Congressional Republicans have largely expressed public support for the Trump administration’s strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea that the Defense Department claims are carrying narcotics to the United States, even as the tactic has come under withering criticism from Democrats.
But President Donald Trump’s declaration last week that the U.S. could soon bomb Venezuelan territory has put lawmakers from the president’s party on edge and amplified concerns that Trump is preparing to use military force to oust Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.
Trump, in an interview with Politico that published Tuesday morning, said Maduro’s “days are numbered” as Venezuela’s leader and declined to rule out deploying U.S. troops on the ground there.
Republican lawmakers, including some from across the party’s ideological spectrum, voiced wariness about such prospects during interviews in recent days.
“There’s a difference between striking boats that are potentially … [carrying] traffickers and landing troops in Venezuela,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri). He said he would be “very skeptical” of the need to send troops to Venezuela, echoing similar skepticism by other conservative lawmakers.
Several Republican senators and House members interviewed declined to comment on the hypothetical of regime change, but they argued that the strikes, so far, fall within Trump’s powers as commander in chief.
“Right now, he is well within his Article II authority to take out narco-terrorist boats. They are poisoning thousand Americans every single year,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) said, articulating an argument the administration and other Republicans have made about the alleged drug trafficking.
On Tuesday, top Trump administration officials are due to brief the “Gang of Eight,” a group of lawmakers that includes House and Senate leadership from both parties, plus the top Republicans and Democrats on each chamber’s intelligence committee.
In that briefing, the focus of which was not immediately clear, lawmakers are expected to hear from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John L. Ratcliffe, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine. The planned engagement was confirmed by three people familiar with matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the briefing has been announced publicly.
In recent weeks, the U.S. military has ramped up its presence off the coast of Venezuela, and Trump has approved the CIA to conduct covert operations in the South American nation.
Some senators stressed that if Trump were to escalate actions against Venezuela — including sending troops into the mainland — the administration would have to brief Congress and deliver a substantive rationale.
More broadly, members of Congress have grown irritated with the lack of notification from the administration on movements abroad.
Hegseth and Rubio briefed a small group of lawmakers last month, weeks after the Pentagon began the boat strikes, and reassured lawmakers that the administration would not strike Venezuela territory because they did not have a proper legal argument to do so. If that has changed, Republicans want to know about it.
“I would need to see a briefing on it. And I haven’t had a briefing at all,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) said while attending the yearly Ronald Reagan National Defense Forum in California this weekend.
Concerns among GOP lawmakers have mounted as Trump has repeatedly said the U.S. would soon begin attacking Venezuela “on land,” signaling that such strikes would be targeted to locations where the Latin American country is believed to be manufacturing drugs
Trump’s public musings prompted a bipartisan group of Senate and House lawmakers to introduce resolutions last week that would force a vote in the coming weeks to block Trump from striking Venezuela. But it is unclear whether enough Republicans in each chamber would support that move for it to pass.
Loyalists to the MAGA base are closely watching Trump’s posture toward Venezuela after he campaign on an “America First” promise to keep the U.S. out of foreign wars.
“Fix health insurance. Not regime change in Venezuela,” wrote Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) on social media. The congresswoman has sharply criticizedTrump, claiming he has strayed from his MAGA principles.
The U.S. government does not recognize Maduro, a staunch ally of Cuba’s communist regime, as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. He began a third term as president in January after an election that was widely considered fraudulent. Some Republicans caution that using the military to spur regime change in Venezuela could open the door to other interventions.
“There are dozens and dozens of autocratic regimes around the world. Are we just going to go blow all of them up and take over?” asked Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky). “That was what people liked about Donald Trump, was that he wasn’t for these offensive wars of choice. He wasn’t for regime change.”
Others in the MAGA ranks have been more sympathetic to the strikes, arguing that preventing drugs from entering the country is defending U.S. interests.
Some war hawks, who were once characterized as keen on interventionism, are more reticent as they weigh the risks of going to war with a country over narco-trafficking, an issue prevalent in many other Latin American countries.
Venezuela, however, is not one of the main suppliers of illicit drugs to the United States. Most fentanyl in the United States comes from Mexico, and most cocaine from Colombia. Very little of Venezuela’s drug production flows into U.S. borders, current and former U.S. officials say.
Democratic criticism over the administration’s tactics mushroomed after a U.S. second strike on survivors of an attack on a boat that was allegedly smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea.
Military law experts have questioned whether a war crime was committed.
The incident, first reported by The Washington Post, was the catalyst for the House and Senate Armed Services committees to launch investigationson the matter, a significant move as Republicans on Capitol Hill have avoided pushing back against the administration.
Although some supporters of the strikes have said they don’t see the need for further investigation, several senators said that they are necessary to show the world “that we take these matters seriously,” as Sen. Todd Young (R-Indiana) put it.
“Folks, we set the standard for ethical behavior. When we lower the bar, the rest of the world does too,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina).
So far, GOP leaders on Capitol Hill have publicly remained publicly supportive of Trump’s strategy.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said last week that “the president is acting under his authority as commander in chief,” declaring that “a war has been waged by these drug cartels against the United States.”
On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) also defended the decisions made in the Sept. 2 boat strike, arguing that a second strike isn’t unprecedented. He said President Barack Obama similarly struck foreign countries without scrutiny.
The Senate rejected a resolution last month that would have blocked Trump from attacking Venezuela, with all but two GOP senators, Paul and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), voting against the bill. But several Republican senators said at the time that it was too early to consider such a measure.
Since then, Trump has held calls with Maduro but declared Venezuela’s airspace closed except for flights returning deported migrantsto the region. Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric last week, saying that he would bomb Venezuela territory “if we think they’re building mills for whether it’s fentanyl or cocaine.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York), Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), Adam Schiff (D-California) and Paul reintroduced the war powers resolution last week, citing Trump’s pledge to strike Venezuela “very soon.”
A similar bipartisan resolution was introduced in the House last week by two Democrats and a Republican. Lawmakers intend to force a vote on both resolutions in their respective chambers as early as this month.
“Until such time as we actually see an intent to [invade], we’ll wait and see,” said Rounds, who would not commit to voting for the War Powers Resolution this week.
Some Republicans are open to regime change in Venezuela, including Reps. Carlos A. Gimenez, Mario Diaz-Balart and María Elvira Salazar, who represent South Florida districts. The Miami area has housed Venezuelan asylum seekers who fear political persecution from Maduro and are against Cuba’s regime.
“I’m pretty hawkish on this because, for me, it’s crystal clear the death and destruction those cartels have brought upon the American people,” Gimenez said. “It’s a terrorist organization. They are involved. They’ve been actively involved in, to me, warfare against the American people. And if that’s what it takes to protect the American people, then I would support [escalation].”
Liz Goodwin, Matthew Choi, Tara Copp, Noah Robertson and Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.
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