Congress
‘Iraq 2.0’: Democrats seethe at Trump’s surprise Venezuela strike
Democrats are furious over President Donald Trump’s overnight strike in Venezuela.
The president’s latest show of force on the world stage, which Trump says saw the U.S. military capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, quickly united rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers behind one message: They say the White House illegally bypassed Congress and has no plan for the chaotic aftermath of war.
“Congress did not authorize this war,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) wrote on X. “Venezuela posed no imminent threat to the United States. This is reckless, elective regime change risking American lives (Iraq 2.0) with no plan for the day after. Wars cost more than trophies.”
Trump announced the strike in an early morning post on Truth Social Saturday, touching off a wave of praise from ideologically aligned members of his party — and fierce criticism from Democrats.
Notably, the top Democratic congressional leaders were not among the first to react. Instead, rank-and-file lawmakers took the lead in sharing their anger over Trump’s decision to topple a foreign leader by military force without asking lawmakers for authorization first.
One of the few Democrats in a key leadership position to speak out quickly Saturday was Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. He said in a statement that the administration needed to “immediately brief Congress on its plan to ensure stability in the region and its legal justification for this decision.”
“Maduro is an illegitimate ruler,” Himes wrote. “But I have seen no evidence that his presidency poses a threat that would justify military action without Congressional authorization, nor have I heard a strategy for the day after and how we will prevent Venezuela from descending into chaos.”
Trump addressed the emerging Democratic criticism in a Fox News interview Saturday morning where he said “all they do is complain.”
“They should say, ‘Great job,'” he said. “They shouldn’t say, ‘Oh, gee, maybe it’s not constitutional.’ You know, the same old stuff that we’ve been hearing for years and years and years.”
Congress has not authorized military action against Venezuela, and lawmakers have been split for months on the legality of the Trump administration’s strikes against suspected drug smuggling vessels in the waters off Latin America and a potential move to oust Maduro. Republicans have fended off several Democratic-led efforts to require Trump to seek approval from Congress before attacking Venezuela.
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah initially questioned the legal justification for the operation. But after a phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss the operation, the Utah senator said the move “likely falls within the president’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect U.S. personnel from an actual or imminent attack.”
In addition to the murky legal justification, several Democrats said the move is an about-face for administration officials who they said argued regime change wasn’t the end goal of the administration’s aggressive military campaign in Latin America.
“Secretaries Rubio and [Pete] Hegseth looked every Senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change. I didn’t trust them then and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) said on X. “Trump rejected our Constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the Administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject risks pulling our nation into another war.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), a combat veteran who deployed to Iraq as an infantryman in 2005, wrote on X Saturday that “the American people did not ask for this.”
And he wondered aloud about what comes next for the South American country, asking on X, “so who is in charge of Venezuela now?”
A December Quinnipiac poll found that Americans overwhelmingly oppose military action against Venezuela, with just 25 percent of respondents saying they supported an intervention inside the country. Even the White House’s strategy of targeting boats with alleged drug traffickers proved broadly unpopular.
“I fought in some of the hardest battles of the Iraq War,” Gallego wrote. “Saw my brothers die, saw civilians being caught in the crossfire all for an unjustified war. No matter the outcome we are in the wrong for starting this war in Venezuela.”
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who is a co-chair of the Congressional Venezuela Democracy Caucus and represents a significant population of Venezuelan immigrants in South Florida, signaled agreement with the move to oust Maduro. She called his capture “welcome news” for Venezuela but argued Trump should have involved Congress before conducting the attack.
“The absence of congressional involvement prior to this action risks the continuation of the illegitimate Venezuelan regime,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement.
Other Democrats voiced stronger opposition to the administration’s military moves.
“Millions of Americans voted in the last Presidential election to end frivolous conflicts and unnecessary foreign wars,” said Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M), an Armed Services Committee member, in a statement. “This escalation of hostilities against Venezuela and the capture of a foreign leader without congressional authorization goes against the will of the Americans who put the president in power.”
Measures to rein in Trump on Venezuela prior to the attack narrowly failed in the House and in the Senate for lack of GOP support, but could soon resurface. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) have promised to force another vote on their measure to restrict Trump, which could occur when Congress returns next week.
President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson will meet at the White House Tuesday with the executives of top artificial intelligence companies, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss private plans.
The meeting comes as Congress is coming under increasing pressure to put federal guardrails on AI development, as fears mount that technological advancements could soon spiral beyond human control.
Responding to some warnings that AI development was on track to cause human extinction by the end of the decade, Johnson has said he wants Trump and AI CEOs to “go in a big room, close the door and sort this out.” He has yet to endorse major legislative action to address the issue, as Trump has resisted calls for government regulations, citing concerns about lagging behind China.
The president and speaker were in attendance at the State Dinner on Thursday night in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington, as were OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. It was not immediately clear which of these executives would be invited to next week’s meeting, and who will be participating.
News that the meeting had been scheduled was first reported by Axios.
A group of 10 Democrats has signed on to Rep. Greg Casar’s (D-Texas) bill that would ban superintelligence and pause advanced AI development until a vetting regime could be stood up.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), both of whom are mulling a 2028 presidential run, are cosponsoring the bill, named the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act.
Khanna, in a statement, noted that he convened a hearing this week on AI safety cooperation between the U.S. and China as ranking member of the House China Select Committee with AI experts who underscored the need for a verifiable pause on superintelligence.
AI superintelligence is an as-yet hypothetical form of the advanced technology that surpasses humans’ cognitive capabilities, but exactly when AI crosses the threshold into superintelligence remains contested. The bill would subject violators to a 20-year prison sentence.
The support from prominent progressives in the Democratic caucus comes as the party is navigating how they would approach AI regulation should they retake control of one or both chambers in November.
Other cosponsors include Reps. Analilia Mejia of New Jersey, Yassamin Ansari and Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, Val Hoyle of Oregon, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, Chuy García of Illinois, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania and Nydia Velázquez of New York.
“We absolutely have to slow down and regulate the advancement of dangerous AI technologies that have the potential to spiral out-of-control and threaten humanity,” Ansari said.
To Lynch, a string of recent AI-led cyberbreaches has “shown us that the advanced forms of this are out of control,” he said in an interview. “We haven’t really solved that control problem yet, nor have we got the alignment problem right yet.”
Casar’s bill, introduced this week with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), is among the most stringent AI regulations proposed by either party.
Rather than focusing on bans as Casar and his progressive allies have done, centrist Democrats are looking to legislative proposals they say can address the technology’s risks without stifling innovation.
Senate Republicans are discussing whether to call up a data center utility costs bill as they make plans to stay in Washington next week rather than beat an early exit before the midterms.
Two GOP aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the Senate will remain in town amid pressure from some corners of the party to send members home early to campaign.
Asked if the Senate will stay next week, Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday it’s “looking that way.”
While some lawmakers had hoped to move a long-brewing bipartisan energy permitting deal, those hopes have evaporated, and GOP leaders are instead eyeing votes on the Ratepayer Protection Act — a top priority of endangered Ohio Sen. Jon Husted.
Thune said Thursday moving to the data-center-focused bill next week “is an option.” The Senate is also expected to take up a Democratic resolution condemning the Iran war and several presidential nominations.
The Ratepayer Protection Act easily passed the House earlier this month, but some Senate Democrats are arguing it does not go far enough and party leaders could be motivated to deny Husted a pre-election win.
Josh Siegel contributed to this report.
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