Schumer criticizes Trump Venezuela military operation after Maduro arrest

Almost six years in the past, Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., gave a speech on the Senate flooring decrying President Donald Trump’s 2020 State of the Union remarks, which included ripping the president as a result of Venezuelan dictatorial President Nicolás Maduro was nonetheless in energy.

Quick ahead to the US arrest of Maduro on sweeping narcotics expenses beneath the second Trump administration. Now Schumer is accusing the Trump administration of probably unleashing an “limitless battle” in Venezuela with the removing of Maduro from energy.

“Maybe his finest metaphor was his declare to carry democracy to Venezuela. There is a huge coverage there. It flopped,” Schumer mentioned in February 2020, only a day after Trump delivered his State of the Union handle through which he praised Maduro’s dictatorship can be “destroyed and damaged.”

“The president brags about his Venezuela insurance policies? Give us a break. He did not finish the Maduro regime,” Schumer continued. “The Maduro regime at this time is extra highly effective and entrenched than when the president began his anti-Maduro marketing campaign. Identical with North Korea, identical with China, identical with Russia. Identical with Syria.”

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Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer criticized the Trump administration’s assault on Venezuela and arrest of dictatorial President Nicolas Maduro, January 3, 2026. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Picture)

Trump invited Venezuelan opposition chief Juan Guaidó to Washington DC to attend his State of the Union handle, figuring out him as Venezuela’s “professional” chief whereas Maduro remained in energy. Guaidó declared himself interim president after Venezuela’s opposition-led Nationwide Meeting mentioned Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate.

“The US is main a diplomatic coalition of 59 international locations towards Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro,” Trump mentioned in his speech earlier than noting Guaidó’s presence on the joint session of Congress. “Maduro is an illegitimate ruler, a tyrant who treats his folks cruelly. However Maduro’s maintain on tyranny can be shattered and damaged.”

Schumer mentioned in his Senate speech the subsequent day that Guaidó’s presence on the State of the Union was proof that Trump’s overseas coverage was ineffective, in any other case the opposition chief would have been within the president’s palace and never in DC.

Trump confirmed a profitable US navy operation in Venezuela on Saturday morning that led to the arrest of Maduro and his spouse, who had been rapidly transported to the US to face prison trial in New York. The Venezuelan dictator was charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine weapons and harmful gadgets, and conspiracy to own machine weapons and harmful gadgets.

Nicolás Maduro and different officers within the regime had been indicted in 2020 beneath the primary Trump administration for allegedly working an enormous narco-terrorism and drug trafficking conspiracy. (Pedro Rances Mattey/Anadolu by way of Getty Pictures)

Maduro, in addition to different officers within the regime, had been indicted in 2020 beneath the primary Trump administration for allegedly working an enormous narco-terrorism and drug trafficking conspiracy. Maduro denied the costs and was not arrested to face trial. His 2026 indictment expanded on the 2020 indictment.

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Maduro and his spouse Cilia Flores reported to courtroom for the primary time on Monday.

Information of the operation unfold like wildfire all over the world on Saturday, as many Democratic lawmakers took challenge with the administration finishing up the strike and detention with out first notifying Congress. Schumer was amongst distinguished Democrats who expressed outrage over the operation, saying it opened the doorways to an “limitless battle.”

“Maduro is a horrible, horrible particular person, however you do not deal with lawlessness with different lawlessness, and that is what occurred right here,” Schumer informed “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. “There is no authority… they did not simply take ships off the water. They went into Venezuela, bombed each civilian and navy websites, and it is a violation of the legislation to do what they did with out congressional approval.”

President Donald Trump speaks at his Mar-a-Lago membership, Saturday, January 3, 2026, in Palm Seashore, Florida. (Alex Brandon/The Related Press)

“The American individuals are afraid this may create an limitless battle,” he added. “What Donald Trump campaigned towards repeatedly was now not limitless wars. And proper now we’re headed straight for battle, with no obstacles, no dialogue.”

Fox Information Digital reached out to Schumer’s workplace and the White Home about Schumer’s feedback in 2020 however didn’t instantly obtain responses.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut additionally criticized the Trump administration in 2019 for not intervening in Venezuela, when Guaidó declared himself interim president and protests broke out within the nation’s streets.

“If Trump cared about consistency, he would make a sensible case for intervention in Venezuela (eliminating Maduro is sweet for the USA) as an alternative of making an attempt to fake that his administration is immediately involved about toppling anti-democratic regimes,” Murphy wrote on X on the time. “Lastly, do not get me flawed: I assist a US overseas coverage that values ​​democracy. I feel we might be higher off if we pursued political reform wherever we do enterprise or have pursuits, and never simply the place the man who controls the oil does not like us.”

Murphy mentioned throughout an look on CNN on Sunday that “there are evil, ruthless dictators everywhere in the world. That does not give the American president the best to invade these international locations, largely as a result of we have seen how this script performs out.”

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Trump and his administration have celebrated the seize as a hit, noting that no U.S. navy personnel or tools was misplaced through the operation, whereas defending criticism from Democrats. Secretary of State Marco Rubio took half in Sunday morning information reveals and was questioned in regards to the operation, together with why Congress was not notified previous to its launch.

“This was not an motion that required congressional approval,” Rubio informed NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’ “In actual fact, it could not have required congressional approval as a result of this wasn’t an invasion. This isn’t an in depth navy operation. It is a very exact operation that took a couple of hours of motion. It was additionally a really delicate operation. It was an operation that required all these circumstances to occur on the proper time and in the best place.”

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Rubio added that officers couldn’t threat a congressional leak as a result of such info “might have compromised the mission and killed folks, or killed the mission within the non-obligatory.”