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House Speaker Mike Johnson released this statement that reads in part: Today's military action in Venezuela was 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. | ||
| The Trump administration is working to schedule briefings for members as Congress returns to Washington next week. | ||
| Meanwhile, outgoing Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene felt differently and released a lengthy statement opposed to the military action. | ||
| Her post reads in part: Americans' disgust with our own government's never-ending military aggression and support of foreign wars is justified because we are forced to pay for it. | ||
| And both parties, Republicans and Democrats, always keep the Washington military machine funded and going. | ||
| By Zoom is Elise Labbitt. | ||
| She is the Substack founder and global affairs journalist for Cosmopolitics. | ||
| She is also a professor at the American University School of International Service. | ||
| Elise, thank you for joining us. | ||
| Good to be with you. | ||
| And our guests will be taking your calls. | ||
| So please do stay on the line with us. | ||
| If you've already called in, if you'd like to talk to our guest, Elise Labbitt, if you could just remind us about your substack called Cosmopolitics and your background in international affairs. | ||
| Well, Cosmopolitics is, as you said, a substack which has written pieces and a podcast. | ||
| And it's really the intersection of politics and global affairs and geopolitics and the foreign policy and the people that are involved in it. | ||
| So it's mostly about international affairs, but also how domestic politics and the politics of various countries come into play. | ||
| And I am the former CNN global affairs correspondent. | ||
| I covered this State Department for about 20 years for CNN. | ||
| I covered seven secretaries of state and five administrations. | ||
| And so I have a long history on global affairs. | ||
| So thinking about this raid that happened overnight in Venezuela, what questions remain for you as far as how that played out and the future of Venezuela and President Maduro? | ||
| Well, in terms of how it played out, I mean, I think we'll hear more at 11 o'clock when the president talks. | ||
| Obviously, we know it was by the Delta force, which was involved in the raid on Abu Bakr Balkhati, Baghdadi, the head of ISIS. | ||
| So obviously, very powerful and talented, skillful members of the military. | ||
| I'm a little bit curious as to how they got into Venezuela undetected, how they knew where Maduro and his wife were. | ||
| It could have been signals intelligence, but it could have also been members of the regime who are secretly against Maduro and let the U.S. know. | ||
| So I'll be interested to know how the U.S. got that intelligence and how they got in those helicopters flew in undetected. | ||
| I think there are so many questions, Mimi, about what happens now, the transition. | ||
| We've been talking about how Darcy Rodriguez, the vice president, according to the Constitution, would become president in, you know, now that he's out. | ||
| But what happens with there are a couple of others, you know, Rodriguez doesn't really have a lot of ties to the military, and the role of the military is going to be very important. | ||
| So, looking at Interior Minister Cabello and Defense Minister Padmo, both Badimo, both have wielded significant influence with the military, which could remain loyal to them. | ||
| And the role of armed forces are going to be key into who takes the reins. | ||
| Cabello is one of the most feared and influential figures in the regime. | ||
| He has sweeping control over the party machinery and propaganda. | ||
| So his power is very important. | ||
| Vice President Rodriguez holds greater civilian and economic power. | ||
| And then there's the opposition. | ||
| As you know, Makado was exiled and wasn't even allowed to run for president. | ||
| And then Gonzalez came in and he technically would be the president. | ||
| So how is the opposition, do they have enough influence in the country to take over? | ||
| And what is the role of the United States going forward? | ||
| Is the military going to, is the regime going to try and hold on to power? | ||
| Is the United States going to go after other members of the regime? | ||
| If someone like Vice President Rodriguez or one of the interior defense ministers come in, the things that are important to the United States in terms of narco-terrorism is really not going to change that much. | ||
| And so how is the United States going to help kind of midwife, if you will, a transition? | ||
| And, you know, the question is, is this a one and done? | ||
| Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he doesn't anticipate any more military action. | ||
| But if the regime refuses to go and they start cracking down on protesters, what's going to happen? | ||
| You saw President Trump the other day say that he was, quote, locked and loaded to go after the Iranian regime if they kill protesters. | ||
| What happens if the Venezuelan regime goes after people celebrating in the streets? | ||
| There's a law in the books, my understanding. | ||
| Is anybody celebrating anything happening to Maduro would be arrested? | ||
| So I'm going to, I think it could be very messy in Venezuela over the next few days and over the next few months. | ||
| And Elise, what do we know about how the U.S. has justified this attack? | ||
| And if you could put it in historical context for us with actions against Noriega in Panama and also against Qaddafi in Libya. | ||
| Okay, well, you know, the most similar thing, obviously, would be how the U.S. went after Noriega. | ||
| But, you know, that's the closest comparison. | ||
| They captured Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega with special forces. | ||
| You know, I think it was pretty close to this period of time in the year in 1990. | ||
| Now, both Maduro and Noriega had, you know, claimed victory in disputed elections. | ||
| Both had been accused by the United States of U.S. involvement in drug trafficking, and both had been kind of preceded by this big military buildup. | ||
| But Noriega's capture followed a very kind of short and decisive war between Nicaragua and the United Panama and the United States, in which Panamanian forces were quickly overwhelmed. | ||
| And so eventually, Noriega was kind of persuaded to leave. | ||
| It's an interesting tale. | ||
| He was holed up in the Vatican embassy, and there was constant playing of rock band music in the Vatican for like 11 days, the clash, Van Hale and U2. | ||
| And he was, you know, he eventually said, okay, I've had enough. | ||
| And he was taken back to the United States where he faced charges for drug offenses. | ||
| The United States did indict Maduro in 2020 during Trump's first term on narco-trafficking, you know, intent to distribute drugs to the United States. | ||
| You saw U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi this morning say that Maduro and his wife had been indicted in the southern district of New York. | ||
| That's a federal district charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy. | ||
| I'm looking at the charges right here: cocaine importation, conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices to possess, you know, to cause harm against the United States. | ||
| So this is being framed as a law enforcement operation. | ||
| You know, that's what the whole rationale for these military strikes against Maduro originally were about, or against Venezuelan boats, I might say, were originally about stopping narco-trafficking. | ||
| The U.S. kept saying that Maduro had to go, but that it wasn't involved in regime change. | ||
| I think it's still going to argue this wasn't about regime change. | ||
| This is about getting Maduro out so that he could face charges in the United States. | ||
| What's different with Gaddafi is that the U.S. authorized military action against, and that's really the administration. | ||
| There wasn't really a congressional authorization of war to protect Libyan civilians. | ||
| And, you know, obviously there were many human rights violations against the Libyan people. | ||
| There was no such kind of claims right now. | ||
| Obviously, there's been a lot of criticism of Maduro and what he's done to his country and the crap done at his people. | ||
| But I don't think there's been any real kind of justification using the human rights violations. | ||
| All right, Elise, let's talk to callers. | ||
| Lance is in Portage, Indiana, Independent Line. | ||
| Lance, you're on with Elise Labbitt. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, happy New Year. | |
| I'm just wondering, everybody here is like saying about it's all about drugs, and they go in and get Maduro. | ||
| And what about a month ago when he let Honduras Hernandez, the president there, when he let him out of prison? | ||
| Everybody's forgetting about that for the same charges. | ||
| All right, Elise. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. | ||
| And I was on with you all about a month ago. | ||
| We were talking about the same thing. | ||
| You know, the president was claiming about drugs, but he was more of a political ally of President Trump. | ||
| And so it was really a char, you know, criticism of hypocrisy. | ||
| And I think those are going to be a lot of questions going forward. | ||
| If the United States is very concerned, and look, President Trump has always been concerned about drugs. | ||
| And it is true that President Maduro has overseen, I don't know if he's necessarily the leader of this cartel, which the U.S. is tying him to, the Cartel de la Solas. | ||
| But he is kind of in bed with the narco-terrorists. | ||
| But there are just as most of the drugs that are coming to the United States are from Mexico, from Colombia. | ||
| Most of the Venezuelan drugs are going to West Africa and then on to Europe. | ||
| And to be sure, that's funding a lot. | ||
| When we talk about narco-terrorism, that's funding a lot of terrorism in Europe, you know, with a lot of these terrorist groups. | ||
| But it is a great question about, you know, if the United States is really concerned about drugs reaching the United States, Hernandez had even said that he was going to push the cocaine up the nose of those white gringos. | ||
| He was really, you know, in charge, very much responsible for sending a lot of drugs to the United States. | ||
| So it's a great point. | ||
| And you did mention Mexico. | ||
| I just want to show a tweet posting on X from Jennifer Jacobs. | ||
| She's a reporter with CBS News. | ||
| Apparently, President Trump has called into Fox News. | ||
| He says, Trump says, quote, something's going to have to be done with Mexico. | ||
| He says the cartels are running Mexico, not Claudia Scheinbaum. | ||
| Quote, I've asked her numerous times, would you like us to take out the cartels? | ||
| That is what President Trump just said on Fox News. | ||
| What your reaction to that, Elise? | ||
| I mean, listen, all of that is true. | ||
| You know, there are a lot of drugs coming from Mexico. | ||
| The Mexican government over various administrations has been unable to stem both the drugs themselves and the precursors that are coming from China to Mexico into the United States. | ||
| So clearly, Mexico, Colombia, you know, we could talk a little bit about Colombia and the, you know, cooperation with the United States over the last several decades. | ||
| You know, I think it's very concerning. | ||
| If, you know, we have to look at what President Trump says and what he does. | ||
| And, you know, is Mexico next? | ||
| I think that would be very concerning. | ||
| But it does have to be looked at in the context of the recent national security strategy that says the U.S. is going to kind of reassert dominance in the Western Hemisphere. | ||
| You know, the U.S. has kind of, to be fair, neglected the Western Hemisphere over the last decades because of what's been going on in the Middle East for so many years. | ||
| There's always been talk about a pivot to Asia, but the U.S. hasn't really paid much attention to the Western Hemisphere. | ||
| President Trump is doing that and is talking about not letting kind of crime and drugs and terrorism destabilize the region. | ||
| So I think we have to watch this very closely to see if this is just rhetoric or is the U.S. going to step up action along the border or is Mexico next? | ||
| I think that Venezuela is one thing and it's very concerning. | ||
| But if the U.S. were to do anything in Mexico, that would be take it to a much higher level. | ||
| Here's Harry in Duluth, Georgia, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Harry. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Happy New Year. | ||
| Happy New Year. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, I'm a Democrat that voted for Trump three times. | |
| Now, what I'm asking, number one, would be for the news media not to use the word allegedly any longer while speaking of the drug boats because three of our ships, I can't name them, I read it, but there were three ships of the United States that were picking up those drugs. | ||
| They come back and said it was worth so many millions of dollars worth of drugs that they have found in the waters and picked up. | ||
| So the allegedly is no longer appropriate. | ||
| Now, where our flotilla is there is very good because not only were these boats dead heading straight to the United States in some cases, but I believe they were hopscotching through the Caribbean and using the islands to redistribute and move forward and into the United States by hopscotching through the Caribbean islands. | ||
| Now, the other thing that I can't understand is that not only those drugs were coming in and pushing through the United States, they're also pushing up here through Canada. | ||
| And for the life of me, I don't know why Canada wouldn't even join in into this blockade because they were being hit with these same drugs by pushing through the United States and into their country. | ||
| So, Harry, let's go ahead and let Elise respond to those two points. | ||
| So, I mean, we use the word allegedly, Harry, is because the U.S., you know, as opposed to previous actions of, you know, we used to have like these full briefings where the United States, whether it's the Pentagon or the Coast Guard or whatever, would, you know, explain in great detail what the drugs were, how much they were, you know, where they were bound. | ||
| The administration hasn't given all that much information about those drugs. | ||
| And we're kind of taking it on faith what they say that, you know, there's very little evidence being presented. | ||
| I'm not saying that that's not true, but we say allegedly because we're unable to verify that ourselves. | ||
| Now, a lot of the drugs and some of the, I think, boat strikes that you're talking about were headed for like Trinitad and Chibago or, you know, the area between the United States and Latin America and South America. | ||
| And we don't know exactly where they were going. | ||
| They weren't necessarily bound for the United States. | ||
| We don't know that for sure. | ||
| So that's why we use allegedly. | ||
| Clearly, there are a lot of drugs coming to the United States. | ||
| It's unclear how much are really coming from Venezuela. | ||
| But as I said, it's just like there's not a lot of evidence. | ||
| So we can't say conclusively because the reporting is very thin. | ||
| And more on President Trump has called into Fox and Friends weekend. | ||
| And this is Akayla Gardner on X. Trump tells Fox News that Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro, quote, wanted to negotiate at the end and trying hard to make a deal. | ||
| But I said nope. | ||
| That's a reporter from MS Now, and this is Josh Rogan of the Washington Post. | ||
| Trump calls into Fox before his 11 a.m. address to the nation, quote, I watched it literally like watching a television show, the speed, the violence. | ||
| And back to the calls now. | ||
| This is Richard in Pennsylvania, Independent Line. | ||
| Go ahead, Richard. | ||
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unidentified
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Yes, thank you for taking my call. | |
| Let's go back in history a little bit. | ||
| Back pre-election, during the campaign, remember when he had big oil go down to Mar-a-Lago, and he promised them the world that they would donate. | ||
| Fast forward to today, there was a report in the New York Times as well as others back in October about how he wanted strictly the oil and the gold that is in Venezuela. | ||
| And let's see how many times the U.S. has gone after a country. | ||
| The only reason they go after a country is because of natural resources. | ||
| Silly as it may seem, back in Vietnam, rubber. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And how did that work out for his top bunny regimes? | ||
| Look where we're at now with Aman. | ||
| And one last thing Elise had mentioned about, you know, how did we get the choppers in there undetected? | ||
| It makes him wonder why he was so buddy-butty with Bolsonaro because he had this planned out since he was his first term. | ||
| He wanted this oil. | ||
| He wanted this. | ||
| And he was so close to Bolsonaro that he could have used Brazil to use as a launching pad to get into Venezuela. | ||
| This is what it's all about. | ||
| It's oil. | ||
| It's big oil. | ||
| He's cow telling, how about getting with NATO and going after Putin? | ||
| He's a coward. | ||
| I'll leave it at that. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Thanks for the call, Richard. | ||
| It's true that President Trump did, you know, kind of have an issue with Maduro during his first term. | ||
| If you remember, that was that failed election and the U.S. tried to install Juan Guaido, the legitimate winner of that election, as the leader of Venezuela. | ||
| That didn't work out. | ||
| And so I think President Trump was kind of loath to do that again. | ||
| And that's why he supported Ms. Majado, the winner, the head of the opposition, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. | ||
| But I think he's been a little bit careful to talk about her as the elected leader. | ||
| President Trump did, Maduro did want to negotiate with Trump. | ||
| It's a good question as to why he didn't. | ||
| President Trump spoke to Maduro, I think, in November. | ||
| There are probably a little bit more easier or less dramatic ways to get rid of Maduro, but then he wouldn't be, I don't think he'd really give himself up to be indicted, to be tried in the United States. | ||
| He would have to go to a friendly country. | ||
| And I think the United States did want to try him. | ||
| Why? | ||
| As a message to send to Mexico, Colombia, if you don't take care of your cartels, we will. | ||
| It's kind of an exercise of U.S. power. | ||
| On the oil, you know, that was one of the rationales for going after Maduro and the regime. | ||
| Was it narco-terrorism? | ||
| Was it oil? | ||
| You know, there are a lot of factors. | ||
| And it's not just President Trump. | ||
| I mean, if you look at Secretary of State Marco Rubia, I don't think you can underestimate his involvement in this. | ||
| He's been working with members of the opposition. | ||
| He's been in touch with them. | ||
| The members of the opposition have been in touch with members of the regime. | ||
| So, I think it's, you know, Marco Rubio definitely was kind of the one leading the strategy, and President Trump was the front man, I think, of it. | ||
| And it's a great point about Brazil. | ||
| You know, Bonzaro is a close ally of the United States. | ||
| We'll hear more at 11 o'clock about, you know, the involvement of Brazil or any other countries friendly to the United States. | ||
| But what I think is interesting, we talked about how the helicopters got in undetected. | ||
| You know, Cuba is one of Venezuela's closest allies. | ||
| And I'm curious how Cuba wasn't able to detect this. | ||
| Cuba is known to have very good intelligence. | ||
| I'm surprised Cuban intelligence didn't detect this. | ||
| And it is possible that years of sanctions and years of kind of neglect by the regime there has hurt the intelligence forces in Cuba. | ||
| We also need to keep an eye on Cuba and what happens there. | ||
| All right, this is Gene in Illinois on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Gene, you're on with Elise Labbitt. | ||
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unidentified
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Yes, the first thing I would like to say wasn't the guy from Honduras that was pardoned by Trump falsely accused. | |
| I think Trump knows all about being falsely accused for the last 10 years, he and his family. | ||
| Okay, and another thing. | ||
| Hold on, hold on. | ||
| Let's get a response to that and then I'll let you continue, Gene. | ||
| Okay, go ahead, Elise. | ||
| Well, you know, he wasn't, he was convicted. | ||
| I think the evidence was pretty conclusive. | ||
| And they did have, you know, I don't know that they had the kind of artificial intelligence, Gene, at the time to have him on tape saying, I'm, you know, I'm responsible for giving the United States all these drugs. | ||
| I want to push those drugs to the gringos, so to speak. | ||
| I mean, I think the evidence was pretty conclusive that Hernandez was involved in drug, you know, in the drug trade. | ||
| Okay, go ahead, Gene, with your other point. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, from hearing you talk, I think you're pretty biased. | |
| I haven't heard too much greatness about Trump, but all I've heard is about Obama being okay with Gaddafi, taking him out. | ||
| You know, there wasn't Elise. | ||
| I don't think, you know, I respectfully disagree that I'm biased. | ||
| I give President Trump a lot of credit for a lot of the things he does. | ||
| He's, you know, I was on with your audience a month ago. | ||
| We were talking about the war in Gaza and gave him a lot of credit then. | ||
| You know, I'm not talking about greatness for any president. | ||
| And I certainly didn't speak about greatness for President Obama. | ||
| I was just saying that was a human rights type of thing. | ||
| And this is more of a kind of law enforcement, narco-terrorist kind of thing. | ||
| I do think, as I said a couple minutes ago, I think President Trump, to his credit, is putting more attention in the stability of the region. | ||
| And I'm looking forward to hearing more about their plans for the transition and for what happens in the region. | ||
| And we will be covering that news conference at 11 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| So be sure to stay with us for that from Mar-a-Lago. | ||
| This is Dee in Victoria, Texas, Democrat. | ||
| Go ahead, Dee. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you for taking my call. | |
| I've lived with the Constitution since I was born and I'm 68. | ||
| And I still think what Trump did was wrong because Congress is the only one who should be making war. | ||
| It has a right to make war, not Trump. | ||
| And if you're biased, so what? | ||
| Go ahead, Elise. | ||
| Well, I mean, Dee, thank you. | ||
| But, you know, I think, you know, what we try to do as journalists, and I appreciate that you do it at C-SPAN in particular, is that, you know, you try to look at the policy itself and you try to kind of leave politics out of it. | ||
| That's why at C-SPAN, they say that you guys are democracy unfiltered because it's really just looking at what's happening and trying to analyze it and not take any political position. | ||
| And because I've covered foreign affairs for a long time, I have good constitutional memory, institutional memory, as they say. | ||
| In terms of the Congress, I think you're right. | ||
| That's a great issue. | ||
| There's been a lot of talk, and it's not just President Trump, to be fair. | ||
| It was with President Biden and President Obama as well about executive power and what can the executive, and we say executive, we mean the executive branch, the president, the national security apparatus, what are their powers? | ||
| And we've seen the Supreme Court give the executive and the president a lot of presidential power. | ||
| I think you're going to hear over the next couple of weeks members of Congress on both sides, you know, asking for more consultation with the administration. | ||
| I think, to be fair, Congress has pretty much taken a back seat because President Trump has exercised his presidential power in such a forceful way that sometimes it's a little hard for members of Congress. | ||
| And I think there's going to be a lot of, I think there's a lot of criticism of that by the American public. | ||
| And I think we're going to see a lot of that. | ||
| But in terms of Congress and authorizing war, you know, there's been this authorization of the use of force back from the al-Qaeda days and 9-11. | ||
| And, you know, successive administrations have kind of recycled it as the authorization. | ||
| And if you kind of make a loose association to terrorism or harm to the United States, then, okay, we could just use that justification. | ||
| I think there is going to be a real push in Congress this week to get more congressional authority. | ||
| I think this leading up to the midterms, we're going to see a real kind of assertion by Congress of their advise and consent rule. | ||
|
unidentified
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Coming up on Sunday's edition of C-SPAN's Washington Journal, we'll continue to get your reaction to the military strikes against Venezuela. | |
| Then, Joseph Moreno, former federal prosecutor and member of the Justice Department's National Security Division, will join us to talk about the prosecution of Nicolas Maduro and his wife. | ||
| And later, Ryan Berg from the Center for Strategic and International Studies will be here to talk further about the strikes on Venezuela. | ||
| All that in your phone calls, texts, and Facebook comments. | ||
| Washington Journal is live at 7 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| And there's more reaction from Capitol Hill to the U.S. strikes in Venezuela and the capture of Nicolas Maduro. | ||
| Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott, the chair of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Sea Power, released this statement. | ||
| Spoke with Secretary Rubio early this morning, and it's clear the strikes against and capture of narco-terrorist Nicolas Maduro were done with a level of professionalism and precision that sends a message to the world. | ||
| President Trump is a man of his word, and the United States will not tolerate terrorists. | ||
| However, Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massey, who had been advocating for congressional approval of any military action in the region, released this. | ||
| If this action were constitutionally sound, the Attorney General wouldn't be tweeting that they've arrested the president of a sovereign country and his wife for possessing guns in violation of a 1934 U.S. firearm law. | ||
|
unidentified
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And following the announcement of U.S. strikes in Venezuela and the capture of Nicolas Maduro, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer participated in a phone briefing with reporters. | |
| Here's a listen to his comments. | ||
| Okay, thanks, everybody. | ||
| I thank everybody for getting on the phone this afternoon. | ||
| And, you know, like all Americans, I was just stunned, totally stunned and shocked to hear President Trump say that he intends for the United States to run Venezuela. | ||
| It was reckless. | ||
| It was dangerous. | ||
| And looking at the president's demeanor, he didn't even seem to be aware of how dangerous and reckless it is. | ||
| Let me be clear: Maduro is an illegitimate dictator, but launching military action without congressional authorization, without a credible plan for what comes next is reckless. | ||
| Now, I was in the SCIF on three different occasions, as recently as December. | ||
| And I asked the administration, I said, I asked them, are you pursuing regime change? | ||
| Are you intent on taking military action in Venezuela, Venezuelan territory? | ||
| And they assured me that they were not pursuing those things. | ||
| Clearly, they're not being straight with the American people. | ||
| So I've been talking to so many members of my caucus today. | ||
| Everybody is very, very just totally, totally, totally troubled, worried about how dangerous this is. | ||
| Let me lay out just a few of the actions that have already been taken to hold the Trump administration accountable. | ||
| First, Leader Jeffries and I called on the Trump administration to brief the Gang of Eight immediately following, followed shortly by a briefing for the entire Congress in the beginning of next week. | ||
| We want to know the administration's objectives, its plans to prevent a humanitarian and geopolitical disaster that plunges us into another endless war, or one that trades one corrupt dictator for another. | ||
| There are so many questions that involved this. | ||
| How many troops are on the ground now? | ||
| American troops. | ||
| How many troops do they expect to have a week from now, a month from now, a year from now? | ||
| These kinds of questions have to be answered. | ||
| The fact that they seem to be doing this almost on the cuff, even though it's so dangerous and so cosmic in its consequences. | ||
| Two hours ago, the president said that the vice president of Venezuela would listen to what he says. | ||
| And then just a few minutes ago, she said that they should release Maduro. | ||
| And she doesn't support what the administration, what the Trump government has done. | ||
| So lots and lots of unanswered questions, and we need full briefing to get all of the answers. | ||
| The reason there's congressional oversight, the reason Congress has the right to declare war is so that those questions can be vetted before something as consequential as this occurs. | ||
| But by keeping it in secret, in the dark, by not telling anybody, and I was not briefed, I still have not been briefed. | ||
| We've had some contact with the administration in that we've asked them for the Gang of Eight briefing and the all congressmen and all senators briefing, but we've gotten no information from them. | ||
| Second, the Senate's going to take up the war powers resolution next week. | ||
| It's been introduced by Senator Kaine, Senator Paul, and myself. | ||
| It was filed before we left, so it's a privileged resolution, and Senator Kaine has the right to bring it up this week. | ||
| I spoke to him a few hours ago. | ||
| He will bring it up, and I told him I would support it and work to get floor time, you know, adequate floor time so we could debate and discuss this. | ||
| And third, I've spoken with our ranking members on the relevant committees to review, to begin out, to review how their committees begin reviewing, how their committees can act to hold the administration accountable. | ||
| You'll be hearing more from them in the coming days. | ||
| I've talked to a bunch of them today. | ||
| They've already had some discussions with their chairs, who seen some of the Republican chairs, at least privately on the phone, expressed a lot of troubled, have expressed a lot of troublesome comments about what Trump is doing and the way he is doing it. | ||
| And those discussions will continue. | ||
| We're going to be pushing our Republican colleagues to stand up for the American people and to get this done. | ||
| Congress should not be sidelined as the Trump administration gets sucked into another nation-building quagmire, and we're going to hold them accountable, protect American lives, to protect America's interests. | ||
| No one can explain to me how this is America first. | ||
| No one can explain to me how this will have a decent outcome, given what we know about past history and given the presentations that have been made that seem so based on almost surmise and lack of thorough thinking and fact. | ||
| Two other points, and then I will turn it over to your questions. | ||
| One, if when Trump says he's against sovereignty, you know, that sort of if the attacks, he's an attack on sovereignty, that warms the heart of every dictator in the world. | ||
| What does Putin say? | ||
| Can he declare, can he convict someone in Ukraine of a crime and then abduct them? | ||
| Same thing with Xi, same thing with Iran, same thing with so many of the dictators in the world. | ||
| And second, the mere hypocrisy of this. | ||
| Just a while back, Trump pardoned the Honduras dictator, Hernandez. | ||
| And if this is a war on drugs, how do you explain the bald and glaring contradiction between pardoning Hernandez of Honduras, who was convicted of, I believe, sending 400 kilos of cocaine into the United States? | ||
| I don't remember the exact number, and then abducting Maduro. | ||
| It makes you think that maybe to Trump he wants to distract the American people as he always does from the skyrocketing costs they're facing, from the Epstein files. | ||
| But doing something as cosmic as this and as serious as this is beyond belief. | ||
| Even a Trump might not, even a Trump should be weighing that in terms of its ability to distract, which it does, but it does far worse than that. | ||
| So dangerous. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I'm ready for some questions. | ||
| I don't know how we're going to do this, but go ahead, Wynn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Theo with the Washington Post, you're up first. | ||
| Hi, Theo. | ||
| And we're going to take questions on this subject, of course. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Mr. Leader. | |
| Thank you so much for doing this. | ||
| You said that you have had some contact with the administration today. | ||
| Can you be more specific? | ||
| Who have you talked with and what have they told you? | ||
| Yeah, I have my, we have reached out to the administration simply making the request that the Gang of Eight briefing occur ASAP, as soon as today, even if possible, although we'd have to go to SCIFS, and the all-senators, all congressmen brief. | ||
| They have not given us any details about what happened and haven't gotten even back to us on whether they've agreed to our request. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Were you notified of the strike? | |
| And if so, no. | ||
| We were not notified at all. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Eric Garcia, you're up next. | ||
| Thanks, Alex. | ||
| And thank you, Leader Schumer. | ||
| Quick question. | ||
| The government is running out of money at the end of the month. | ||
| There are also, there are a number of other ways that, along with the War Powers Act, would you consider at all using government funding as a way to leverage when it comes to Venezuela or What other mechanisms or tools can you use to hold the administration accountable? | ||
| The government shutdown. | ||
| The 30-day, you know, January 30th is days away. | ||
| Let's first get all the facts out. | ||
| That's what we're endeavoring to do right now. | ||
| And our first ability to do that will be the War Powers Act of this week. | ||
| And again, we are saying to the Republicans, this is your responsibility. | ||
| President Trump is a member of your party. | ||
| You've gone along with him over and over again. | ||
| This is one time you've got to resist him. | ||
| It's too serious. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are you hearing anything from other Republicans? | |
| As I said, we have heard from some Republicans in private conversations, chairs talking to their ranking members, that they have some, they are troubled by this, but not much more than that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, thanks. | |
| Jackie Koppel with NewsNation. | ||
| On mute. | ||
| Hi, thank you so much. | ||
| A couple questions. | ||
| Do you think that the Trump administration took this action now, just before Congress comes back, because the war powers resolution vote was coming up? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, that's a good question. | ||
| I couldn't answer that. | ||
| I don't know what makes them do what they do. | ||
| Again, the briefing, in its ramblingness, in its lack of specificity, in its contradiction from known facts on the ground, was so troubling, so deeply troubling. | ||
| So I can't figure out why they do these things and when. | ||
| But I'd remind you that one more thing. | ||
| The War Powers Act, if they try to do anything subsequent, still has effect. | ||
| They've talked about boots on the ground. | ||
| They've talked about a second wave. | ||
| All of those things could be affected by the War Powers Act. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And just as a follow-up, I understand you've said the three different things that Congress is doing and you in particular, but what other power does Congress have? | |
| I mean, the president took action without coordination or approval. | ||
| Again, before we get in beyond what I said, the first step is to get all the facts out as many as we can. | ||
| I mean, I've been through this before, and I saw that when an administration goes too far, the public really reacts in a very strong way. | ||
| That's one of the reasons that George W. Bush lost the Senate and the House in 2006. | ||
| So first job is to get all the facts out. | ||
| Second job, war powers, and then we'll see what happens after that. | ||
| Let's hope that the War Powers Act can pass. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| But that is up to our Republican colleagues, by the way. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Ben Weiss, you're up next. | ||
| Thanks, Leader Schumer. | ||
| This is Ben Weiss from Courthouse News. | ||
| You started to acknowledge this, and there's a lot of open questions about extended troop deployment in Venezuela, timeline, how many troops will be on the ground. | ||
| I know you said you're still in the process of getting all the facts, but I'm curious if you think, if you're briefed, that there might be a possibility of an extended deployment in Venezuela, something that would exceed the War Powers Act. | ||
| Do you believe there needs to be a formal declaration of war? | ||
| And is that something that you would want to try to compel out of the Senate? | ||
| It's hard to, I would not speculate. | ||
| We're going to use all the tools we can to prevent this from getting worse. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks, sir. | |
| All right. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Marissa Schultz with New York Post. | ||
| You're up. | ||
| Marissa, you're still muted. | ||
| There you go. | ||
| Marissa, you're still muted. | ||
| Okay, can you hear me now? | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Okay, sorry about that. | ||
| Thanks for doing the phone call. | ||
| President Trump said that Maduro is on his way to New York. | ||
| What's your understanding as to where he's going to be? | ||
| What sort of precautions are made for his arrival and when we might see him in court? | ||
| And then the second question. | ||
| Sorry, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| No, I was going to say the administration has not given us any of those details or facts. | ||
| They've given virtually none. | ||
| It's been sort of a dark screen. | ||
| And the kinds of questions I asked before in the answer to your question, we just don't know the answers. | ||
| Something as significant as this, as deeply, as confounding as this, as changing the course of history in many ways, and with very strong likelihood. | ||
| They've kept everyone in the total dark. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And the second question was: President Trump seemed to have some level of confidence with the Maduro's vice president as being the newly installed leader there in Venezuela. | |
| She made some comments earlier today. | ||
| One, calling for Maduro's release, but two, seemingly leaving the door open, I guess, to working with the Trump administration. | ||
| What do you know about this vice president and what do you think of her capacity to? | ||
| Well, she's been she's been a total tool of Maduro in the past. | ||
| And I think there are great questions about her reliability in any way. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, thank you. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| All right, Leanne Caldwell with Puck. | ||
| Hey, Senator. | ||
| So the president before this has been very open about encouraging American businesses, including oil companies, to invest and to get involved in business in Venezuela. | ||
| Now there's reporting out from the Wall Street Journal and others who say that top Wall Street firms are ready to go and to invest in the country. | ||
| Have you heard anything about this? | ||
| And what is your take on U.S., immediate U.S. investment in the country? | ||
| Well, I have not heard anything about this. | ||
| That's number one. | ||
| And number two, you know, Trump seems to do a whole lot of things that are irrational, that hurt the American people for oil and oil interests. | ||
| And we're going to have to, you know, I think we're going to have to watch that like a hawk. | ||
| The American people are, and all of us are. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Thanks, Leanne. | ||
| And then we'll do two more. | ||
| Tyler and then Michael Jones. | ||
| Tyler, you're up. | ||
| Thanks, Alex. | ||
| And thanks, Leader Schumer, for holding this. | ||
| If you could just go a little bit more into detail, you mentioned efforts on potentially holding the Trump administration and these officials accountable. | ||
| What does that look like? | ||
| And what are the options you guys would have this year? | ||
| And then, obviously, looking forward to the next Congress when Democrats might have a majority to hold folks accountable for taking this kind of action. | ||
| Is that something that could rise to impeachment or what other options are available to you guys? | ||
| Tyler, I just say it's premature to guess that far into the future. | ||
| We hope that, as I said, we hope that we can have support from our Republican colleagues to put a break on this long before it gets that far. | ||
| This is sort of, this is unprecedented as to what he has done and the way he has done it and the secrecy in which he has engaged in it. | ||
| And we're going to do everything we can to hold them accountable and to restrain the kinds of bad efforts that seem to be happening right that are happening right now and could get worse. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Last question from Michael Jones. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Thanks, Alex. | ||
| Thanks, Leader Shimmer. | ||
| Secretary Rubio said at Mar-a-Lago earlier that this was not the kind of mission that you can do congressional notification on. | ||
| He called it a, quote, trigger-based mission. | ||
| President Trump suggested that the administration didn't inform you all because, quote, Congress has a tendency to leak. | ||
| I wanted to get your reaction to that. | ||
| Do you accept that rationale as a reason or a defense for not informing Congress? | ||
| No, it's an excuse. | ||
| It's an excuse for secrecy. | ||
| And that's why there's a gang of eight, you know, and it's been very carefully held. | ||
| I believe they use that as a total excuse to keep Congress, all of Congress, in the dark. | ||
| And on something as serious as this, that is just outrageous and dangerous. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| One of the reasons, one of the reasons we have hearings, we have consultation with Congress is so that, and one of the reasons the founding fathers gave the War Powers Act to the ability to declare war to the Congress, so there would be debate, discussion, different points of view before something so momentous happened. | ||
| And they're just ripping up that part of the Constitution. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks, everybody. | |
| Thanks, Senator. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thanks, folks. | ||
| Have a nice. | ||
| I don't hesitate on such a troubling day to say have a nice day, but I hope everyone's safe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| And some reaction to the U.S. strikes in Venezuela from Capitol Hill. | ||
| House Speaker Mike Johnson released this statement that reads in part, today's military action in Venezuela was 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. | ||
| The Trump administration is working to schedule briefings for members as Congress returns to Washington next week. | ||
| Meanwhile, outgoing Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene felt differently and released a lengthy statement opposed to the military action. | ||
| Her post reads in part, Americans' disgust with our own government's never-ending military aggression and support of foreign wars is justified because we are forced to pay for it. | ||
| And both parties, Republicans and Democrats, always keep the Washington military machine funded and going. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| were funded by these television companies and more, including Comcast. | ||
| The flag replacement program got started by a good friend of mine, a Navy vet, who saw the flag at the office that needed to be replaced and said, wouldn't this be great if this was going to be something that we did for anyone? | ||
| Comcast has always been a community-driven company. | ||
| This is one of those great examples of the way we're getting out there. |