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.

Obamacare subsidies used by more than 20 million expired Thursday. Now Democrats are ready to make them a centerpiece of their midterm campaigns.

The lapse of enhanced premium tax credits, first passed as a pandemic-era relief measure under President Joe Biden in 2021, will immediately hit the pocketbooks of voters — some of whom will see their monthly insurance premiums rise by hundreds of dollars.

Efforts to extend them in some fashion continue on Capitol Hill, but Democratic lawmakers and strategists are already moving to turn the expiration of the subsidies into a potent election-year attack on congressional Republicans. They note that unlike other Democratic messaging targets — such as recent GOP Medicaid cuts that won’t kick in until after midterm ballots are cast — the lost tax credits are already tangible proof of what’s at stake on Election Day.

“The public now gets that the subsidies are what’s keeping health care costs down,” said Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.). “I think the public’s angry. So I think they will blame the party in charge.”

The strategy has been months in the making. Mindful of how the GOP’s efforts to rein in Obamacare powered their massive gains in the 2018 midterms, top party leaders decided in September to make health care the focus of the government funding fight.

That posture led to a record 43-day shutdown, and while some Senate Democrats ultimately agreed to reopen the government without securing an extension of the tax credits, many in the party are increasingly confident they succeeded in putting the issue into focus ahead of the election year.

They also believe it will play into a broader messaging push around affordability — attacking President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans for their failure to address rising costs, of which insurance premiums are just one conspicuous challenge facing Republicans.

“It’s part of the top issue, which is cost of living — whether it’s groceries, gas, housing, energy costs,” said Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.). “Health care seems to be top of mind as something that Congress can actually do to bring down the costs.”

A KFF poll released in December found that large majorities of enrollees in Obamacare marketplace plans want the subsidies to continue, regardless of party. About three-quarters of that group said they would blame Trump or Republicans in Congress if the subsidies were to lapse.

Republicans have encountered difficulties forming a coherent counterattack. Trump has questioned whether affordability is even a problem, calling the focus on living costs a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats and the media. He has instead focused on robust economic growth as a measure of his administration’s success.

On Capitol Hill, top GOP leaders have criticized the expiring subsidies as wasteful — subsidizing some high-income households and susceptible to fraud — but they have not coalesced around a plan to offer relief to the millions of Americans who buy insurance on Obamacare marketplaces. A package of health care measures passed by the House last month on a party-line vote included some conservative proposals to deregulate insurance markets, but they would have little immediate effect before the midterms.

Instead, Republicans are preparing to run on last year’s megabill, which included tax cuts and other provisions that will start kicking in this year. This, they believe, will help them hold onto their congressional majorities.

“House Republicans delivered historic tax relief for working families and are building on it in the new year,” said NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella. “Democrats spent the year blocking commonsense solutions [for the subsidies] and are now having a temper tantrum over a policy cliff of their own making. Their inability to find a consistent message that sticks proves how out of touch they are with the American people.”

Democrats’ party campaign arm is already geared up to push a health-care focused message for the next 10 months. Its leaders have laid out why they believe it’s a key issue heading into the midterms and have already run ads and rented billboards highlighting the GOP’s opposition to continuing the subsidies.

“Make no mistake, the blame behind the skyrocketing health care costs millions are facing today is squarely at the feet of House Republicans, and the American people know it,” DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) said in a statement. “Instead of putting forth a serious proposal to address spiking health care costs, House Republicans chose to focus on delivering massive tax breaks for the wealthiest few — never even allowing a floor vote to save the tax credits before their expiration.”

It is true no vote took place before the expiration, but jitters about an electoral backlash prompted a handful of House Republicans to take the rare step last month of circumventing GOP leadership and signing onto an effort backed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to force a floor vote on a three-year extension of the expired subsidies.

That vote is now expected to take place in the coming weeks, though Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he has no intention of holding a vote in his own chamber, and even Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has played down the prospects of a bipartisan extension.

“Once Jan. 1 comes and everyone is locked into their insurance proposals, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube,” he said last month.

The purple-district Republicans said they intend to keep trying, and they are coordinating with a bipartisan group of senators that is trying to strike a late compromise to save the subsidies. But Democrats believe it is too little, too late — even as they say it is a telling move.

For the vulnerable Republicans “to come on at the 11th hour shows they get it,” said Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.). “Their constituents are going to be mighty mad, and they’re feeling it already.”

House Republicans decided to publicly release the transcript of special counsel Jack Smith’s Dec. 17 closed-door deposition on New Year’s Eve — while most of Washington was tuned out for the holiday.

Smith used the day-long grilling before the House Judiciary Committee to mount a robust defense of his investigation into Donald Trump for seeking to subvert the 2020 election. He forcefully rebutted claims that his work was tainted by politics and delivered a granular defense of his office’s tactics and prosecution strategy — all while repeatedly restating his view that Trump was guilty of a historic crime. He also revealed some new information about his witness list, and gave Judiciary Republicans a new opening to attack Cassidy Hutchinson’s infamous testimony.

A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment.

Here’s what we learned from the 255-page transcript:

Smith built his case around Trump’s allies

Some of Smith’s most substantive testimony centered on his never-implemented trial strategy: using Republicans who believed in Trump to make the case against him.

“The president was preying on the party allegiance of people who supported him,” Smith said. “The evidence that I felt was most powerful was the evidence that came from people in his own party who … put country before party and were willing to tell the truth to him, even though it could mean trouble for them.”

Smith repeatedly drew on diehard Republicans to make the case against the man they wanted to become president but who they acknowledged had been defeated. Smith said former Vice President Mike Pence and several of the GOP elector nominees — like Pennsylvania’s Lawrence Tabas — would have fit that bill and made strong trial witnesses.

“That witness, Mr. Tabas, was of a similar group of witnesses who — these are not enemies of the president. These are people in his party who supported him,” Smith continued. “And I think the fact that they were telling him these things … would have had great weight and great credibility with a jury.”

Smith said he came to believe that Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, tweet attacking Pence while he was at the Capitol “without question” exacerbated the danger to Pence’s life.

Smith hadn’t made his final charging decisions

The former special counsel said he never officially decided whether to bring additional charges against the figures he alleged were Trump’s co-conspirators — including attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman and Boris Epshteyn.

“I had not made final determinations about that at the time that President Trump won reelection, meaning that our office was going to be closed down,” Smith said.

Smith said he had no plans to call Eastman — an architect of Trump’s last-ditch bid to stop Joe Biden’s Electoral College certification in January 2021 — as a trial witness but said he would have welcomed Trump calling Eastman to the stand as a defense witness.

Smith noted he interviewed Epshteyn, Giuliani and other alleged co-conspirators in the course of the investigation.

Lawmakers failed to knock Smith off his game

The former special counsel repeatedly leaned into the defense of his probe and expressed confidence that a jury would have convicted Trump if the case went to trial.

He refused to take Democrats’ bait to attack Republicans for refusing, so far, to give him a public hearing. And he avoided straying into discussions that might have forced him to reveal subjects still protected by grand jury secrecy or a federal judge’s order that barred him from disclosing details of his second investigation into President Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office in 2021.

“Did you have the opportunity to interview Mr. Pence as part of your investigation?” a staffer asked Smith at one point.

“I think the answer to that question might involve [grand jury information], and so I’m not going to answer that,” Smith said.

When Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) pressed Smith about the structure of his classified documents report, Smith again demurred.

“I don’t think I should even talk about that. I don’t want to have any — any implication that I gave some sort of insight about how that report is constructed,’ he said.

Smith repeatedly reminded lawmakers that he’s open to sharing the results of his classified documents investigation, but was restricted by the ruling from a federal judge in Florida who maintained Smith’s report must stay under seal. The day of Smith’s deposition, the Department of Justice also sent an email to Smith’s team emphasizing the court order prevented him from sharing nonpublic information with Congress.

At one point, a staffer questioning Smith suggested it would be far more difficult to retrieve materials from Mar-a-Lago compared to elsewhere.

“I mean, a person can’t just walk into Mar-a-Lago and try to abscond with these materials, right?” the person, whose identity was redacted, asked.

“I would very much like to answer that question, but I cannot answer that question due to the final report,” Smith responded.

Smith forcefully rejected any hint of political bias

Republicans and Democrats repeatedly teed it up for him: Did politics influence Smith’s decision to become special counsel or the way he handled his investigation? Did the White House ever lean on him or senior Justice Department officials like former Attorney General Merrick Garland and his deputy Lisa Monaco?

Each time Smith was unequivocal: Not for a moment.

Smith maintained he never communicated with Biden or White House staff before or during his investigation. He also said the timing of Trump’s announcement for president, his crowded calendar of criminal cases leading up to the 2024 election and the sensitivity of certain allegations were nonfactors in his decisions. He emphasized that he regularly consulted with Justice Department officials to ensure he abided by its guidelines.

“We certainly were not in any way intending to affect the outcome of the election. And to make sure we complied with the policy, we met with Public Integrity to make sure we were doing that,” Smith said.

Multiple people also asked Smith if he would be surprised if Trump directs his Department of Justice to target him. The former special counsel responded no.

“I have no doubt that the president wants to seek retribution against me,” Smith said.

Lawmakers also pressed Smith about the executive order against his legal representation, Covington & Burling, in which Trump suspended security clearances for firm employees who had worked with Smith. It was one of several major law firms hit with penalties in the beginning of the second Trump administration.

“I think it’s to chill people from having an association with me,” Smith said.

Smith didn’t pursue ‘uncooperative’ witnesses

Though there were few new details in Smith’s testimony, he disclosed that he didn’t pursue interviews with three figures close to Trump: Steve Bannon, Roger Stone and Peter Navarro. The reason, he said, was they were relatively uncooperative with congressional investigators and were unnecessary for his team to discern the details of Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.

“Given the highly uncooperative nature of the individuals you talked about, I didn’t think it would be fruitful to try to question them,” Smith said. “And the sort of information that they could provide us, in my view, wasn’t worth immunizing them for their possible conduct.”

But Smith also described a text exchange between Bannon and Epshteyn on the evening of Jan. 6 in which Bannon described Trump as “still on fire” — an exchange he said was evidence that Trump did not see the riot as the end of his effort to prevent his defeat in the election.

Smith defends pursuit of lawmakers’ phone records

Republicans and Democrats pressed Smith extensively about his pursuit of the phone records of Republican lawmakers who Trump and his allies contacted during the days and weeks before Jan. 6, 2021.

Smith said he wanted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s records because he knew McCarthy spoke to the White House as violence unfolded that day. He also said the records they pursued were limited and intended to shore up the case if it went to trial — and all were obtained in accordance with DOJ policies governing the handling of investigations that touch on congressional records.

Smith also emphasized he was not special counsel when Justice Department investigators obtained a two-year batch of House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan’s phone records.

The former special counsel displayed detailed knowledge about the way the Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause protects legislative activity from federal investigators and said he sought to comply with those limits. He noted that his office litigated Speech or Debate issues related to Pence and Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) during the course of the probe.

“My office and I personally take the protections of the Speech or Debate Clause seriously,” he said. “They’re an important part of separation of powers.”

House GOP revel in Smith comments on Cassidy Hutchinson

In the aftermath of the transcript’s release, the Judiciary Republicans pointed to Smith’s comments about Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide who in 2022 testified against Trump in a dramatic hearing before the Democratic-led Jan. 6 committee.

Hutchinson famously said another Trump aide told her that a furious Trump lunged for the wheel after learning the vehicle he was in was headed for the White House instead of the Capitol after his incendiary Jan. 6 speech. Trump has long denied the incident.

Smith told congressional investigators his office spoke to at least one officer who was in the SUV for Trump’s return to the White House that day.

“[M]y recollection with Ms. Hutchinson, at least one of the issues was a number of the things that she gave evidence on were secondhand hearsay, were things that she had heard from other people and, as a result, that testimony may or may not be admissible, and it certainly wouldn’t be as powerful as firsthand testimony,” Smith said.

“The partisan January 6th Committee’s ENTIRE case was just destroyed by… Jack Smith,” the Judiciary GOP posted on X. “Star witness completely unreliable!”

The Jan. 6 committee grilled Hutchinson in part because Mark Meadows, her direct boss, declined to sit for an interview. Though Hutchinson’s story was among the most explosive aspects of its public hearings, the case the committee made — that Trump systematically attempted to sow doubt about the 2020 election results and lean on state and federal officials to subvert it — was the product of hundreds of interviews, many from Trump’s closest aides and allies.