menace to the US.
Republicans react
Home Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, mentioned he spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth after the operation in Venezuela.
“Nicolas Maduro is chargeable for the deaths of a whole lot of hundreds of Individuals after years of trafficking unlawful medicine and violent cartel members into our nation — crimes for which he is been correctly indicted in U.S. courts and an arrest warrant duly issued — and at this time he discovered what accountability seems to be like,” Johnson mentioned. “President Trump is placing American lives first, succeeding the place others have failed, and below his management the US will not enable prison regimes to revenue from wreaking havoc and destruction on our nation.”
Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, mentioned he spoke with Rubio and that Venezuela’s interim authorities “should now determine whether or not to proceed the drug trafficking and colluding with adversaries like Iran and Cuba or whether or not to behave like a standard nation and return to the civilized world.”
“I urge them to decide on correctly,” he mentioned.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee mentioned that he additionally spoke with Rubio, who mentioned that Maduro could be delivered to the U.S. Lee additionally mentioned that Rubio “anticipates no additional motion in Venezuela now that Maduro is in U.S. custody.”
Lee added that the operation “seemingly falls inside the president’s inherent authority below Article II of the Structure to guard U.S. personnel from an precise or imminent assault,” however didn’t provide another particulars.
Vice President JD Vance praised the “courageous particular operators who pulled off a very spectacular operation.”
“Maduro is the latest individual to search out out that President Trump means what he says,” Vance mentioned. The vp highlighted Maduro’s earlier indictments as justification for the operation.
“You do not get to keep away from justice for drug trafficking the US since you stay in a palace in Caracas,” he mentioned.
U.S. Senate Majority Chief John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, launched an announcement calling Maduro’s seize “an necessary first step to deliver him to justice for the drug crimes for which he has been indicted in the US.” He mentioned he spoke to Rubio on Saturday morning and was trying ahead to additional briefings when the Senate returns subsequent week.
Home Intelligence Chair Rick Crawford, a Republican from Arkansas, drew comparisons to the arrest of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega in 1990.
“It is a terrific day for Venezuela,” Crawford instructed CBS Information in an interview.
“We’ve a president in workplace right here now that is not taking part in round,” he mentioned. “What we have to perceive is that if we will have a secure America, that requires a secure neighborhood.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, criticized the operation. Greene is about to depart Congress on Monday after asserting her shock resignation in November amid a main falling out with Mr. Trump. In a prolonged put up on X, she mentioned the transfer contradicts Mr. Trump’s anti-intervention stance and advised the operation had extra to do with regime change than stopping drug trafficking. She requested why the Trump administration had not performed extra to focus on Mexican cartels, and questioned the controversial pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been sentenced to 45 years in jail for trafficking cocaine into the U.S.
“Individuals disgust with our personal authorities’s by no means ending army aggression and help of overseas wars is justified as a result of we’re pressured to pay for it and each events, Republicans and Democrats, all the time hold the Washington army machine funded and going,” Greene wrote. “That is what many in MAGA thought they voted to finish. Boy have been we mistaken.”
Democrats react
Democrat lawmakers criticized the Trump administration for appearing unilaterally.
Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, mentioned Maduro is a “prison and authoritarian dictator who has oppressed the folks of Venezuela for years,” however that Mr. Trump “has the constitutional accountability to comply with the legislation and shield democratic norms in the US.”
“The promotion of safety and stability in a area requires extra than simply army power as we painfully found in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Jeffries mentioned. “Far too many questions stay unanswered,” he added, together with whether or not American troops stay on the bottom in Venezuela and particulars of Mr. Trump’s declare that the U.S. will run the Latin American nation till a considered transition happens.
Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer, additionally from New York, echoed Jeffries’ sentiment by calling Maduro “an illegitimate dictator” however saying that “launching army motion with out congressional authorization and with out a credible plan for what comes subsequent is reckless.”
“The concept Trump plans to now run Venezuela ought to strike worry within the hearts of all Individuals. The American folks have seen this earlier than and paid the devastating value,” Schumer wrote. “The administration should transient Congress instantly on its targets, and its plan to forestall a humanitarian and geopolitical catastrophe that plunges us into one other limitless warfare or one which trades one corrupt dictator for an additional.”
Rep. Adam Smith, the highest Democrat on the Home Armed Providers Committee, instructed CBS Information 24/7 that “there is no proof in any way this makes America safer.”
“This does not appear to have a lot to do with medicine,” Smith mentioned, and to him, “it appears what that is about is Trump needs Venezuela’s oil.”
What additionally issues him is what occurs subsequent, asking: “Is his plan to invade?”
The U.S. has performed that earlier than in locations like Iraq and Libya, he mentioned, and every time, “it all the time ends badly.”
“The notion that the U.S. army can attain in and repair that drawback with the usage of power? That is what Trump ran in opposition to,” Smith mentioned.
Rubio had solely just lately assured Congress that intervention in Venezuela wasn’t about regime change, Smith mentioned.
“And clearly it is clear that was the objective,” he mentioned.
Home Everlasting Choose Committee on Intelligence Rating Member Jim Himes, a Democrat from Connecticut, referred to as on the administration to “instantly transient Congress on its plan to make sure stability within the area and its authorized justification for this choice.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, a member of the Senate Armed Providers Committee, referred to as the operation an “unauthorized army assault” and a “sickening return to a day when the US asserted the precise to dominate the inner political affairs of all nations within the Western Hemisphere.”
“That historical past is replete with failures, and doubling down on it makes it troublesome to make the declare with a straight face that different international locations ought to respect the US’ sovereignty when we don’t do the identical,” Kaine mentioned.
He mentioned that his bipartisan decision stipulating the U.S. not enter warfare with Venezuela with out a clear Congressional authorization can be up for a vote subsequent week.
“The place will this go subsequent? Will the President deploy our troops to guard Iranian protesters? To implement the delicate ceasefire in Gaza? To battle terrorists in Nigeria? To grab Greenland or the Panama Canal? To suppress Individuals peacefully assembling to protest his insurance policies?” Kaine mentioned. “Trump has threatened to do all this and extra and sees no want to hunt authorized authorization from folks’s elected legislature earlier than placing servicemembers in danger. It’s gone time for Congress to reassert its vital constitutional function in issues of warfare, peace, diplomacy and commerce … We have entered the 250th yr of American democracy and can’t enable it to devolve into the tyranny that our founders fought to flee.”
Sen. Andy Kim, a Democrat from New Jersey, mentioned that Mr. Trump “rejected our Constitutionally required approval course of for armed battle as a result of the Administration is aware of the American folks overwhelmingly reject dangers pulling our nation into one other warfare.” Kim additionally accused Rubio and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth of mendacity to Congress once they met with leaders final month about deadly strikes on alleged drug vessels and mentioned the Trump administration’s objective was not regime change.
Former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris mentioned on social media Sunday evening that the U.S. operation in Venezuela did not “make America safer, stronger, or extra reasonably priced.”
“That Maduro is a brutal, illegitimate dictator doesn’t change the truth that this motion was each illegal and unwise,” Harris wrote. “We have seen this film earlier than. Wars for regime change or oil which are bought as energy however flip into chaos, and American households pay the worth. The American folks don’t need this, and they’re uninterested in being lied to. This isn’t about medicine or democracy. It’s about oil and Donald Trump’s need to play the regional strongman. … The President is placing troops in danger, spending billions, destabilizing a area, and providing no authorized authority, no exit plan, and no profit at house.”
New York Metropolis Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who took workplace on Thursday, issued an announcement saying “unilaterally attacking a sovereign nation is an act of warfare and a violation of federal and worldwide legislation.”
“This blatant pursuit of regime change would not simply have an effect on these overseas, it straight impacts New Yorkers, together with tens of hundreds of Venezuelans who name this metropolis house,” Mamdani mentioned. “My focus is their security and the protection of each New Yorker, and my administration will proceed to observe the state of affairs and concern related steering.”
Florida residents cheer operation
South Florida, which is house to a big inhabitants of Venezuelans, noticed celebrations early Saturday. Folks hugged, sang the U.S. and Venezuelan nationwide anthems, and waved flags outdoors the neighborhood gathering spot El Arepazo.
“President Trump has modified the course of historical past in our hemisphere. Our nation & the world are safer for it,” mentioned Florida Republican Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez. “Right now’s decisive motion is that this hemisphere’s equal to the Fall of the Berlin Wall. It is a huge day in Florida, the place the vast majority of Venezuelan, Cuban, & Nicaraguan exiles reside. That is the neighborhood I signify & we’re overwhelmed with emotion and hope.”
