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Protesters rally exterior the White Home Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in Washington, after the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his spouse in a navy operation.

Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

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Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

President Trump’s transfer to depose Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has drawn reward inside america, particularly from Republican leaders. However the invasion additionally faces important skepticism, questions on legality, and full-throated opposition from some elected officers throughout the political spectrum.

Here is a survey.

Some Republicans condemn, or query, Trump’s invasion

Whereas most conservative lawmakers voiced help for Trump’s motion, a small group of Republican Home members and GOP Senators described the transfer as illegal or misguided.

“If the President believes navy motion in opposition to Venezuela is required, he ought to make the case and Congress ought to vote earlier than American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America,” stated Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, talking on the Home ground. “Can we really imagine that Nicolás Maduro will probably be changed by a modern-day George Washington? How did that work out in Cuba, Libya, Iraq or Syria?”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., posting on social media, voiced skepticism that the true objective of Trump’s invasion was to cease the stream of medicine into america. She additionally described the navy motion as a violation of conservative “America First” ideas.

“People disgust with our personal authorities’s by no means ending navy aggression and help of international wars is justified as a result of we’re pressured to pay for it and each events, Republicans and Democrats, at all times hold the Washington navy machine funded and going,” Greene posted on X. “That is what many in MAGA thought they voted to finish. Boy have been we mistaken.”

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a retired U.S. Air Drive Brigadier Basic, usually praised the navy operation, however he additionally stated the precedent of U.S. navy intervention may embolden extra aggressive motion by authoritarian regimes in China and Russia.

“Freedom and rule of legislation have been defended final night time,” Bacon stated on X, referring to the invasion of Venezuela, “however dictators will attempt to exploit this to rationalize their egocentric targets.”

At the least three Republican Senators additionally voiced concern or skepticism in regards to the invasion and its authorized justification, whereas additionally celebrating the autumn of Maduro.

“On this case, a frontrunner who monopolized central energy is eliminated in an motion that monopolizes central energy,” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul wrote on the platform X. “Finest although, to not neglect, that our founders restricted the chief’s energy to go to struggle with out Congressional authorization for a cause—to restrict the horror of struggle and restrict struggle to acts of protection.”

GOP Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, each of Alaska, stated Maduro’s ouster would make america and the world safer, however steered the operation may flip right into a quagmire for U.S. troops.

“Late final 12 months, I voted to proceed to debate on two resolutions that will have terminated the escalation of U.S. navy operations in opposition to Venezuela absent specific authorization from Congress,” Murkowski wrote on the platform X. She added that she expects additional briefings from Trump officers on the “authorized foundation for these operations.”

“The teachings realized from what befell after america deposed one other Latin American indicted drug lord—Panama’s Manuel Noriega in 1989—may show helpful, as may the painful and troublesome classes realized after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003,” Sullivan wrote on X.

Most Democrats condemn the invasion

Most Democratic lawmakers and elected officers additionally described Maduro as a dictator, however they typically condemned Trump’s motion. At a press convention Saturday, New York Metropolis’s new Mayor Zohran Mamdani informed reporters he phoned Trump and voiced opposition to the invasion.

“I known as the President and spoke with him on to register my opposition to this act and to clarify that it was an opposition primarily based on being against a pursuit of regime change, to the violation of federal and worldwide legislation,” Mamdani stated.

Democratic minority chief Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York accused Trump of performing in unhealthy religion and violating the U.S. Structure. “The concept that Trump plans to now run Venezuela ought to strike worry within the hearts of all People,” Schumer stated in a put up on X. “The American individuals have seen this earlier than and paid the devastating worth.”

In accordance with Schumer, the Trump administration assured him “three separate occasions that it was not pursuing regime change or or navy motion with out congressional authorization.”

California’s Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, a frequent Trump critic, posted a collection of feedback on X describing Saturday’s navy motion and Trump’s proposed U.S. occupation of Venezuela as doubtlessly disastrous.

“Appearing with out Congressional approval or the buy-in of the general public, Trump dangers plunging a hemisphere into chaos and has damaged his promise to finish wars as a substitute of beginning them,” Schiff wrote.

“Donald Trump has as soon as once more proven his contempt for the Structure and the rule of legislation,” stated Vermont’s Impartial Sen. Bernie Sanders, in a video posted on social media, the place he described the U.S. invasion as “imperialism.”

“That is the horrific logic of pressure that Putin used to justify his brutal assault on Ukraine,” Sanders stated.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, additionally spoke harshly of the navy strike, describing it as an effort by Trump to distract consideration from home troubles in america.

“It isn’t about medication. If it was, Trump would not have pardoned one of many largest narco traffickers on the earth final month,” Ocasio-Cortez stated, referring to Trump’s resolution to free former Honduran President Orlando Hernandez, who had been convicted within the U.S. of serving to smuggle greater than 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.

“It is about oil and regime change. And so they want a trial now to fake that it is not. Particularly to distract from Epstein + skyrocketing healthcare prices,” Ocasio-Cortez added on X.