Trump launches illegal war with Venezuela
Here's what we know and how people are responding
Welcome to a Saturday edition of Progress Report.
Americans woke up to a new war this morning, an illegal regime change operation in Venezuela that Donald Trump is currently trying to justify on television. Here’s what we know so far and how opposition politicians are responding.
The United States bombed Caracas and kidnapped Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro early Saturday morning, according to President Donald Trump, the US’s most direct military intervention in the region in nearly four decades.
The operation follows months of military strikes, oil tanker hijackings, and increasingly belligerent threats from the FIFA Peace Prize winner, whose administration has made Venezuela a central focus of its aggressive immigration, energy, and military policies.
It’s a lot to process, so here’s what we know so far, lies from the Trump administration notwithstanding.
Why?! Now what?!
It’s hard to say why, exactly, because the administration has shaped its Venezuela policy like a dung beetle, rolling up strands of shit from all directions. All the worst people have been involved, pitching their pet issues as post-facto justifications for Donald Trump’s desired crackdown on Venezuela, which he needed to assert in order to please old school anti-communist lawmakers in his coalition.
Ultimately, you’ll hear the White House cite fraud elections, fentanyl trafficking, “narco terrorists,” immigration, and a legion of other reasons why they had to stage this attack and whatever else is to come. They’ll all be bullshit, especially the whole drug trafficking element, considering Trump’s recent pardon of former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison just last year for his role in flooding the United States with cocaine.
The Hernandez pardon, which came just a few weeks before this mission was authorized, provides a perfect rejoinder to JD Vance’s justification:
I suspect that Vance knows deep down that it’s hard to argue that foreign leaders can’t avoid justice for drug trafficking in the United States when his boss just pardoned a foreign leader for drug trafficking in the United States, but the vice president surrendered the last of his dignity when he decided to run for Senate in 2021.
That’s not the only lie that the administration has been trying out today. Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who had the audacity to ask a question about the strikes early this morning, later tweeted that Marco Rubio told him that “this action likely falls within the president’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect U.S. personnel from an actual or imminent attack.”
(Does an illegal attack against a sovereign country become retroactively legal because it’s technically possible for the sovereign country to defend itself?)
Lee added that Rubio told him that there’s unlikely to be any additional US action in Venezuela, a lie that Trump already blew up during his fireside with Fox News. Embarrassing.
Ironically, if there’s official source you can trust, it’s Trump himself, but only when he goes off-script and talks about his autocratic regime change ambition.
“We can't take a chance of letting someone run it and just take over where he left off,” Trump told his pals on Fox News, who he called ahead of an 11 am speech because he lives to be interviewed on television. “We'll be involved in it very much."
Trump also said that he wants to launch a military invasion of Mexico, admitting that he asked ultra-popular Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum whether she’d be copacetic with American troops storming her country.
"The cartels are running Mexico. She's not running Mexico. We could be politically correct and be nice and say, 'Oh, yes, she is.' No no. She's very frightened of the cartels,” he told Fox News. “They're running Mexico. And I've asked her number times, 'Would you like us to take out the cartels?' ... something is gonna have to be done with Mexico.”
Legality really isn’t much of a concern for the Trump administration, domestically or internationally. Remember, the White House has been unilaterally murdering people on boats in the Caribbean for months now, and even conservatives have been unhappy about it.
Is there an opposition party response?
Like everything else with this Democratic Party, there was a wide range of responses, from decent to utterly, contemptibly weak and pathetic.
Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Iraq war veteran, offered the best and bluntest response:
Then, to underscore his credentials to “bootlickers” like perennial rival Kari Lake, Gallego added this:
And here’s a strong statement by Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who has provided strong leadership in opposition to Trump’s power grabs and illegal operations, especially with regard to Latin America:
Points also go to NJ Sen. Andy Kim, who did not equivocate or try to impress cable media or the DC national security establishment.
Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth looked every Senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change. I didn’t trust them then and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress. 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.
This strike doesn’t represent strength. It’s not sound foreign policy. it puts Americans at risk in Venezuela and the region, and it sends a horrible and disturbing signal to other powerful leaders across the globe that targeting a head of state is an acceptable policy for the U.S. government.
Other Democrats immediately shifted into the party’s failed neoconservative posture, morally justifying an illegal war while wringing their hands over technicalities that neither the media nor voters will ever pick up on or care about. Here’s a pitiful and contemptible statement by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz:
“The capture of the brutal, illegitimate ruler of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, who oppressed Venezuela's people is welcome news for my friends and neighbors who fled his violent, lawless, and disastrous rule. However, cutting off the head of a snake is fruitless if it just regrows. Venezuelans deserve the promise of democracy and the rule of law, not a state of endless violence and spiraling disorder. My hope is it offers a passage to true democracy and liberation. This action offers beleaguered Venezuelans a chance to seat their true, democratically elected president, Edmundo González. I’ll demand answers as to why Congress and the American people were bypassed in this effort. The absence of congressional involvement prior to this action risks the continuation of the illegitimate Venezuelan regime.”
Democratic Rep. Jim Himes offered a similar response, leaning into questions of oversight and following the proper process for launching illegal wars. And here’s how Trump, expectedly, brushed it off:
Trump brushed off concerns about the legality of the U.S. operation in Venezuela. When asked about criticism from Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, the president said Democrats were “weak, stupid people.”
“They should say great job,” he said in an interview on Fox News. “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.”
We need regime change in the Democratic Party, and I’m hopeful that the leadership shown by these young senators, and not the lame House centrists, is indicative of what’s to come.
What are Venezuelans experiencing?
This is the most critical and under-asked question at the moment.
Reporting indicates a mix of emotions in Venezuela, where people are uncertain and scared but also hopeful for liberation after years under autocratic leaders. Any optimism is marked by extreme caution, however, because as bad as things have been in Venezuela, it’s not as if people there can count on the international community to initiate a Marshall Project to rebuild and institute a stable, long-lasting democracy.
"I went out to check on my business because I was afraid of looting, but the street is deserted,” a mechanic and workshop owner in oil hub Maracaibo told Reuters while waiting on a long line for food. “I wanted to fill up my gas tank, but the service stations are already closed, so I took the opportunity to buy food because we don't know what’s coming. Honestly, I have a mix of fear and joy."
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And another point: Trump has gone around the bend: He is drunk on his own power (so is little Peter H, by the way).
That's when very serious mistakes start to accumulate very rapidly in the life of a Dictator.
It's a kind of drunkenness, because just like folks who are addicted to alcohol, "One glass is too much and 10 glasses still are not enough".
Are you all aware of how many countries our Felon has attacked, just in 2025?
SEVEN!
Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, Iran, Iraq Syria, and now, Venezuela.
SEVEN...in one year!
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/31/how-many-countries-has-trump-bombed-in-2025
Those are physical attacks. but many more have been threatened:
Canada, the Panama Canal, the Gaza strip, Greenland, and now, he just stated that he US would administer Venezuela... at least for a while...
He's gone daft. The guy is certifiable, ready for the rubber room and the straightjacket!!
trump is an international criminal and should be treated as such. If he had any sympathies for Venezuela or an interest in seeing a regime change, he would hand over the country to Edmund Gonzalez Urrutia, the winner of the last election there before Maduro refused to accept the results, and then back off and leave the newly elected President to handle his country. trump will do nothing of the sort, being the lying authoritarian putin wannabe that he is.
We absolutely must win the majorities in both houses of Congress in 2026 and make sure the winners take their place in power. trump will do everything he can not to give up his criminal spree. We can't let him get away with this illegal behavior. He must be brought down and removed from power.