Republican Senator Rand Paul has openly criticized the Trump administration for its aggressive military actions against Venezuelan ships, likening these actions to executions carried out by China and Iran. “I would call them extrajudicial killings, similar to what China and Iran do with drug dealers—they execute people without presenting evidence to the public, and that is wrong,” Paul expressed during an interview with Fox News. Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego from Arizona shared similar concerns, labeling the actions as “sanctioned murder.”
This wave of criticism comes as the Trump administration considers new operations aimed at disrupting cocaine production and trafficking routes within Venezuela, according to a CNN report. These developments occur amidst heightened tensions between the U.S. and Nicolas Maduro’s regime. Venezuela has strongly denounced what it describes as “military provocations from Trinidad and Tobago, coordinated with the CIA, intended to instigate a war in the Caribbean.”
Additionally, the Venezuelan government announced the capture of “a group of mercenaries” reportedly linked to the CIA, following President Trump’s approval of covert CIA operations against Venezuela. Maduro’s administration claims these mercenaries were plotting a “false flag attack” to spark a larger conflict, though specific details about the alleged plot remain undisclosed.
Since September, US forces have blown up ten boats and killed 43 people. A source close to Defense Secretary Hegseth says the strikes will continue until cartels ‘stop in their tracks.’ The deployment of the USS Gerald R Ford—the world’s largest aircraft carrier—joined the biggest US Caribbean force since the Cold War on Friday. Over the weekend, the USS Gravely docked in Trinidad and Tobago, just seven miles from Venezuela, for joint military training through Thursday.
Maduro has accused the US of ‘inventing a war,’ while his government condemned the drills as a ‘serious threat’ and ‘hostile act .’ Republican Senator Lindsey Graham voiced support for expanding operations ‘from the sea onto the land’ during a Face the Nation appearance. But Paul has been the lone Republican to highlight the lack of congressional authorization for this military campaign. ‘The Constitution says that when you go to war, Congress has to vote on it. The drug war is typically something we do through law enforcement,’ he told Fox News.
Paul said lawmakers have received ‘no information’—no names, no details on whether targets were armed. ‘A briefing is not enough to overcome the Constitution,’ he added. A legal source close to Hegseth compared the military authorization to ‘right to self-defense’ under the UN charter: ‘When you look at a boat filled with fentanyl, you have to look at it legally as if it were Al-Qaeda terrorists on a boat full of explosives.’ But Paul has made the point that the US government has provided no evidence that the targets were drug dealers.
‘No one said their name. No one said whether they are armed and we’ve had no evidence presented,’ he noted. The White House declared the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang ‘narco-terrorists’ and said Trump will use ‘every aspect of American power’ to stop drug trafficking . ‘Maduro is not a legitimate president. He is a fugitive head of a narco-terror cartel,’ a spokesperson told Daily Mail. Daily Mail reached out to the CIA for comment.
