Happening now. The administration is currently holding its first congressional briefing since President Donald Trump’s weekend campaign to topple the leader of Venezuela.
We have more on that below, with a full readout in our AM edition. But as of now, confusion reigns on Capitol Hill about the scope of U.S. involvement in running the country.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters he’s “hoping to find out more” on what Trump meant when he said the United States would be running Venezuela. Thune and other top lawmakers are set to get a classified briefing from senior administration officials this evening.
While Democrats are upset that Congress wasn’t given a heads up or a chance to weigh in ahead of time, Thune said it was “sufficient” that he and other top Hill leaders were notified after the fact. Thune cited the “scope of the mission” and the “hyper-sensitive” nature of it.
Democrats questioned how far Trump’s operations could spread after the president raised the prospect of taking action against Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran (again), Mexico and even Greenland.
“What the hell does Donald Trump mean when he says the United States intends to run Venezuela?” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor. “Are we now going to put troops on the ground? How many? Where? And how much will it cost? How long will this go on?”
But it’s not just Trump who has his sights trained on Cuba and Iran following Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s capture.
“You can’t have Cuban troops running around in the hemisphere,” Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said in a Monday interview with Florida’s Voice News. “You can’t have Iranian involvement, and Hezbollah and other terrorist groups right here, right here, next to the United States, sending drugs, sending cartel members, sending gang members and literally just threatening our national security.”
The first briefing. The lawmakers invited to this evening’s Venezuela briefing include the “Gang of Eight,” the bipartisan group of party leaders from both chambers and top members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees, as well as the top lawmakers on the House and Senate Armed Services, Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs panels.
Briefers include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine.
The bipartisan leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee — Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) — issued an unusual statement blasting the administration for excluding their committee from the briefing, saying there is no “legitimate basis” to do so, and the administration’s refusal to acknowledge its “indisputable jurisdiction in this matter is unacceptable.”
Schumer said an all-senators briefing is “being organized” for later in the week, and we hear it’s expected to happen Wednesday. It’s unclear which officials from the Trump administration would address lawmakers. An all-House briefing is scheduled for later this week.
Meanwhile, lawmakers plan to force a vote on a bipartisan war powers resolution in the coming days, Schumer said. The New York Democrat didn’t say when the measure would be brought to the floor. The language would direct the removal of U.S. forces from activities “within or against Venezuela” that Congress hasn’t authorized.
Hours before heading to the Hill, Hegseth said during a speech in Newport News, Va., that “nearly 200 of our greatest Americans” made up the ground force in the Venezuelan operation. Army special operations personnel from Delta Force and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment were at the frontlines of the weekend extraction.
But the push also involved the Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Air National Guard, Caine said Saturday, operating more than 150 aircraft ranging from bombers and fighter jets to drones.
