Trump’s removal of Maduro prompts questions from Congress

As news spread Saturday of President Donald Trump‘s removal of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a split screen emerged in Congress: Republicans largely celebrated the military operation, while Democrats condemned the president’s actions and questioned their legality.

After months of pressure on Maduro, Trump announced on Truth Social that the U.S. had assisted in a “large scale strike” against the country and its leader, who was captured along with his wife, Cilia Flores, and is being brought to the U.S.

“Trump rejected our Constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the Administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject risks pulling our nation into another war,” Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., said in a post to X on Saturday.

The Constitution grants Congress primary authority to declare war. The War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 in response to the Vietnam War, limits the president’s ability to take military action unilaterally and requires the president to consult with Congress when troops are deployed.

But lawmakers said the president did not seek approval and did not brief Congress on his plans.

Trump is expected to meet with House Republicans on Tuesday at the Kennedy Center, MS NOW reported, citing two sources. Trump will reportedly make an appearance at the gathering and it is unclear how long he will stay, MS Now reported.

The lawmakers had already been scheduled to meet at the center for a policy forum to discuss the agenda for the second half of the 119th Congress, according to an invitation obtained by MS NOW.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in a statement, called the decision to take military action in Venezuela without congressional authorization “reckless.”

“The administration has assured me three separate times that it was not pursuing regime change or taking military action in Venezuela. Clearly, they are not being straight with Americans,” Schumer said.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told MSNOW that he had “no briefing or heads up. I received all information from the news media at this point.”

And Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was among those who cheered the capture of Maduro, but said Congress had not been given any forewarning.

“And that’s probably one reason why it didn’t leak over these four days,” Cotton said, in an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Saturday. “Congress isn’t notified when the FBI is going to arrest a drug trafficker or cyber criminal here in the United States. Nor should Congress be notified when the executive branch is executing arrests on indicted persons.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Saturday said in a post on X that Maduro and his wife have been indicted in the Southern District of New York.

They have been charged with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of weapons and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices against the U.S., according to Bondi’s post.

Trump seemed to shrug off concerns about the constitutionality of the attack during a call-in to “Fox & Friends.”

“The Democrats, maybe they’ll take a shot… all they do is complain,” Trump said. “They should say, ‘great job.’ They shouldn’t say, ‘Oh gee, maybe it’s not constitutional.’ You know, the same old stuff that we’ve been hearing for years and years and years.”

The president also said that the attack originally had been planned for earlier in the week but was rescheduled due to weather. No U.S. soldiers were killed in the operation, he said.

During a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said members of Congress were called immediately after the mission, which he said was “largely a law enforcement function.” Notifying members ahead of the action could have jeopardized the mission, he said.

“This was not the kind of mission that you can do congressional notification on. It was a trigger-based mission… it’s just simply not the kind of mission you can call people and say, ‘Hey, we may do this at some point in the next 15 days,” Rubio said.

“Congress has a tendency to leak. This would not be good. If they leaked… I think it would have been maybe a very different result,” Trump said at the press conference.

“Congress will leak, and we don’t want leakers,” he continued.

The Trump administration has ramped up pressure on the Venezuelan government in recent months, alleging that Maduro is the head of a narco-terror organization. He recently ordered a complete blockade on sanctioned oil tankers moving in and out of the country and has been targeting alleged Venezuelan drug boats.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a statement that he had…