President Trump details US raid that captured Maduro in Venezuela
At a press conference, President Donald Trump detailed the U.S. military operation that detained President Nicolas Maduro and his wife overnight in Caracas.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) slammed President Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela and the ouster of its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, calling it a significant departure from his “America First” campaign promise.
Greene, who had a public falling out with Trump earlier this year, criticized the military action as going against Trump’s pledge during the 2024 presidential campaign to end U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts.
Greene said she does not support Maduro’s leadership and is “happy” with the Venezuelan people, but expressed doubts that Maduro’s detention was connected to narcoterrorism or drug leaks, as Trump has suggested.
Greene argued on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that if President Trump were interested in drug trafficking, he would focus on other organizations, such as Mexican cartels.
“This is the same Washington strategy that we’re tired of, and it’s not for the American people, it’s actually for big business, banks, oil executives,” Greene said on “Meet the Press.” “My understanding of America First is for the American people.”
Earlier this year, Greene announced plans to resign from Congress following a feud with Trump over the release of documents about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and an airstrike on a Venezuelan fishing boat that Trump claimed was carrying drugs. She will serve her final term on January 5th.
But her comments reflect a growing divide within Congress, including some Republicans, over the president’s actions in Venezuela.
Venezuelan oil interests
At a press conference, President Trump defended the attack as part of his America First policy and insisted that he wanted to protect Venezuela’s oil interests.
“We want to be surrounded by good neighbors. We want to be surrounded by stability. We want to be surrounded by energy,” President Trump told reporters. “There’s a huge amount of energy in that country, and it’s very important to protect it. We need it for ourselves and for the world.”
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves of any country in the world. But the reserves have been almost completely off-limits to American oil giants since Venezuela transferred them to state-owned companies in the mid-1970s. Chevron is the only American oil company allowed to operate in Venezuela.
President Trump has suggested that Maduro’s detention would open up Venezuela’s reserves to major U.S. oil and gas companies.
“We’re going to rebuild our oil infrastructure, and it’s going to cost billions of dollars,” Trump said. He said the costs would be “paid directly by the oil companies” but “will be reimbursed.”
Greene, Democrats and disgruntled Republicans have questioned the president’s motives and expressed concerns about the extent to which a U.S. president can order military action without authorization from Congress.
“We don’t think of Venezuela as a neighborhood. Our neighborhood is not in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s right in the 50 United States,” Trump said in response to President Trump’s comments on “Meet the Press.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has had previous feuds with Trump, similarly questioned the president’s decision to take over Venezuela.
“It’s a 25-page indictment, but it doesn’t mention fentanyl or stolen oil,” Massey wrote in a post on X, referring to the Justice Department’s indictment of Maduro.
Other Republicans have staunchly defended President Trump’s military operations as pro-American.
“President Trump has put American lives first, succeeded where other countries have failed, and under his leadership, America will no longer allow criminal regimes to profit from wreaking havoc and destruction on our country,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said in a statement on the X-Post.
The feud between President Trump and MTG
Greene, who was preparing to soon leave Congress, spoke on January 4 about her months-long feud with Trump, a former close ally, who called her a “pervert” and a “traitor.”
She claimed the president began lashing out at her after she began demanding the Justice Department release federal files on Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier accused of trafficking hundreds of underage girls.
The Justice Department began releasing thousands of pages of files in late December.
“My demands for transparency should never have led to the president I helped elect, and whom I supported more than almost every Republican in Washington, to call me a traitor. That is absolutely unacceptable,” Greene said on January 4.
