Washington, Idaho Republicans, Democrats share mixed reactions to Venezuelan strikes, capture

An overnight U.S. military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife drew harsh criticism from Democrats questioning the justification and lack of notification of military action while Republicans applauded the move, referring to Maduro as a “narcoterrorist” responsible for flooding the United States with drugs.

President Donald Trump said Saturday the U.S. will “run” Venezuela for an undetermined amount of time, according to the Washington Post.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement Saturday that Maduro and his wife were facing federal charges in the Southern District of New York, where Maduro was indicted in March 2020 on narco-terrorism charges, the Washington Post reported. Trump has accused Maduro of leading a narco-trafficking gang that is flooding the country with drugs, which Maduro denies.

Trump said no U.S. lives and equipment were lost in the operation and the Venezuelan military was “rendered powerless” by U.S. forces after explosions shook key military facilities in Caracas, according to the newspaper.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, called the military action “a decisive and justified operation that will protect American lives.”

“Nicolas Maduro is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans after years of trafficking illegal drugs and violent cartel members into our country – crimes for which he’s been properly indicted in U.S. courts and an arrest warrant duly issued – and today he learned what accountability looks like,” Johnson wrote in a statement.

“President Trump is putting American lives first, succeeding where others have failed, and under his leadership the United States will no longer allow criminal regimes to profit from wreaking havoc and destruction on our country,” Johnson continued.

The capture of Maduro to face drug crime charges in the United States follows Trump’s pardon late last year of the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was in federal prison after he was sentenced in the United States to 45 years in prison for drug and weapons crimes. The U.S. Department of Justice accused him of helping to send 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.

Asked at a news conference on Saturday why he pardoned Hernandez while capturing Maduro, Trump said Hernandez was persecuted.

“He was treated like the Biden administration treated a man named Trump,” Trump said. “That didn’t work out too well for them.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson and Russ Fulcher, Idaho Republicans, called Maduro a “narcoterrorist” responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

“Our country is now safer thanks to President Trump’s decisive action in carrying out a successful military operation,” Simpson wrote on X. “The Maduro regime bears responsibility for flooding American communities with deadly drugs and dangerous cartel members, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of American citizens. God bless our brave military members who led this heroic operation.”

Fulcher said on X that Maduro “has clung to power through sham elections not recognized by much of the civilized world.”

“At his direction, illicit drugs and violent cartel members have poured into our country, devastating communities and families,” Fulcher wrote. “I commend President Trump’s bold leadership to protect American lives and our military for their bravery, precision, and professionalism. At this time, I pray for the Venezuelan people hungry for freedom.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, called the military operation “illegal.” She worried it could lead to a war in Venezuela and open the door for countries like China or Russia to use military force to overthrow a foreign leader.

“The American people didn’t ask to start a war with Venezuela,” she wrote in a statement. “They didn’t ask for an indefinite and costly occupation of another country and they didn’t ask for ‘boots on the ground,’ their sons and daughters put in harm’s way. All they asked for were lower prices at the grocery store. Only Congress can authorize war and I absolutely will not support a large-scale military conflict in Venezuela or a dangerous and expensive occupation. What the President has done is unconstitutional, reckless, and will have far-reaching effects well beyond last night’s strikes.”

Murray encouraged Republicans to join Democrats in pressing for accountability and insist that military force should be authorized by Congress.

“The President has provided no legitimate justification for these unauthorized strikes nor any kind of long-term strategy for how he will deal with the fallout of this slapdash regime change – and he must now explain his unhinged statements that we will ‘run’ Venezuela,” she said. “And we should all be eyes wide open about the potential for self-enrichment and corruption by the Trump administration when it comes to profiting off Venezuela’s oil. This is not about law and order, because if it were, Trump wouldn’t have withheld these plans from Congress, and it is not about actually helping Americans suffering from drug addiction.”

She called Maduro a “corrupt and oppressive dictator.”

“But what stops China or Russia from making similar claims about foreign leaders they don’t like and then using military force to overthrow them?” she asked. “This kind of careless use of military force threatens serious global instability – and none of that is good for Americans here at home.”

U.S. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, also condemned the Trump administration for not getting congressional authority for military force and for not notifying Congress ahead of the operation.

“The promotion of security and stability in a region requires more than just military force as we painfully discovered in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Jeffries wrote in a statement.

He also wanted more answers about potential future military actions in Venezuela, American troop presence in the foreign country and precisely what running the South American country means.

“Nicolas Maduro is a criminal and authoritarian dictator who has oppressed the people of Venezuela for years,” Jeffries wrote. “He is not the legitimate head of government. Undoubtedly, the rule of law and democracy have broken down in Venezuela and the people of that country deserve better. Donald Trump has the constitutional responsibility to follow the law and protect democratic norms in the United States. That is what putting America First requires.”

Speaker Johnson said the Trump Administration is working to schedule briefings as Congress returns to Washington D.C. this week.

Cornell Clayton, a professor of political science at Washington State University, said the military strikes and capture of Maduro violates international and U.S. constitutional law. Clayton said the U.S. president can rely on his powers to use the military to defend the U.S. against an imminent threat or attack, but he doesn’t believe there was one in this case.

“There’s no basis for arguing that the president was using his powers to defend the United States against some kind of imminent threat,” Clayton said.

Clayton said the Trump administration’s argument that Maduro is a narcoterrorist is problematic.

“That argument that because another country is producing drugs that sometimes winds up in the United States and Americans buy it, that’s not a reasonable argument that the president has Article 2 powers to defend the United States against that kind of a threat,” Clayton said. “It’s not an imminent threat.”

Congress also has not declared war on Venezuela, which prevents the U.S. from invading the sovereign nation.

Clayton said the U.S. Supreme Court has said a president can direct the FBI to arrest someone on a warrant outside the U.S., but Trump inserted American military forces into Venezuela. A further complication is whether Maduro was the leader of Venezuela.

Clayton said the Trump administration will argue he’s an illegitimate leader after strong evidence suggests he lost the 2018 election but never stepped aside. Still, he has been engaging in official acts as president of Venezuela despite evidence that the 2024 also was unfair.

International law states government officials who are engaged in official acts are immune from prosecution, Clayton said.

Clayton said Maduro will raise these legal questions if and when there’s a trial.

“The only authority that can really rein in a president from doing this is Congress, and I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” he said.

Many Venezuelans celebrated the capture of Maduro and some have endured pressure in the U.S. as a result of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Ben Stuckart, former Spokane City Council President, was the legal guardian for Cesar Alexander Alvarez Perez, a 21-year-old who came to the U.S. after escaping persecution in Venezuela. Perez and Joswar Slater Rodriguez Torres, who met Perez in Colombia in the middle of his trek to seek asylum in the U.S., came into the U.S. legally through a government-regulated humanitarian program. But the Trump administration didn’t extend the program. They had escaped persecution in Venezuela and tried to come into the U.S. legally for five months until they were granted entry by the government, according to previous reporting from The Spokesman-Review.

Stuckart sparked the large anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest in June outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office north of Riverfront Park in downtown Spokane by trying to block federal agents from taking Perez and Torres.

Stuckart and eight other protesters were charged in federal court. Five of them, including Stuckart, have since pleaded guilty to the felony charge of conspiring to impede or injure officers with the agreement that if they abide by their release conditions for 18 months, they can withdraw the felony plea in favor of a less serious misdemeanor charge.

Perez and Torres were eventually taken to a detention center in Tacoma for immigration hearings.

Perez chose to self-deport and Torres is still at the Tacoma center, Stuckart said Saturday. He said he hasn’t talked to Torres in a week.

Stuckart said Perez’s family is in Venezuela, but not Caracas where the U.S. military strikes occurred. Perez is with his brother in another country, but Stuckart declined to say which one.

Perez messaged Stuckart Saturday saying he and his family are fine, but they are very worried.

“They’re not fans of Maduro, but they’ve also seen how the U.S. government acts,” Stuckart said.

Stuckart said he’s worried for the Venezuelan people and the potential chaos and destabilization that can ensue there.

He called the capture of Maduro “kidnapping” and a “coup.” He said the United States’ “imperialistic past” has never ended well for the people in those countries.

He also believed the Trump administration’s actions violated international law and sets a bad precedent that could encourage other countries to invade each other for false reasons.

Stuckart said he also doesn’t think it’s far fetched for Trump to send military forces to colonize Greenland, which Trump threatened nearly a year ago at his inaugural address.

“There’s a risk of bounce back,” Stuckart said. “It diminishes the United States’ position in the world.”

Jacob Lewis, associate professor of global politics at WSU, said the overnight operation may cause other countries to question the United States’ credibility when it comes to obeying international law, which it was instrumental in creating following World War II.

Similar to Stuckart, Lewis said it also does not make it easier for the U.S. to stop other world powers from seeking expansion, like Russia into Ukraine, if the U.S. decides to expand into Greenland or claim Canada as the “51st state,” as Trump posed in his inaugural address last January.

Maduro’s unpopularity among Venezuelans does work in the United States’ favor, Lewis said. But, the U.S.’s history of forcing regime changes almost never go well, with Lewis using Iraq, Afghanistan and other Latin American countries as examples.