WASHINGTON – On Monday evening, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, accompanied by other senior officials, provided a briefing to congressional leaders concerning the dramatic military intervention in Venezuela. This comes amid growing anxiety that President Donald Trump is initiating a fresh wave of U.S. expansionism without consulting legislators or establishing a clear strategy for managing the South American nation.
Within the confines of a private Capitol meeting, Republican leaders largely endorsed Trump’s move to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by force. However, numerous Democrats left the meeting seeking further clarity, particularly as Trump positions a naval fleet along Venezuela’s coast while encouraging American businesses to invest in the nation’s struggling oil industry.
This week, the Senate is set to vote on a war powers resolution that would restrict U.S. military engagement in Venezuela without congressional approval.
“We don’t anticipate deploying ground troops,” commented House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., following the briefing.
Johnson emphasized that Venezuela’s new administration must not participate in narcoterrorism or drug trafficking into the United States. These concerns originally prompted Trump to launch a series of deadly naval strikes, resulting in over 115 casualties.
“This isn’t about regime change; it’s about demanding a shift in behavior,” Johnson explained. “We foresee no direct involvement beyond persuading the interim government to initiate necessary reforms.”
Johnson added, “We have a way of persuasion — because their oil exports as you know have been seized, and I think that will bring the country to a new governance in very short order,” he said.
But Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, emerged saying, “There are still many more questions that need to be answered.”
“What is the cost? How much is this going to cost the United States of America?” Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said afterward.
Lawmakers were kept in the dark
The briefing, which stretched for two hours, came days after the surprise military action that few, if any, of the congressional leaders, knew about until after it was underway — a remarkable delay in informing Congress, which has ultimate say over matters of war.
Administration officials fielded a range of questions — from further involvement of U.S. troops on the ground to the role of the Venezuelan opposition leadership that appeared to have been sidelined by the Trump administration as the country’s vice president, Maduro ally Delcy Rodriguez, swiftly became the country’s interim president.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Air Force Gen. Dan Caine and Attorney General Pam Bondi, who brought drug trafficking charges against Maduro, all joined the classified session. It was intended for the called “gang of eight” leaders, which includes Intelligence committee leadership as well as the chairmen and ranking lawmakers on the national security committees.
Asked afterward if he had any more clarity about who is actually running Venezuela, Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said, “I wish I could tell you yes, but I can’t.”
Leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee — Republican chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and ranking Democrat Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois — said they should have been included in the classified briefing, arguing they have oversight of the Justice Department under Bondi.
Earlier in the day, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer warned that Trump’s action in Venezuela is only the beginning of a dangerous approach to foreign policy as the president publicly signals his interests in Colombia, Cuba and Greenland.
“The American people did not sign up for another round of endless wars,” Schumer said.
Afterward, Schumer said the briefing, “while extensive and long, posed far more questions than it answered.”
Republicans hold mixed views reflective of the deepening schism within Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement as the president, who vowed to put America first, ventures toward overseas entanglements many lawmakers in both parties want to avoid — particularly after the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
No clarity on what comes next
Next steps in the country, and calls for elections in Venezuela, are uncertain.
The Trump administration had been in talks with Rodríguez, who took the place of her ally Maduro and offered “to collaborate” with the Trump administration. Meanwhile, Trump has been dismissive of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who last month won the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in her nation. Trump has said Machado lacks the “support” or “respect” to run the country.
But Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., a staunch Trump ally, said he plans to speak soon with Machado, and called her “very popular if you look at what happened in the last election.”
“She eventually, I think, will be the president of Venezuela,” Scott said. “You know, this is going to be a process to get to a democracy. It’s not easy. There’s a lot of bad people still there, so it’s going to take time. They are going to have an election and I think she will get elected.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has been a leading critic of the Trump campaign of boat strikes against suspected drug smugglers, said there are probably a dozen leaders around the world who the U.S. could say are in violation of an international law or human rights law.
“And we have never gone in and plucked them out the country. So it sets a very bad precedent for doing this and it’s unconstitutional,” Paul told reporters. “There’s no way you can say bombing a capital and removing the president of a foreign country is not an initiation of war.”
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Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this story.
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