‘They lied to our face’: Democrats decry Trump’s military raid on Venezuela

Democratic leaders responded with fury on Sunday to Donald Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela, slamming it as an illegal act carried out in the absence of required congressional approval that would lead to disaster for the American people.

Top Democrats took to the Sunday TV political talk shows to express their dismay at the lack of any prior notification of lawmakers about the audacious military raid 24 hours earlier.

They portrayed the action to unseat the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, as unlawful under the US constitution and ill-advised in terms of the US standing in the world, where numerous authorities, including the secretary general of the United Nations, have accused the US of breaching the UN’s founding charter.

“They literally lied to our face,” said Chris Murphy, a US senator from Connecticut, on Sunday, referring to a briefing on Venezuela that the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, gave to his chamber last month. “The message they sent was that this wasn’t about regime change … They said this is just a counter-narcotics operation.”

In an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Murphy called the action in Venezuela in the early hours of Saturday “wildly illegal”, adding: “There is no way to trust this administration.”

Under the US constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war. The 1973 War Powers Resolution requires presidents to seek approval from Congress for military engagements.

Yet in the case of Saturday’s dawn bombardment on Venezuela and military landing to snatch Maduro, not even the “gang of eight”, the top congressional leaders of both main parties who are traditionally consulted on national security issues, were notified about the operation.

“Still haven’t got a phone call,” said Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee. He told CNN: “I’m a member of the gang of eight, and I have yet to get a phone call from anyone from the administration.”

Amid widespread condemnation of Maduro’s dictatorship and defiance of international laws, Democrats nevertheless decried the Trump administration’s unilateral intervention in the South American country.

Himes lambasted the military operation, which he dubbed an “imperial adventure”, as “another example of absolute lawlessness on the part of this administration”. He accused Trump of “paving the way for disaster” and “not giving a hoot about the US congress”.

Trump and his inner circle have attempted to justify the bypassing of Congress in the snatching of Maduro by portraying it as a law enforcement and counter-narcotics operation rather than a military strike. Top Democrats said that was dissembling.

Hakeem Jeffries, who leads the Democrats in the House of Representatives, told NBC News’s Meet the Press that the Venezuela action “was an act of war. This was a military action involving Delta Force, involving the army, apparently involving thousands of troops, involving at least 150 military aircraft.” Rubio has denied it was war.

Trump’s ostracisation of Congress dramatically raises the stakes in next week’s vote in the US Senate on a bipartisan war powers resolution. It seeks to block the administration from launching any further military hostilities against Venezuela without express approval of congress.

The debate is privileged, meaning it cannot be halted by the Republican leadership, and needs only a simple majority to pass. It has the backing of Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky who has been a thorn in the president’s side over foreign policy.

Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, is another sponsor of the war powers resolution. He told This Week on ABC News that if the measure gains a majority vote in both chambers, “then the president can’t do another thing in Venezuela without the okay of Congress”.

Schumer painted Saturday’s action, and Trump’s claim that Venezuela would be run by the US for now, in apocalyptic terms. “We have learned through the years, when America tries to do regime change and nation building in this way, the American people pay the price in both blood and in dollars.”

He said it amounted to the exact opposite of what Trump had promised in the course of the 2024 presidential election campaign. “The very thing that Donald Trump campaigned against over and over and over again was no more endless wars, and right now we’re headed right into one with no barriers, with no discussion.”

In his CNN interview, Murphy picked up on Trump’s remarks on Saturday that the US would temporarily seize control of Venezuela’s oil. He said it pointed to the real motive behind ousting Maduro – the further enrichment of Trump and friends.

“Venezuela is all about making money for his friends. Wall Street, the oil industry, they can make a lot of money off of Venezuela if they run it,” he said.

“Once again, you’re seeing that this president’s foreign policy, the invasion of Venezuela, the ouster of Maduro, is about making his crowd filthy rich. It has nothing to do with American national security.”