Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s former Democratic counterparts in the Senate are furiously criticizing the Trump administration official after the recent attack on Venezuela and the seizure of Nicolas Maduro.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland accused Rubio of having had a “full MAGA-lobotomy” and failing to follow legal obligations to consult with Congress before the administration launched its Venezuela operation.
“He essentially does what Donald Trump wants him to do,” Van Hollen told NOTUS. “He has a little bit of the Dear Leader syndrome.”
“We’re in a constitutional crisis, in my opinion,” Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey added in an interview with the outlet. “And it’s something that Marco, when he was in the Senate, wouldn’t have stood for.”
The Independent has contacted the State Department for comment.
Rubio has defended the legality of the attack.
“This was not an action that required congressional approval,” he told NBC News. “In fact, it couldn’t require congressional approval because this was not an invasion. This is not an extended military operation.”
Rubio, who also serves as national security advisor, is under a massive spotlight because of the Venezuela operation.
As a U.S. Senator representing Florida and its large Latin American diaspora populations, Rubio was a vocal proponent of regime change in leftist governments like Venezuela and Cuba, and he is now charged with running large parts of the Venezuela campaign after the U.S. removed Maduro from power.
Politically, at least, this may be a boon for Rubio, who saw his hypothetical 2028 presidential election campaign odds increase after the Venezuela attack.
The administration has offered shifting explanations of whether this will involve daily control of Venezuela’s government, or merely outside pressure for the country to open its oil reserves to the U.S., a key priority.
Large elements of the Maduro regime remain in power, and President Trump has downplayed the chance that opposition leader Maria Corina Machado will step in instead.
The White House has said it circumvented consulting Congress to avoid leaks, but that hasn’t stopped critics from calling the entire Venezuela campaign — from the U.S. declaring Venezuelan drug traffickers to be in an armed conflict with America, to strikes on alleged drug boats, to the eventual Venezuela attack — as an illegal and unpermitted U.S. military power grab.
“This is clearly a blatant, illegal and criminal act,” Jimmy Gurule, a Notre Dame Law School professor and former assistant U.S. attorney, told The Associated Press on Monday.
Republicans in Congress have defended the president.
"We are not at war. We do not have U.S. armed forces in Venezuela, and we are not occupying that country," House Speaker Mike Johnson said after administration officials briefed lawmakers on Monday. "The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war — that is true — but it also vests the president of the United States with vast authorities as commander in chief."
Democrats in Congress have previously criticized Rubio for his role in the dismantling of USAID, the aid agency that was once the world’s largest donor of international food assistance, much of it going to the world’s poorest people, before the agency was folded into the State Department as part of the administration’s DOGE funding cuts campaign.
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