TALARICO, AUCHINCLOSS: Trump’s blood for oil strategy is as reckless as it is illegal

The president is pitching blood for oil in Venezuela. It’s a dangerous mission, a corrupt deal and a lawless precedent. Congress must stop this recklessness before it costs the lives of American troops.  

One of us is a congressman who commanded Marines in jungle training in Latin America. The other is a state representative and candidate for the U.S. Senate out of Texas, the biggest oil producer in the country. We’re both members of Majority Democrats, a group of elected leaders dedicated to rebuilding trust with the exhausted majority of Americans. Whether seen from the perspective of the military or the Texas middle class, we agree: Republicans in Congress are failing to provide a check and balance on warmongering. 

The president’s strikes against Venezuela have left in place the gangsters running the country, but put them on notice that their oil is now his. To take it, President Donald Trump has made clear that he wants U.S. oil majors to start rebuilding Venezuela’s derelict energy infrastructure. That’s expensive and hazardous. 

Chevron and the rest will want serious support from the U.S. government. For starters, their personnel and assets require security. Pro-Chavismo Venezuelan forces, leftist Colombian terrorists and transnational criminal organizations are all threats. This is why the president refused to rule out American boots on the ground. He may need troops to serve as armed guards for oil extraction.

MARCO RUBIO EMERGES AS KEY TRUMP POWER PLAYER AFTER VENEZUELA OPERATION

The enemies awaiting Americans deployed to Venezuela have spent their whole lives traversing its jungles and rivers. The U.S. military, by contrast, has trained two generations in patrolling and close-air-support that presumes long line of sight, not dense canopy. Jungle warfare would be a new and nasty mission. 

Make no mistake: our Marines, soldiers and sailors would complete that mission. They are the finest fighting force in the world. But they would be fighting for oil money for the rich – not for democracy, drug interdiction, or a better future for Venezuelans. Hit by raids, cut off from fire support, infected by malaria — all in the service of crony capitalism. 

Last year, Trump promised oil executives “a great deal” if they donated $1 billion to his campaign. He is now offering them 300 billion barrels of oil. It won’t make gas any cheaper for Americans this decade. Projections for 500,000 extra daily barrels would not make a price dent in a market where 100+ million barrels are sold daily. It also won’t bring jobs to Texas, where Chevron just laid off 200 workers in Midland.

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Chevron executives and other administration allies, though, stand to gain power and wealth from controlling the world’s largest oil reserve. As with tariffs, AI and his tax cuts for the wealthy, the president is once again pursuing policies that further consolidate wealth and power. 

He’s also, once again, breaking the law. The attacks on Venezuela are illegal. The president claims he is only using the military to support law enforcement in executing an indictment. Hard to take that claim seriously from a man who had U.S. soldiers on their knees to roll out a red carpet for the war criminal Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.

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Apart from its risibility, though, the claim is bogus. Absent an imminent threat to the homeland, the president needs congressional authorization to use military force. There is no threat from Venezuela too pressing or existential to deliberate upon in Congress. If the president were concerned about drugs (He’s not.), he could get tough on Chinese fentanyl exports (He hasn’t.).  

Neither party should accept the precedent that a commander-in-chief can bomb cities and capture foreign leaders without so much as a phone call to Congress. It’s a recipe for more military adventurism, more blood and treasure sunk by poor planning. Indeed, the president is already jawboning about Cuba, Greenland and Colombia. Republicans in Congress must stop acting like sheep. Neither our military nor our economy would benefit from open-ended deployment to Venezuela. 

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Socialism cost me my country. Trump arresting Maduro might help us get it back

I never thought I’d see the man who destroyed my family’s life in handcuffs. But that’s exactly what happened when American forces recently captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife. “Trump is doing it!” my mother told me through tears over the phone. I never heard her happier. I was in shock. I stared at my phone, scrolling through videos and breaking news on X — my mother was right.

When I was growing up in Venezuela, I suffered alongside my parents who were forced to close our cosmetics business thanks to socialist government price controls. My parents made sacrifices and didn’t eat so I could.

Those experiences inspired me to become a college campus activist in Venezuela against Maduro’s regime. I spoke out and promoted the truth about capitalism and liberty. I was soon expelled from school, labeled a terrorist and threatened with prison time.

TRUMP SIGNALS LONG ROAD AHEAD IN VENEZUELA IN HIS BOLDEST INTERVENTIONIST MOVE YET

My cousin had already been jailed for his activism, and my family did not want the same for me. So we fled seeking political asylum in America.

It saved my life. America gave me a future of freedom and opportunity. And now, thanks to President Donald Trump, I have witnessed a measure of justice I never imagined possible. 

My family and friends still in Venezuela are overjoyed. Perhaps there are no people more grateful for America’s president right now than Venezuelans. 

Even though many of my friends and family in Venezuela are celebrating, they must do so quietly. Maduro has fallen, but his regime remains in power. Those who celebrate in the streets or post online still risk punishment and prison. This is not a happy ending for Venezuela, but a new beginning.

MIKE PENCE: VENEZUELA HAS A CHANCE FOR FREEDOM, THANKS TO TRUMP AND OUR ARMED FORCES

What happens now is uncertain, and many wonder whether Venezuela will become another Iraq or Afghanistan.

But Venezuela is not a tribal country defined by sectarian violence. It is a Western nation with a long democratic tradition prior to Hugo Chávez, a shared language and a deeply Christian culture — more than 90% identify as such. This is not a country divided over whether tyranny is acceptable — it is a country that has been held hostage by force.

María Corina Machado — the Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader of the democratic opposition — has not yet assumed power. That’s because Machado has the support of the Venezuelan people, but not control of the military. Venezuela’s armed outfits are now, and have been for some time, a vast criminal enterprise loyal to cartels. That’s why President Trump, rather than pretending the regime collapsed overnight, is establishing a process — what Secretary of State Marco Rubio described as stabilization, recovery and transition.

WHITE HOUSE SAYS US WILL SHAPE VENEZUELA’S FUTURE AS TRUMP EMBRACES ‘AMERICAN DOMINANCE’

Do Venezuelans trust current leader Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president? No. She helped build the machinery of repression that terrorized the country. But she understands something Maduro did not: Trump is deadly serious.

Maduro challenged Trump. He is now sitting in a New York jail cell. The regime has never been weaker.

If Rodríguez is cooperating — as the Trump administration suggests — it may already be creating fractures within the regime. Figures like Diosdado Cabello and Vladimir Padrino López built their power on violence, not compromise. That internal tension matters.

RUBIO LAYS OUT THREE-PHASE PLAN FOR VENEZUELA AFTER MADURO: ‘NOT JUST WINGING IT’

This moment is fragile. Multiple outcomes are possible — internal splits, renewed repression, cooperation or a negotiated transition. But one thing is undeniable: Venezuela — and the world — are better off with Nicolás Maduro behind bars. 

Maduro was not a president — his elections were scams. He was a fugitive who was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2020 for narco-terrorism. Venezuela’s alliances with bad actors like China, Russia, Cuba and Iran continue to wreak havoc on America, and the world. But now, a major player is finally behind bars. 

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Yet, too many in America are actually condemning the capture of a socialist dictator. Protesters outside the detention center demand Maduro’s release. They ironically praise his regime, apparently without realizing they would never be able to protest in Maduro’s Venezuela without being arrested.

Still others absurdly suggest Maduro is a conservative Christian leader.

The same Maduro used Venezuela’s so-called “Anti-Hate Speech Law” to persecute Catholics who dared criticize his regime. He publicly insulted clergy, calling priests “devils in cassocks,” and even ordered investigations against them.

Venezuela’s Catholic shepherds remained undeterred and repeatedly condemned Maduro’s Marxist socialism. They have warned it “threatens freedom and the rights of persons and associations and has led to oppression and ruin in every country where it has been tried.”

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Freedom is an exception, not the norm. And America is unique in its commitment to liberty. Venezuela didn’t become a dictatorship overnight. It happened gradually with promises of fairness, more government control sold as compassion and the suppression of dissent. By the time people realized what they had lost, it was already too late.

I fled socialism to survive. And I urge Americans to avoid learning these lessons the hard way. Because I understand how easy it is to lose freedom — and how rare it is to get it back.

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Venezuela’s acting president touts ‘new political moment,’ hints at further release of political prisoners

Interim Venezuela President Delcy Rodríguez announced Wednesday that her government will continue to release prisoners detained under the rule of former President Nicolás Maduro in an initiative she touted as a “new political moment,” according to The Associated Press.

Her comments came just days after the interim government freed at least four U.S. citizens detained in Venezuela, marking the first known release of American prisoners since Maduro was ousted in a U.S. military operation earlier this month.

During her first press briefing since becoming acting leader, Rodríguez reportedly told journalists in Caracas that the process of releasing detainees “has not yet concluded,” emphasizing that the effort to free those held under Maduro’s rule is ongoing. 

Rodriguez then promoted a “Venezuela that opens itself to a new political moment, that allows for … political and ideological diversity,” the AP reported.

VENEZUELA RELEASES MULTIPLE AMERICAN CITIZENS FROM PRISON FOLLOWING MILITARY OPERATION

The outlet added that possibly 800 prisoners, including political leaders, soldiers and lawyers, are still being detained, citing Venezuelan human rights organization Foro Penal.

Rodriguez also claimed her government had already released 212 detainees, but human rights organizations have estimated lower figures, The AP added.  

TRUMP SIGNS ORDER TO PROTECT VENEZUELA OIL REVENUE HELD IN US ACCOUNTS

The Maduro ally insisted that the prisoner releases do not signal a break from the past and are not the direct result of U.S. pressure, but she credited the effort to the ousted president, The AP reported. She said Maduro oversaw the release of 194 detainees in December, noting that he did so because he “was thinking precisely about opening spaces for understanding, for coexistence, for tolerance,” according to the outlet.

While Rodríguez has not provided a detailed framework for determining who will be released, she said decisions will be guided by an evaluation of “crimes related to the constitutional order,” warning that “messages of hatred, intolerance, acts of violence will not be permitted.”

The actual coordination of these releases will be handled by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello. 

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President Donald Trump said Wednesday he recently had a “great conversation” with Rodríguez, their first since Maduro was captured and flown to the U.S. to face drug-trafficking charges.  

“We had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things,” Trump said. “And I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela.”

Key Republicans flip, kill effort to restrain Trump’s policing power over Venezuela

Senate Republicans successfully spiked a bipartisan attempt to curb President Donald Trump’s war powers authority after a pair of key GOP lawmakers reversed their positions. 

Republicans turned to a rarely used Senate procedure previously used by Senate Democrats in a similar situation to nullify the Venezuela war powers resolution from Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. The successful effort came after five Senate Republicans joined all Senate Democrats to advance the resolution last week. 

Their move drew heavy criticism and anger from Trump, who demanded that they “should never be elected to office again.” 

SENATE GOP MOVES TO BLOCK DEMS’ WAR POWERS PUSH, PRESERVE TRUMP’S AUTHORITY IN RARE MOVE

The resolution was tanked on a 51 to 50 vote, with Vice President JD Vance coming in to break a tie in favor of Trump. 

Turning to the arcane procedural move served as a victory for both the president and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., after last week’s rare defeat on the floor.  

Thune, like several other Republicans, contended that the resolution was not germane to the issues at hand in Venezuela. 

“We don’t have troops in Venezuela. There is no kinetic action, there are no operations,” Thune said. “There are no boots on the ground. And I think the question is whether or not there ought to be expedited consideration or privilege accorded to something that’s brought to the floor that doesn’t reflect what’s what is current reality in Venezuela.”

“And so I think it’s very fair for Republicans to question why we ought to be having this discussion right now, particularly at a time when we’re trying to do appropriations bills,” he continued.

TRUMP RIPS INTO GOP DEFECTORS AS ‘REAL LOSERS’ AS SENATE READIES FOR FINAL VOTE

Thune, Senate Republican leadership, Trump and several administration officials launched a pressure campaign on the five original defectors who helped Senate Democrats advance the bill. While not every lawmaker flipped, Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Todd Young, R-Ind., proved the decisive votes to help kill the resolution. 

Hawley’s primary concern was whether the administration would place troops in Venezuela, but after several meetings and conversations with Trump administration officials, he was convinced that no further military action would take place. 

“To me, this is all about going forward,” Hawley said of his reversal. “If the president decides we need to put troops on the ground in Venezuela, then Congress will need to weigh in.”

Young kept tight-lipped about his plan until the vote opened, and explained before walking onto the Senate floor that the deliverables and guarantees he had received from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the administration were enough for him. 

Among those were promises that if Trump did want to use force against Venezuela, he would first request authorization from Congress, and that Rubio would appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for a public hearing in the coming weeks to give an update on the situation in the region.

“Those who understand how Congress works, the good and the bad and the ugly, understand that votes like this, in the end, are communications exercises,” Young said. “They’re important communications exercises, but unless you can secure sufficient votes, not only to pass the United States Senate, but to get out of the House, with which is highly questionable, right, and then to override what was an inevitable presidential veto, which is impossible. No one can tell me how we get there.” 

“I had to accept that this was all a communications exercise,” he continued. “I think we use this moment to shine a bright light on Congress’ shortcomings as it relates to war powers in recent history.”

Still, Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined Senate Democrats to try and save the effort. 

Most Senate Republicans who were briefed on the matter last week argued that the strikes in Venezuela were justified and that the military was used to assist in a law enforcement operation to capture Maduro.

KAINE TELLS CONGRESS TO ‘GET ITS A– OFF THE COUCH,’ RECLAIM WAR POWERS

Rubio, in a letter to Senate Foreign Relations Chair James Risch, R-Idaho, affirmed, “There are currently no U.S. Armed Forces in Venezuela.”

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“Should there be any new military operations that introduce U.S. Armed Forces into hostilities, they will be undertaken consistent with the Constitution of the United States, and we will transmit written notifications consistent with section 4(a) of the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148),” Rubio wrote.

Kaine, who was confident that he would have the votes, panned that move ahead of the vote.

“If people want to just say, ‘Hey, President Trump, do whatever the hell you want,’ Let them vote that way, but don’t change the rules of the Senate in a way that might disable future Senates that do have a backbone,” Kaine told reporters.

Iran poses a far more dangerous military test for the US than Venezuela, experts warn

Fresh off a successful operation in Venezuela, the U.S. is weighing its options as Iran’s leadership launches a violent crackdown on anti-government protesters — raising questions about whether similar military pressure could be applied to Tehran, Iran. 

In Caracas, Venezuela, U.S. special operators moved quickly to capture Nicolás Maduro. In Tehran, Iran, any comparable effort would unfold against a state with greater military depth and the ability to strike back well beyond its borders.

“Thinking of this as an operation, as in the case of Venezuela or the nuclear program, is the wrong framing,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital. “This has to be seen as a campaign.”

Iran is a larger, more capable military power than Venezuela, with security forces designed to protect the regime from both foreign attack and internal unrest. Power is distributed across clerical institutions, security services and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a structure built to survive the loss of individual leaders rather than collapse with them.

IRAN GOES DARK AS REGIME UNLEASHES FORCE, CYBER TOOLS TO CRUSH PROTESTS

“Musical chairs at the top is highly unlikely to work in Iran,” Taleblu said.

He pointed to the central role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which he described as “the tip of the spear of the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism,” warning that removing a single figure would leave a hardened security apparatus intact — and potentially more dangerous.

That structure is backed by a military capability Venezuela never possessed: a resilient missile force that gives Iran credible options for retaliation if it believes the regime itself is under threat.

US RAID IN VENEZUELA SIGNALS DETERRENCE TO ADVERSARIES ON THREE FRONTS, EXPERTS SAY

“The retaliatory capability of the Islamic Republic is still fairly intact, which is their missile program,” Taleblu said.

During heavy Israeli strikes in the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, Iran’s missile force was degraded but not eliminated. While air defenses and launch infrastructure were damaged, Tehran, Iran, retains a significant inventory of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles and the ability to disperse and fire them from mobile launchers. 

Analysts say the conflict reinforced Iran’s reliance on missiles as its primary deterrent, even as it accepted that air defenses could be penetrated. During the war, Israel degraded Iran’s air defenses while the U.S. moved in to strike its nuclear facilities.

Iran’s armed forces also are far larger than Venezuela’s, with nearly 1 million active and reserve personnel compared with roughly 120,000 troops in Venezuela — a disparity that underscores the very different military environments U.S. planners would face.

Iran’s antagonism toward the United States is rooted in the ideology of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which cast opposition to Western influence — particularly the U.S. and Israel — as a core principle of the state. Venezuela’s clashes with Washington, by contrast, largely have been driven by political power, sanctions and control over oil revenues, rather than a revolutionary ideology aimed at opposing Western society itself.

In Venezuela, Trump administration officials framed the operation not as regime change, but as a limited action to advance U.S. interests — prosecuting Maduro on drug trafficking charges and securing leverage over the country’s oil sector. After Maduro’s capture, Trump allowed Vice President Delcy Rodríguez to assume power on an interim basis and expressed doubt that opposition leader María Machado had sufficient internal support to govern.

In Iran, by contrast, any military action would be interpreted as a direct challenge to the regime itself.

Unlike Venezuela, where the state apparatus remained intact after Maduro’s removal, targeting Iran’s leadership risks expanding the mission from a narrow strike into a broader campaign against the regime’s security forces.

“You could conduct an attack against the leadership, including the supreme leader, but that raises lots of questions about who comes next,” Seth Jones, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former Pentagon official, told Fox News Digital.

“Is it Khamenei’s son? Is it Sadegh Larijani? Is it Hassan Khameini?” Jones said, referring to figures often discussed as potential successors. “Or do you start to look at other options?”

That uncertainty, Jones said, is what turns a leadership-targeting strike into a far broader and riskier proposition.

TRUMP SIGNALS LONG ROAD AHEAD IN VENEZUELA IN HIS BOLDEST INTERVENTIONIST MOVE YET

“The more this starts to be not just the removal of a leader, but regime change, the more it becomes an expansive targeting problem,” Jones said.

Jones added that the core challenge for U.S. planners is not whether military force could be used, but what political objective it would serve.

“The big question then becomes what’s the objective — not just militarily, but what’s the political objective in Iran and how does that translate into what types of military resources you need?” he said.

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Such an expansion, Jones warned, would raise the risk of a prolonged and destabilizing conflict in a country of Iran’s size and complexity.

“The more you start looking at regime change and using military force for that, the more messy the situation in Iran could get,” Jones said. “It’s really hard to social engineer from the outside.”

Republicans, Democrats say no to US military strike against Iran as Trump mulls action: poll

Democrats and Republicans are united in opposing U.S. military strikes against Iran to retaliate for the killing of protesters amid a wave of massive demonstrations against the Iranian government in recent weeks, according to a new national poll.

Seventy percent of voters questioned in a new Quinnipiac University survey said they think the U.S. should not get involved militarily in Iran, with 18% saying the U.S. should take military action.

The vast majority of Independents (80%-11%) and Democrats (79%-7%), as well as a majority of Republicans (53%-35%) said the U.S. should not get involved if protesters in Iran are killed while demonstrating against the regime.

The poll, conducted Jan. 9–12, comes as President Donald Trump has turned up the heat on the regime in Tehran, threatening strikes on Iran if its forces continue to kill demonstrators.

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The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency announced Tuesday that nearly 2,000 people have been killed in the protests. Other reports say the death toll is over 3,000, with the real number likely to be even higher. 

The protests against Iran’s dire economic conditions, which have rapidly escalated in recent days, are seen as some of the most violent since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that installed the current system of clerical rule.

IRAN REGIME FACES ‘BEGINNING OF THE END’ AS EXILED CROWN PRINCE SEES ‘GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY’

Trump took to social media earlier this week, urging “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING — TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS.”

The president also said that “HELP IS ON ITS WAY,” and apparently pointing to Iranian authorities, he warned, “They will pay a big price.”

Pointing to the possibility of Iranian authorities executing some of the protesters, Trump said in a CBS News interview this week, “If they do such a thing, we will take very strong action.”

And the White House confirmed on Monday that Trump was weighing whether to bomb Iran in reaction to the crackdown.

But seven in 10 questioned in the poll said that, in general, a president should first receive congressional approval before deciding to take military action against another country.

SOME US MILITARY PERSONNEL TOLD TO LEAVE MIDDLE EAST BASES, US OFFICIAL CONFIRMS

“Talk of the U.S. military potentially intervening in Iran’s internal chaos gets a vigorous thumbs down, while voters signal congressional approval should be a backstop against military involvement in any foreign crisis,” Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said.

But there’s a partisan divide, with 95% of Democrats and 78% of Independents saying a president should first receive approval from Congress, but Republicans, by a 54%-35% margin, saying congressional approval is not needed.

Trump last June ordered U.S. military strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities as part of Operation Midnight Hammer, amid fighting between Tehran and Israel.

Voters are also divided on Trump’s move earlier this month to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and bring them to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges. Forty-seven percent supported the president’s decision, with 45% opposed.

And there was an expected partisan divide, with 85% of Republicans supporting the military action to capture Maduro, with 79% of Democrats opposed. Independents were divided.

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More than half of voters (57%) opposed the U.S. running Venezuela until Washington is satisfied that the government there will operate the way the U.S. wants it to. Nearly three-quarters (73%) said they opposed sending U.S. ground troops to Venezuela and 55% opposed the U.S. taking over the South American country’s oil sales.

“Voters are divided on the merits of overthrowing Maduro. And while split on whether in the long run the people of Venezuela will be better off, they strongly disapprove of America’s temporary domain over Venezuela and are heartily against putting U.S. troops on the ground,” Malloy noted.

Trump has also turned up the volume in his efforts to acquire Greenland from Denmark.

“The United States needs Greenland for the purpose of national security,” the president argued in a social media post Wednesday.

Trump’s push for the U.S. to acquire Greenland is causing tension with Denmark and other NATO allies who insist that the semiautonomous Danish territory should determine its own future. 

Trump officials are openly considering all options, including military force, to take Greenland, spurring bipartisan opposition from some in Congress.

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According to the poll, 86% of voters said they would oppose military action to take over Greenland. And by a 55%-37% margin, voters said they opposed trying to buy Greenland.

But there’s a stark political divide, with more than two-thirds of Republicans supporting efforts to buy or capture Greenland.

Senate GOP moves to block Dems’ war powers push, preserve Trump’s authority in rare move

Senate Republicans are mulling an arcane move that, if successful, would kill the bipartisan push to rein in President Donald Trump’s war authority in Venezuela.

The Senate is a chamber that lives and dies by procedure. It guides how bills are considered and how senators speak on the floor, and Republicans hope that a procedure once used by Senate Democrats will work in their favor to nullify Sen. Tim Kaine’s, D-Va., war powers resolution.

Republicans are considering making a point of order to table the resolution and argue that because there are no troops on the ground in Venezuela, nor active combat involving U.S. forces, Kaine’s bid is moot.

TRUMP RIPS INTO GOP DEFECTORS AS ‘REAL LOSERS’ AS SENATE READIES FOR FINAL VOTE

But whether Republicans can muster support to kill the resolution with the rare move remains to be seen. Five Senate Republicans broke ranks to advance the war powers push last week, and the point of order can pass or fail by a simple 50-vote majority.

When asked if the votes were there to effectively turn off the bipartisan push, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said, “Uncertain.”

Still, Thune made the case that the resolution was likely not germane and able to be turned off, because no actual fighting was happening in Venezuela.

TRUMP BLASTS GOP WAR POWERS DEFECTORS, SAYS THEY ‘SHOULD NEVER BE ELECTED TO OFFICE AGAIN’

“I think that it’s pretty clear, in my view at least, that there are no hostilities that exist today, which, as I’ve suggested before, to me at least means that shouldn’t be accorded privilege on the floor, that expedited consideration on the floor for something that doesn’t exist at the moment,” Thune said. “But nevertheless it’s all about the votes.”

Senate Democrats made the same argument successfully in 2024 against a war powers resolution from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. That push was geared toward ending U.S. involvement with the operation of a floating pier off the coast of Gaza.

Kaine’s resolution is more forward-looking, however, and if passed, would require that Congress have oversight authority over future military action in Venezuela. The Trump administration has reiterated that there are no boots on the ground in the country and made assurances to several Senate Republicans that no future military action is planned after the success of Operation Absolute Resolve.

RUBIO LAYS OUT THREE-PHASE PLAN FOR VENEZUELA AFTER MADURO: ‘NOT JUST WINGING IT’

Whether Republicans can actually kill the resolution before it ever reaches a final vote and possibly a lengthy marathon amendment process known as a “vote-a-rama,” will ultimately be a test of Senate GOP leadership’s and the White House’s lobbying abilities to flip the five Republicans who pushed back against Trump.

But Trump’s repeated attacks against the cohort of Republicans who sided with Senate Democrats could backfire and see the resolution pass.

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Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Todd Young, R-Indiana, Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., will all be under a microscope on Wednesday.

Collins reaffirmed on Tuesday that she was still in favor of the war powers resolution, and Paul, who is a co-sponsor of the legislation, is unlikely to budge.

A source told Fox News Digital that Hawley, however, flipped his position on the matter and would support the point of order after getting assurances from Trump officials that no boots would be on the ground in the country.

Golf legend Greg Norman praises Trump for US action in Venezuela: ‘I applaud it’

Legendary pro golfer Greg Norman on Wednesday praised President Donald Trump for the U.S. action in Venezuela that led to the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

Norman, the two-time British Open champion and former LIV Golf CEO, spoke to “Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocy in Florida and had glowing remarks about how the U.S. handled the situation in the South American country.

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“He’s true to his word,” Norman said. “And I said this during his first term, I’ve known quite a few presidents but he’s the first president I’ve spent time with that has true stars and stripes flowing through his blood.

“So, what he did in Venezuela, I applaud it. That timing, the execution of it just showed the pure strength and the might and the will of the United States to protect their hemisphere and they should protect their backyard.”

PRO GOLFER JHONATTAN VEGAS WEIGHS IN AFTER TRUMP ORDERS ‘LARGE SCALE STRIKE’ IN VENEZUELA

Trump announced on Jan. 3 that U.S. special forces conducted a “large-scale strike” against Caracas, and seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Both were taken to New York and appeared in a Manhattan federal court Jan. 5 on drug charges, where they each pleaded not guilty.

The raid came after months of pressure on Venezuela and more than two dozen strikes in Latin American waters against alleged drug traffickers as part of Trump’s effort to crack down on the influx of drugs into the U.S.

The Trump administration routinely stated that it did not recognize Maduro as a legitimate head of state and said he was the leader of a drug cartel. Likewise, Trump said in December 2025 he believed it would be “smart” for Maduro to step down.

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The Trump administration has justified seizing Maduro as a “law enforcement” operation, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said congressional approval wasn’t necessary since the operation didn’t amount to an “invasion.”

What the alleged ‘sonic weapon’ used in Venezuela may actually have been

Claims that a mysterious “sonic weapon” was used in Venezuela have fueled speculation about exotic U.S. military technology and its potential effects on the human body.

One eyewitness account from a Venezuelan guard, shared on social media by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, claimed the weapon brought Venezuelan and Cuban security forces to their knees, “bleeding through their nose” and vomiting blood. 

While the Trump administration has not confirmed what weapon, if any, may have been used, defense experts point to a well-known acoustic device that has been in use for years. 

US USED SONIC WEAPON ON VENEZUELAN TROOPS, REPORT SHARED BY LEAVITT CLAIMS

Known as a long-range acoustic device (LRAD), it’s been described as the “voice of God,” according to Mark Cancian, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and senior adviser for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The device deploys a directed, short-range “cone of sound.” 

“It’s not like a microphone, you know, where everybody’s neighborhood, it’s only within this cone,” said Cancian. 

U.S. operators may have deployed it as they were landing on the ground in Caracas, Venezuela, as a way to disorient security forces and warn them to drop their weapons.  

LRADs can project spoken commands at intense volumes or emit a loud, piercing tone designed to get attention and deter movement. At close range, the sound can be painful and disorienting, and in extreme cases can damage hearing or rupture eardrums, but the devices are not designed to cause lasting physical harm.

U.S. forces used them for crowd control in Iraq when Iraqis got too close to U.S. military installments, according to Cancian. 

The devices can reach up to 140 decibels of sound. The intensity drops quickly with distance and angle. This is why operators can stand nearby but outside the beam.

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Other defense analysts say the account raises questions that go beyond conventional acoustic devices.

For decades, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has studied nonlethal technologies intended to temporarily incapacitate adversaries without causing permanent injury. Publicly available research has explored acoustic and electromagnetic effects designed to overwhelm the senses, disrupt balance or motor control, and render targets briefly unable to fight or maneuver.

Can Kasapoglu, a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute, said such research has fueled speculation about more advanced incapacitation systems, but stressed there is no public evidence any experimental DARPA technology was used in Venezuela. 

“There are some non-lethal technologies that DARPA has been working on, including acoustic weapon systems, sound waves, and also some neurological weapon systems that do not kill, but cause an unbearable sensation that you feel that you simply become inoperable in the battlefield,” he said. 

While the symptoms described in the post shared by Leavitt are unverified, “they align closely with examples of DARPA research.”

The White House and Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

In addition to the reported sound offense, the U.S. launched a cyberattack that knocked out communications systems as operators were landing in Caracas, Venezuela. 

“It was dark, the lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have, it was dark, and it was deadly,” Trump previously said. 

“We were on guard, but suddenly all our radar systems shut down without any explanation,” the local guard said in the account shared by Leavitt. “The next thing we saw were drones, a lot of drones, flying over our positions. We didn’t know how to react.”

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Once operators were on the ground, “At one point, they launched something; I don’t know how to describe it,” he said. “It was like a very intense sound wave. Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside.”

The effects were extreme, according to the guard. 

“We all started bleeding from the nose,” he said. “Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move. We couldn’t even stand up after that sonic weapon — or whatever it was.”

The physical effects described by the guard go well beyond what experts say LRADs are known to cause. 

Vomiting blood, in particular, is not a typical reaction to acoustic exposure, raising questions about whether the account exaggerates the effects, misattributes their cause, or reflects a different factor entirely.

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Experts caution that while directional acoustic devices are real and widely used, there is no publicly known “sonic weapon” capable of producing the extreme injuries described — and no official confirmation that any such system was used in Venezuela.

Venezuela’s interior minister Diosdado Cabello said 100 people were killed in the Maduro operation. Cuba has said 32 members of its security forces, which were guarding Maduro, were killed in the operation. 

Seven U.S. service members were injured in the operation, but none were killed.

Dem senators ripped for reversing Venezuela stance after Trump captured Maduro: ‘Politics at its worst’

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., has been criticized over her shifting stance on Venezuela and its fallen president Nicolás Maduro after she supported military action to take out Maduro and “delegitimizing” the Venezuelan government in 2019, but condemned the Trump administration for trying “to ‘run’ another country.”

In 2019, when running for president, Klobuchar advocated for using the military to remove Maduro and help establish a democracy in Venezuela, saying, “I’m also glad that we’re trying to push Maduro out. But the answer here is to make sure that we are working with our allies, pushing for democracy and some kind of a negotiated agreement. Military should always be on the table.”

Meanwhile, on another occasion in 2019, Klobuchar again endorsed American involvement in bringing democracy to Venezuela, saying she, “of course supported bringing in the new president and delegitimizing the Maduro government,” and “You always leave things on the table,” when asked about U.S. intervention.

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“Democrats like Klobuchar and Schumer spent years demanding the removal of dictator Nicolás Maduro. Now that President Trump has actually done it, they suddenly oppose the outcome. The Democratic Party has entered the terminal phase of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” said Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn. 

“Washington politics at its worst, says one thing to her pals in the media but turns her back on our brave military after they put their lives on the line,” added “Ruthless” podcast host John Ashbrook. 

“It’s sad but not surprising that a committed ideologue like Amy Klobuchar is unable to give credit where credit is due for President Trump’s removal of Nicolás Maduro. The socialist regime of Venezuela drove one of the most energy-rich countries in the world into ruin, his citizens into poverty and served as a Western Hemisphere stalking horse for China, Iran, Russia and others who wish us harm,” said longtime Republican strategist Colin Reed. “Not only do Venezuelans have a renewed sense of hope, but America is stronger on the world stage. Global politics used to stop at the water’s edge, but for Amy Klobuchar, partisan politics is priority one.”

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The White House has called out a lengthy list of other high-profile Senate Democrats besides Klobuchar for allegedly once demanding Maduro’s capture but now “mourn[ing] his capture.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was among those slammed by the White House for going from blasting Trump for failing to dislodge a “more powerful” and “more entrenched” Maduro to calling Trump’s Maduro arrest “reckless” and stoking fear about consequences. 

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., according to Trump, went from pledging sustained support to help Venezuelans rebuild what has been lost under Maduro to criticizing Trump’s unilateral use of military force and warning about intervention. 

Chris Van Hollen is described by the White House as moving from urging the U.S. to “ratchet up the pressure” for a negotiated transition to labeling any move to replace Maduro an “illegal act of war.”

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Fox News Digital reached out to Klobuchar for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.