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Policy / January 3, 2026
Senators and House members accuse Trump and his aides of disregarding the Constitution and lying to Congress.
President Donald Trump, alongside Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, speaks to the press following U.S. military actions in Venezuela, at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, January 3, 2026.
(Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images) President Donald Trump announcement on Truth Social Saturday at 3:21 p.m. am”The United States of America successfully carried out a large-scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who, along with his wife, was captured and expelled from the country. This operation was carried out in collaboration with American law enforcement. Details will follow.”
Hours later, at a congratulatory news conference, Trump said that during a period of transition in Venezuela, “we’re going to run the country right.” But he gave few details about how the process would unfold, saying only: “We are not afraid of the troops on the ground.” Trump focused more on the possibility of prosecuting Maduro and his wife in a New York courtroom.
United States Attorney General Pam Bondi had already taken to social media on Saturday morning with a message : “Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been indicted in the Southern District of New York. Nicolas Maduro has been charged with narcoterrorist conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States. They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”
But during a brief pre-dawn call with a New York Times journalist, Trump refused to discuss whether he “had requested congressional authorization for the operation or what’s next for Venezuela.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio later acknowledged that there had been no consultations prior to the attack.
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As it became clear that the leaders of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees had not been consulted on the regime change attack and confusion grew about what would happen next in Venezuela, key members of Congress, who constitutionally defined authority declaring wars and overseeing major military actions – reacted angrily to what had happened in the name of the United States but without the consent of the legislature.
“A U.S. invasion of Venezuela to remove its president and arrest him is illegal,” Tim Kaine, a Democratic senator from Virginia, told NPR Saturday morning. Kaine promised to seek a vote in the Senate next week to declare that Trump should not wage this “unilateral war declared by the president against Venezuela” without congressional authorization.
Kaine, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released a statement arguing that “President Trump’s unauthorized military attack on Venezuela to stop Maduro – as terrible as it was – is a return to a time when the United States asserted its right to dominate the internal affairs of all nations in the Western Hemisphere. History is full of failures, and doubling down on our efforts makes it difficult to assert directly to other countries that they should respect U.S. sovereignty when we do not do the same.”
President Donald Trump posted that this was an image of Nicolas Maduro blindfolded on the USS Iwo Jima.(Donald Trump) “Where will this go next?” » asked Kaine. “Will the president deploy our troops to protect Iranian protesters? To enforce the fragile ceasefire in Gaza? To fight terrorists in Nigeria? To seize Greenland or the Panama Canal? To suppress peaceful gatherings by Americans to protest his policies? Trump has threatened to do all of this and more and sees no need to seek legal authorization from the people’s elected legislature before putting the military in harm’s way.”
Rep. Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat who has been one of the most consistent critics of undeclared wars in the House, warned that Trump had ignored the Constitution. “President Trump was repeatedly told that he must consult with Congress and obtain its authorization to go to war, in accordance with U.S. law. Even though we are only seeing the first public accounts of what happened, it is clear that he acted without doing so,” Bag said. “Trump’s failure to inform Democratic leaders, let alone members of the rank and file, continues the degradation of the rule of law.”
Rep. James Walkinshaw, a Virginia Democrat who serves on the House Oversight and Governmental Affairs Committee’s Military and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, said”Trump’s war of regime change in Venezuela is downright illegal and another betrayal of the commitments he made to the American people. He said he would lower prices. He is raising prices. He said there are no ‘new stupid wars.’ He is starting new stupid wars.
Republican Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) took to social media first and wrote“I look forward to knowing what, if anything, could constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force.”
Later, after receiving a call from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Lee made weak excuses on the side of the administration, affirming that the aggression was “probable” justified by the fear of an “actual or imminent attack”. But Washington Post National security analyst Josh Rogan wrote: “The United States just kidnapped a foreign head of state and bombed a foreign capital under the pretext of protecting American personnel from an ‘actual or threatened attack,’ according to Senator Lee. Make no mistake, President Trump just committed an act of war against Venezuela.”
The New York Times took a similar view in an editorial title “Trump’s attack on Venezuela is illegal and reckless.”
And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) claims rejected by the president and the attorney general on the reasons for the regime change. “It’s not about drugs. If it were, Trump wouldn’t have pardoned one of the world’s biggest drug traffickers. [former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández] last month. It’s about oil and regime change. And they need a lawsuit now to claim that’s not the case. Mainly to distract from Epstein and the skyrocketing costs of health care.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) also expressed skepticism. “If this action was constitutionally justified”, Massie written the“The attorney general would not tweet that he arrested the president of a sovereign country and his wife for gun possession, in violation of a 1934 U.S. gun law.”
Maduro, according to election observersalmost certainly lost the 2024 presidential election and then refused to step down. However, he had recently reported an opening to a meeting with Trump to discuss U.S. allegations regarding drug trafficking and other issues. Trump has now executed a secret plan to remove the Venezuelan leader, even after his aides denied plans for regime change.
Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat who served as national security adviser under President Barack Obama, accused Trump’s Secretaries of State and the Defense of Lying to Congress About the Administration’s Intentions. “Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth looked every senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this is not regime change,” Kim said in a statement amid early reports of U.S. airstrikes on Caracas. “I didn’t trust them then and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress. Trump rejected our constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject the risks of dragging our nation into another war.”
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Kim explained: “This strike does not represent force. It is not a sound foreign policy. It puts Americans in danger in Venezuela and across the region, and it sends a horrific and worrying signal to other powerful leaders around the world that targeting a head of state is acceptable policy for the U.S. government. It will further damage our reputation – already damaged by Trump’s policies around the world – and will only isolate us at a time when we need our friends and allies more than ever.”
Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said”We have no vital national interest in Venezuela to justify war. We should have learned not to embark on another stupid adventure now.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat who served in the U.S. Marines from 2002 to 2006 and was deployed in the Iraq War, said bluntly, “This war is illegal.” “There is no justification for the United States to be at war with Venezuela. I have experienced the consequences of an illegal war sold to the American people through lies,” Gallego explained.. “We swore we would never repeat those mistakes. And yet here we are again. The American people did not ask for this, Congress did not authorize it, and our military should not be sent into harm’s way in another unnecessary conflict.”
John Nichols John Nichols is the editor-in-chief of The nation. He was previously the magazine’s national affairs correspondent and Washington correspondent. Nichols has written, co-authored or edited more than a dozen books on topics ranging from the history of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyzes of American and global media systems. His latest, co-written with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Times bestseller It’s okay to be angry at capitalism.
