Republican lawmakers are divided over whether President Trump should escalate military pressure on Venezuela to oust President Nicolás Maduro, with some Republicans warning that “regime change” has a history of backfiring on the United States.
Senate Republicans largely support Trump’s aggressive targeting of Venezuelan speedboats suspected of smuggling drugs, but some warn that attacking Maduro’s regime more directly, either by striking targets on land or putting “boots on the ground,” could go too far.
“I’m certainly following the situation closely. I support what the president’s done. I think the question is how forceful we should do this,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) said. “I think we just have to be very careful when we’re dealing with regime change. It seems to backfire a lot.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said he believes the administration is pursuing regime change in Venezuela and declared, “I’m opposed to it.”
Paul argued the Trump is being arbitrary in striking Venezuelan boats suspected of drug smuggling while pardoning the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison for partnering with cocaine traffickers to smuggle drugs into the United States.
Trump pardoned Hernández earlier this month.
“They let go of a guy that was in prison for 40 years at a very high level distributing narcotics, and then they’re blowing up these other people. It’s the whole danger of what we’ve gotten away from is — at one point in time, Congress was supposed to declare war under the Constitution. We’ve gotten away from that,” Paul said.
Paul said presidents are getting around Congress’s authority to declare war by themselves declaring “war against people we designate to be terrorists.”
“Now they’re designating the government terrorists,” he said.
Tensions in the region increased over the weekend when the U.S. Coast Guard attempted to intercept an oil tanker headed toward Venezuela to pick up a shipment of crude oil.
U.S. forces have already seized two oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela amid a massive buildup of U.S. naval forces in the Caribbean Sea aimed at putting pressure on Maduro.
A Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment frankly on Trump’s aggressive pressure against Maduro said the Trump administration seems intent on ousting Maduro even though Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio told senators in a briefing last week that’s not their goal.
“I do not want to put ground troops in Venezuela. I don’t want to have another Afghanistan or Iraq,” the senator said. “I’m not in favor of U.S.-directed regime change.”
Rubio last week addressed Senate Republicans’ growing concerns that Trump may be planning a more aggressive intervention in Venezuela to oust the Maduro regime, which many Republicans say has held onto power illegitimately.
“Marco said repeatedly that regime change is not the policy of the United States; it was not the focus of the anti-narcotrafficking policy,” the senator said.
Several other senators confirmed Rubio assured lawmakers on Capitol Hill during a classified briefing that the administration is not pursuing regime change.
But those claims were undercut by comments White House chief of staff Susie Wiles made to journalist Chris Whipple in an interview for Vanity Fair indicating regime change is Trump’s goal.
“He wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle,” Wiles said, going on to suggest that if Trump wants to order land strikes, he would need Congress’s authority.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) says there’s “a lack of clarity” from the administration about its national security goals for the region.
“The briefing … helped somewhat, but there’s still a lack of clarity … aside from the drug issue of why we’re involved in this country’s leadership,” she said.
“I don’t have a clear understanding,” she said.
Trump said last month that U.S. strikes against Venezuela could begin “very soon,” a threat that prompted Paul to join a group of Senate Democrats to file a war powers resolution to block U.S. armed forces from engaging in hostilities against Venezuela without authorization from Congress.
Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine (Va.), Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) are leading co-sponsors of the measure with Paul.
Only two House Republicans — Reps. Don Bacon (Neb.) and Thomas Massie (Ky.) — voted last week in favor of a Democratic resolution to stop hostilities against any presidentially designated terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere without authorization from Congress.
Some Republican defense hawks have expressed frustration that Rubio and Hegseth haven’t stated more clearly an agenda to force Maduro from power.
“Most Americans want to know what’s going to happen next. I want to know what’s going to happen next. Is it the policy to take Maduro down? It should be, if it’s not. And if he goes, what’s going to happen next? I’d like a better answer as to what happens when Maduro goes,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an outspoken advocate for regime change, said after meeting with Hegseth and Rubio.
The prospect of expanded military operations against Venezuelan poses thorny questions for MAGA-allied conservatives who have warned against the United States becoming enmeshed in endless wars.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who considers herself aligned with the America First movement, said she’s usually skeptical of U.S. military interventions aimed at regime change but supports Trump’s pressure on Venezuela to combat drug trafficking.
“I do tend to look askance at more international engagements. But I also have a drug-addicted nephew who is in prison, and I’ve seen what these drugs are doing to America, and it’s terrifying,” she said.
“Maduro is part of that narcoterrorism. I think it’s appropriate to call it narcoterrorism, and I’m actually OK with it all,” she said, arguing that Maduro was not legitimately reelected.
Lummis added that she doesn’t know whether she “would support U.S. boots on the [ground] to accomplish” regime change, but is “very hopeful that it [regime change] will happen regardless.”
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), a staunch Trump ally, said he believes the president is focused on stopping Venezuelan drug-smuggling boats and declined to speculate on whether Maduro needs to be toppled to effectively stop the flow of drugs from his country.
“Clearly, Maduro is part of these cartel rings. But right now, the focus is to blow the boats that are killing Americans out of the water,” he said.