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It’s as predictable as the Cleveland Browns sitting at home watching the NFL playoffs from afar in January: President Donald Trump does something bold and what should be hailed by Republicans and Democrats alike, but instead, only half are pleased with the result.
In this case, former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, an alleged narco-terrorist and illegitimate president with an outstanding criminal grand jury indictment coming up on six years old, was rightly snatched by U.S. Delta Force commandos out of his high security compound in Caracas. One day later, he was being arraigned in a New York District Court for alleged crimes, including narco-terrorism and cocaine importation conspiracy.
Estimates may vary, but as many as 100,000 Americans are killed each year from illegal drugs, including fentanyl and cocaine, entering the country from countries such as Venezuela. Context: If multiplying that number from the past 10 years alone, we’re talking more American deaths than those lost in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, 9/11, and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.
But the Left is NOT happy with Trump’s masterstroke here and has been patently hypocritical in the process. Here’s Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) leading the charge on the hypocrisy front:
Chris Murphy, 2019: “If Trump cared about consistency, he would make the realist case for intervention in Venezuela (getting rid of Maduro is good for the United States) rather than trying to pretend his Administration all of the sudden cares about toppling anti-democratic regimes.”
Chris Murphy, 2026, post-Maduro arrest: “The invasion of Venezuela has nothing to do with American security. Venezuela is not a security threat to the U.S.”
Murphy made the latter completely contradictory comment to CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday. And for whatever reason, Bash declined to bring up Murphy’s 2019 comments to ask him a simple question: “What changed between then and now?”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), not long before the 2024 presidential election: “This is a deeply concerning development for Venezuelans and for the entire region, since instability abroad impacts us here at home, too.”
Kaine, 2026: “President Trump’s unauthorized military attack on Venezuela to arrest Maduro … is a sickening return to a day when the United States asserted the right to dominate the internal political affairs of all nations in the Western Hemisphere.”
In this case, a journalist did her job after Fox News White House Correspondent Jacqui Heinrich asked Kaine the following: “If Democrats cared so much about process, why didn’t they do anything to bring Maduro to justice when they were in charge, given that the guy has been under indictment since 2020?”
Good question. Kaine eventually responded after some Kamala-esque word salad to say that “the Constitution does not give the president the right to initiate military action.”
Actually, it totally does, per legal scholars like Fox’s Jonathan Turley: “Presidents are allowed to use military forces without such a declaration,” Turley wrote on X. “[President] Obama not only killed an American citizen not charged with any crime but attacked Libya’s capital and attacked its military to cause a regime change without consulting with Congress.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who never disappoints in these situations, also has a wonderful compare and contrast example for the ages:
Schumer, 2020: “The president brags about his Venezuela policy. Give us a break. He hasn’t brought an end to the Maduro regime. The Maduro regime is more powerful today and more entrenched today than it was when the president began.”
Schumer, 2026: “This is reckless. And the American people are just, this morning, in fear of what’s going to happen here.”
There are no words.
How about Sen. Elizabeth Warren‘s (D-MA) words back when she was running for president in 2019?
Warren, 2019: “Maduro is a dictator and a crook who has wrecked his country’s economy, dismantled its democratic institutions, and profited while his people suffer. The United States should lead the international community in addressing Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis and supporting regional efforts to negotiate a political transition.”
Warren, 2026: “What does it mean that the U.S. will ‘run’ Venezuela, and what will Trump do next around the world? The American people voted for lower costs, not for Trump’s dangerous military adventurism overseas that won’t make the American people safer.”
Yes, the same person who was the staunchest advocate for the Inflation Reduction Act has the hubris to talk about lower costs for the American people. And what exactly happened to addressing Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis? Or was that the kind of empty rhetoric we’ve come to expect from our so-called leaders?
Secretary of State Marco Rubio laid this out perfectly in a press conference held after Maduro’s capture:
“I think people need to understand that this is not a president that just talks and does letters and press conferences,” Rubio told reporters on Sunday. “And if he says he’s serious about something, he means it. And this is something that was a direct threat to the national interest of the United States.”
Precisely. Just ask the Iranians or the Houthis if Trump is an all-talk-and-no-action kind of guy.
“The democratic world must stand up for the rule of law in Venezuela and oppose Maduro’s assault on the electoral process and free speech. The right-wing attack on democratic institutions anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere.”
“Trump is not only violating our Constitution, but he is shredding the rules-based international order created after World War II, whose essential building block is the political sovereignty and territorial integrity of each nation.”
So, when Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) called on the “democratic world” to “stand up for the rule of law,” did that not include actually enforcing the law, as Trump did in bringing in the man that then-President Joe Biden (or whoever was running the country) had placed a $25 million bounty on? As for the “international order” Raskin speaks of, military extractions like this have occurred numerous times since World War II, no matter who was in charge of the executive branch.
President George H.W. Bush did seek congressional authorization before invading Panama to capture narco-terrorist Manuel Noriega in 1989.
President Bill Clinton did not seek congressional authorization before launching U.S. air assaults that lasted nearly three months in Yugoslavia to stop ethnic cleansing.
President Barack Obama did not seek congressional approval before killing Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, nor did he seek the same approval when droning and killing an American citizen abroad, along with more than 100 innocent civilians.
Trump did not seek congressional authority before taking out Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, who the U.S. military said was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. service members during the Iraq War.
Now, is it important for Congress to provide oversight if a president seeks to go to war? Of course. But what happened in Venezuela was not a war. There were zero casualties on the U.S. side. Our military, much like the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, had a mission, accomplished that mission, and got the hell out. Venezuela has seen no uprising since. Instead, there have been celebrations at home and here in the U.S. by those who escaped the horrors of the Maduro regime.
But Democrats keep swinging at every bad pitch. In this case, even the mayor of our nation’s largest city called Trump to voice his disdain over the capture of his fellow socialist Maduro.
“I called the president and spoke with him directly to register my opposition to this act and to make clear that it was an opposition based on being opposed to a pursuit of regime change, to the violation of federal international law, and a desire to see that be consistent each and every day,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Saturday.
Yeah, about that “international law” thing … it basically doesn’t exist. Because a law isn’t a law if it cannot be clearly defined or if there is no actual enforcement behind it.
As for Trump’s public standing on this, according to a Washington Post poll released this week, 50% of Americans support a drug trafficking trial of Maduro, while just 14% oppose and 36% are somehow “unsure.”
Trump takes action. He removes a murderous dictator from power who was a national security threat to the health and safety of Americans.
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All Democrats not named John Fetterman oppose. They vow to fight Trump on this, even with several threatening to impeach him over the Venezuela mission if they take power again in Congress.
All sizzle, no steak. The Cleveland Browns of political parties. And the American people appear to be finally seeing them for who they are, all while an election year is underway.