President Trump walks on the South Garden after touchdown on the White Home on Jan. 4, 2026. Trump returned to Washington from his winter break on the Mar-a-Lago Membership in Palm Seaside, Fla., at some point after U.S. forces captured former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his spouse in a raid on his compound within the capital metropolis of Caracas.
Alex Wong/Getty Photos North America
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Alex Wong/Getty Photos North America
President Trump is about to fulfill with Home Republicans on the Kennedy Heart on Tuesday as lawmakers in each chambers are calling for extra particulars on the weekend operation in Venezuela and the U.S. position there shifting ahead.
The gathering comes a day after prime administration officers briefed Capitol Hill leaders for a number of hours behind closed doorways, leaving a largely partisan divide on the navy operation that led to the seize of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his spouse, Cilia Flores.
The Monday briefing was the primary alternative for prime occasion leaders, together with members from key committees in Congress, to query administration officers a few mission for which they got no advance warning.
Following the briefing, Republicans stated the president was properly inside his powers to order the mission with out congressional enter.
“We aren’t at warfare. We would not have U.S. armed forces in Venezuela, and we aren’t occupying that nation,” Home Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., stated after the briefing. “The Structure offers Congress the ability to declare warfare — that’s true — but it surely additionally vests the president of america with huge authorities as commander in chief.”
The Monday briefing was led by key members of the president’s overseas coverage crew, together with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine.
It was attended by the Gang of Eight, made up of the Home and Senate leaders from each events and the highest Republican and prime Democrat serving on every chamber’s intelligence committees. Becoming a member of them have been bipartisan leaders from the overseas affairs, overseas relations and armed companies committees.
The Tuesday gathering on the Kennedy Heart will likely be a possibility for Trump to handle members of his occasion as they’re gearing up for a battle to keep up management over the Home within the midterm elections. Previously, his addresses to those gatherings have targeted on broader subjects and rallying collectively as a celebration.
Speaker Johnson stated the administration scheduled a separate briefing on Venezuela for all members of Congress on Wednesday, the place it’s anticipated that extra particulars will likely be shared about subsequent steps within the area.
A partisan divide persists over Trump’s dealing with of Venezuela
Following the assembly, Johnson advised reporters that the operation in Venezuela was not “a regime change,” however fairly “a requirement for change in conduct by a regime.” And whereas Trump over the weekend stated the U.S. will run Venezuela till a “correct transition can happen,” Johnson advised reporters, “we do not count on troops on the bottom” or direct involvement in Venezuela “in some other approach” past coercing reforms from the interim authorities now in place.
Different lawmakers leaving the briefing stated they didn’t but have readability on whether or not there could be extra U.S. involvement in Venezuela.
Republicans’ solidarity with the president and his prime officers signaled that Trump continues to attract fierce loyalty from the overwhelming majority of his occasion in Congress. Nonetheless, Democrats stated the operation illustrated a harmful enlargement of Trump’s government powers and risked plunging the U.S. into the exact same form of ongoing battle that Trump campaigned on avoiding.
“It appears at each flip, Donald Trump is making an attempt to determine how he avoids Congress,” stated Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y. “And sadly, Congress permits him to do it.”
Meeks, the rating member of the Overseas Affairs Committee, voiced a priority that Democrats have raised all through the final yr — that Congress is abdicating its constitutional authority in deference to the White Home.
Speaker Johnson addressed that criticism.
“Look, I can let you know, as speaker of the Home, as the one who’s answerable for defending Article I powers, I am simply going to insist to you that these haven’t been traversed in any approach by what occurred right here,” he advised reporters.
Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., warned of troubles that might lie forward, arguing the briefing left extra questions than solutions.
“Their plan for the U.S. working Venezuela is imprecise, based mostly on wishful considering and unsatisfying,” Schumer stated. “I didn’t obtain any assurances that we’d not attempt to do the identical factor in different nations.”
This marked the primary of what’s going to probably be a number of extra briefings for lawmakers concerning the occasions that unfolded in Venezuela and subsequent steps.
