House Republican Blasts Trump’s Venezuela Sabre-Rattling: ‘This is About Oil and Regime Change’

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) pulled no punches on Wednesday in opposing President Donald Trump’s saber-rattling about ousting Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. Massie took to the House floor and called for Trump to seek Congressional approval before taking direct military action against Venezuela, which some in the media have predicted Trump may announce in prime time Wednesday night.

“Mr. Speaker, James Madison warned us that in no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature and not the executive. Madison called it the crown jewel of Congress. The framers understood a simple truth: to the extent that war-making power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves. If the president believes military action against Venezuela is justified and needed, he should make the case, and Congress should vote before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America,” Massie began, adding:

Let’s be honest about likely outcomes. Do we truly believe that Nicolás Maduro will be replaced by a modern-day George Washington? How did that work out in Cuba or Syria? Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs—weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. Now it’s the same playbook, except we’re told that drugs are the WMDs. If it were about drugs, we’d bomb Mexico, or China, or Colombia, and the president would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández. This is about oil and regime change.

Trump took questions from reporters around the same time as Massie made his floor speech and spoke about his goals in Venezuela, “Yeah, getting land, oil rights, whatever we had—they took it away because we had a president that maybe wasn’t watching. But they’re not going to do that. We want it back. They took our oil rights with a lot of oil there. As you know, they threw our companies out, and we want it back.”

Massie continued to promote his non-interventionist worldview, adding, “And when it comes to regime change, we’ve already been down this road with Venezuela with nothing to show for it. In 2019, we recognized Juan Guaidó. We seized their embassy here in D.C. We were told that regime change was imminent. Years later, Maduro remains in power. Today, we’re told to place our hopes in other exiled figures: Edmundo González and María Corina Machado. I wish them well, I do.” He continued:

But Congress should not express moral sympathy in the form of a blank check for military escalation and American lives.

And let’s take a moment to acknowledge the contradiction at the heart of this policy. This administration tells us that the Maduro regime is made up of narco-terrorists, and by escalating toward war, we would predictably create countless refugees. At the same time, this administration has moved to end Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and deport them back to the very regime it condemns. So which is it? Are we prepared to receive swarms of the 25 million Venezuelans who will likely become refugees and billions in American treasure that will be used to destroy and inevitably rebuild that nation? Do we want a miniature Afghanistan in the Western Hemisphere?

If that cost is acceptable to this Congress, then we should vote on it as a voice of the people and in accordance with our Constitution. And yet today, we are not even voting on whether to declare war or authorize the use of military force. All we’re voting on is a War Powers Resolution that strengthens the fabric of our Republic by reasserting the plain and simple language in the Constitution that Congress must decide questions of war. I urge support for this resolution, and I yield back.

Watch the full clip above.