Democrats ridiculed the Trump administration’s plans for the future of Venezuela after leaving an all-senators briefing on the Hill hosted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday.
Questions about that future remained largely unanswered early this week after the president returned from spending the holiday season in Mar-a-Lago and Rubio, one of his top deputies, spent Sunday on the interview circuit attempting to explain it. In several interviews, Rubio was noncommittal over who the administration views as Venezuela’s legitimate ruler or the timeframe in which the U.S. expects elections to be held.
The president’s statements about the U.S. directly “running” Venezuela also continue to loom over the conversation. Trump hasn’t ruled out further armed action in the country, including American troops on the ground.
The lawmakers who departed the hearing were largely split along party lines when asked about the administration’s direction of a raid on Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, on Saturday, which resulted in the capture of Nicolas Maduro. Republicans backed the White House while Democrats said that the administration offered no credible path forward for the country.
“This is an insane plan. They’re talking about stealing Venezuelan oil at gunpoint for an undefined period of time to micromanage an entire country,” claimed Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, as he spoke with reporters after Wednesday’s briefing. “The scope and insanity of this is absolutely stunning.”
On Thursday, the chamber will vote on a War Powers resolution aimed at blocking the president from conducting further strikes within Venezuela’s borders without congressional approval. The resolution will require a simple majority to pass, meaning that four Republicans will need to cross party lines even if every Democrat supports Kaine’s measure. Two Republicans, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul, voted for a similar resolution last year before the Caracas strike took place. As of yet, other Republican senators haven’t indicated they will break ranks on the Venezuela resolution.
Murphy, who was far from the only Democrat to pan the presentation put on by Rubio and Hegseth, added in a video posted to X: “They are essentially asking you, the American public, to use your taxpayer dollars, to run the country of Venezuela.”
“It threatens to repeat all the mistakes we made in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Murphy. “America is nation-building again.”
The resolution’s sponsor, Sen. Tim Kaine, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were less direct in their criticism as they gaggled separately with reporters after the briefing. Standing just feet away from Rubio and Hegseth, the two argued that the details about the administration’s plans needed to be presented to the public and judged in an open setting.
Schumer spent 2025 under fire from his party’s left flank for insufficiently, in their view, leveraging the minority party’s power in the Senate. On Wednesday, he accused the administration of relying on “unreliable”, corrupt people who “hate America” to manage the aftermath of Maduro’s downfall in Venezuela, without elaborating further. He embraced Rubio at the news conference, however, and the two chatted as old colleagues from the Senate while Kaine spoke.
Both Schumer and Kaine argued that Congress needed to hold public hearings on the matter and that the administration needed to make clear if it was planning military strikes on targets in Colombia, Mexico, or even Greenland.
“We’ve got to get this conversation out of [classified settings] and into the public before it’s too late,” Kaine warned.
Rubio rejected the criticism from the administration’s opponents as he stepped up to the mics.
“They’re gonna say that. I used to be a senator too. That's what you always say when it's the other party,” he said dismissively. “We’ve gone into great detail with them about the planning, we’ve described it to them.”
The secretary went on to say that some of those plans were already in motion, including the enforcement of sanctions around Venezuela’s oil.
One Democrat, John Fetterman, has already come out publicly in support of Saturday’s raid.
Fetterman remains opposed to the president’s rhetoric, seen by the U.S.’s allies as warmongering over the issue of Greenland. It came back into focus this week as the president reiterated that the U.S., in his view, needs to acquire the island, including its strategic Arctic territory, in the near future.
Over several days, he and his top aides, including press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Stephen Miller, repeated the stunning assertion that military action against a U.S. ally, Denmark, remained on the table as a method the Trump administration could employ to further its territorial ambitions.
He wrote in a post to X on Wednesday: “I believe Greenland has massive strategic benefits for the United States. I do not support taking it by force. America is not a bully.”
The Independent has reached out to the Pennsylvania senator’s office to inquire about whether he will support a War Powers resolution introduced this week by Sen. Ruben Gallego to prevent the White House from using the military to seize the island.
Trump proposes massive increase in 2027 defense spending to $1.5T, citing 'dangerous times'
Rubio to meet with Danish officials over Greenland amid military action threats
Trump on collision course with Putin after US seizes Russian-flagged oil tanker
Minneapolis mayor goes on profanity filled anti-ICE tirade after agent shoots woman
Karoline Leavitt defends Trump Jan 6 website after question from MAGA journalist
Minneapolis ICE shooting live updates: Woman killed in confrontation is identified
