Southwest congressional members discuss Venezuela

By Chris Woodward
The Center Square

Southwestern members of Congress reacted along party lines after the U.S. military captured Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

U.S. Rep. Abe Hamadeh, R-Arizona, supports the Trump administration’s actions on Saturday, which included a military strike on the capital city of Caracas and the arrest of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. The couple was flown out of Venezuela and taken to New York City, where they pleaded not guilty Monday in a federal court to drug and weapons charges.

“As an America First Republican, I believe our foremost responsibility is to protect the safety, sovereignty and future of the American people,” Hamadeh told The Center Square. “That means confronting threats decisively, not appeasing them or allowing chaos to spill across our borders.”

Hamadeh, a former U.S. Army Reserve captain and intelligence officer, said Maduro is “not a legitimate leader.”

The congressman called Maduro “the brutal head of a criminal drug cartel masquerading as a government,” one that has “oppressed its own people and fueled the flow of deadly narcotics” into the United States.

“President Trump’s decisive action sends a clear message that the United States will defend its backyard and will not tolerate narco-dictators who destabilize our hemisphere,” Hamadeh told The Center Square. “This is peace through strength in action, confronting danger at its source before it reaches American communities. Strong leadership like this restores order, protects lives and reasserts American resolve on the world stage.”

After months of airstrikes on alleged drug boats from Venezuela, the United States carried out a “large scale strike against Venezuela” in the overnight hours Saturday, capturing Maduro and his wife. President Donald Trump made the announcement in a post on Truth Social and noted the operation was “done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement.”

U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona, does not agree with Trump’s actions.

“The President of the United States just overthrew a foreign ruler and explained to the American people that this is about taking control of the oil reserves of a foreign nation,” Kelly said in a statement Saturday. “He said that the U.S. will ‘run the country’ until a proper transition can take place and went right into how U.S. oil companies will benefit from this takeover.”

Kelly, a retired Navy combat pilot who made headlines last fall for urging military service members to disobey “illegal orders,” went on to say that Trump “does not understand the risks and costs involved with these poorly thought-out decisions” that do not make Americans any safer.

“Nicolás Maduro is a brutal, illegitimate dictator who deserves to face justice,” said Kelly, a former astronaut. “I want the people of Venezuela to be free to choose their own future, but if we learned anything from the Iraq war, it’s that dropping bombs or toppling a leader does not guarantee democracy, stability or make Americans safer.”

According to Kelly, such actions more often leads to chaos or drags the U.S. into a war and lengthy occupation for which the senator does not think the Trump administration has a plan, timeline or price tag.

Kelly is not alone in his criticism. U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, and Jacky Rosen, D-Nevada, issued similar statements.

In a post on X, Bennet agreed that Maduro “is an illegitimate, brutal leader who lost, then stole the 2024 elections” in Venezuela.

“Nevertheless, as a member of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, I have seen no evidence justifying the administration acting alone without Congressional authorization,” said Bennet. “I certainly have seen no justification for putting U.S. troops on the ground to ‘run the country’ or rebuild and exploit Venezuela’s oil infrastructure for our own economic purposes.”

Rosen agreed with Bennet’s description of Maduro and added, “The Trump administration needs to be held accountable and explain why it lied to us when it claimed in its briefings that regime change was not the U.S. goal” in Venezuela.

“Congress must also pass Senator Kaine’s bipartisan War Powers Resolution next week to prohibit Donald Trump from carrying out additional strikes without our input,” said Rosen in a press release.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, introduced the War Powers Resolution in early December to block the use of U.S. military service members to engage in hostilities within or against Venezuela unless authorized by Congress. At the time, Trump was saying that land strikes in Venezuela were imminent.

“We should not be risking the lives of our nation’s service members to engage in military action within Venezuela without a robust debate in Congress,” said Kaine in a Dec. 3 statement. “This is why the Framers gave the power to declare war to Congress, not the President.”

Co-sponsors of the War Powers Resolution on Venezuela include Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-New York; U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-California.

Schiff on Saturday commented about the U.S. strike in Venezuela.

“Nicolás Maduro was a thug and an illegitimate leader of Venezuela, terrorizing and oppressing its people for far too long and forcing many to leave the country,” Schiff said in a statement.

“But starting a war to remove Maduro doesn’t just continue Donald Trump’s trampling of the Constitution, it further erodes America’s standing on the world stage and risks our adversaries mirroring this brazen illegal escalation,” he said.

“Acting without Congressional approval or the buy-in of the public, Trump risks plunging a hemisphere into chaos and has broken his promise to end wars instead of starting them,” Schiff said.

But U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-California, thinks Trump did America and the world a favor.

“The United States, Venezuela, and the entire Western Hemisphere and international order are immeasurably better off with Nicolás Maduro removed from power,” Kiley posted Saturday on X. “Today marks the end of Maduro’s illegitimate rule and narco terrorist reign, and the beginning of a legal process for bringing him to justice.”

Kiley also said Maduro’s capture gives the people of Venezuela a chance at a new beginning with democracy, freedom and prosperity instead of dictatorship, socialism and poverty.

“The role of the United States in helping usher in that future must integrally involve Congress moving forward,” said Kiley. “Thank you to our incredible service members who carried out this operation with unmatched skill and courage.”