[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Democrats are demanding answers from the Trump administration, saying top officials lied to them about ousting Nicolas Maduro and questioning whether the president violated the Constitution by attacking Venezuela without congressional approval. Here with me now is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Thank you so much for being here. Certainly. What is your reaction to this operation?

[00:00:23] Speaker 2: Well, I mean, clearly this is wildly illegal. This is a president who has been operating illegally since he was sworn into office, stealing from the American people, seizing spending power.

[00:00:33] Speaker 1: What's illegal?

[00:00:34] Speaker 2: Now dragging America into a war overseas. The president cannot run a military operation of this size, cannot invade a foreign country without coming to Congress first, without allowing the American public to weigh in. America doesn't want this war. Nobody asked for this because it has nothing to do with American national security. And I think that's the most important conversation. Listen, Venezuela is not a security threat to the United States. They're not threatening to invade us. There is no terrorist group like Al-Qaeda operating there that has plans to attack the United States. To the extent that you care about the drug trade, yes, they produce drugs, but those drugs go to Europe. Fentanyl is the drug that's killing Americans. That's not coming from Venezuela. Venezuela produces cocaine. Ninety percent of it is not coming to the United States. This seems to be mostly about oil. And now, what is the United States doing? From the past, the United States has been doing so much to oil and natural resources. Donald Trump's entire foreign policy is corrupt. Russia, the Middle East, and now Venezuela, is all about making money for his friends. And Wall Street, the oil industry, they can make a lot of money off of Venezuela if they run it. You saw within hours of the invasion the announcement of a group of Wall Street investors, energy industry investors, planning a trip to Venezuela to make money off of this invasion, off of this ouster. Once again, you're seeing that this president's foreign policy, the invasion of Venezuela, the ouster of Maduro, is about making his crowd filthy rich. It has nothing to do with American national security.

[00:02:07] Speaker 1: Can I just go back to the legality and the point that you made about needing to come to Congress first? You know that for decades Congress has let Democratic and Republican presidents sort of go for it on military actions. I mean, look at President Obama in Libya. And so it's not new that Congress has become, frankly, impotent on issues and matters of war.

[00:02:31] Speaker 2: That's absolutely true. And Congress needs to own its own role in allowing a presidency to become this lawless. The fact of the matter is that the president's justification makes no sense here. He says that this was just a law enforcement operation. Well, there are people with warrants all over the world. That doesn't give. That doesn't give the president of the United States the power to launch a billion-dollar invasion of those countries to bring a fugitive to justice. Yes, Congress should have stepped in and either authorized or prohibited President Obama's actions in Libya. Yes, the United States Congress has sat on the sidelines to allow presidents to become more and more powerful in foreign policy. But that doesn't mean that it suddenly gives an imprimatur of legality to. This massive invasion of a foreign country that the American public didn't ask for.

[00:03:27] Speaker 1: You know, there are, there's no question that Maduro was a destabilizing force, not just in Venezuela, in the region. And there are people celebrating in the streets all over South America and Venezuelan expats abroad. So is it fair to say that there is some benefit in Maduro not being in power?

[00:03:49] Speaker 2: But what changes? I mean, you just heard Senator Cotton. Effectively. Not be able to explain who's running the country. Now, Delcy Rodriguez is a very powerful figure in her own right. Handpicked by Maduro. Russia and China still provide enormous support to that country. What changes? Why would Venezuela stop its export of drugs, its harassment of U.S. interests in the region? There's really no explanation for how American interests are changed at all with a. Rodriguez. Administration that right now seems to be intent on carrying through and carrying forward the policies of Nicolas Maduro.

[00:04:30] Speaker 1: In 2019, you wrote an op-ed and you called for Maduro to be gone. You said, let's get one thing straight. There should no longer be any debate about Maduro's lack of democratic legitimacy. The Trump administration is right to put restoring Venezuelan democracy at the center of our approach to this crisis. A return to a stable democracy is in the interest of the Venezuelan people. And the United States and the hemisphere. We don't know what's going to happen with regard to the civilian leadership there. Tom Cotton, which is here, saying that he hopes that there are democratic elections. Isn't that what you want?

[00:05:07] Speaker 2: Well, the rest of that article was a criticism of President Trump's early moves to saber rattle around regime change. Listen, there are evil, brutal dictators all over the world. That does not give the American president the right to invade those countries, in large part because we have seen how this script plays out. I watched your interview with Senator Cotton. You asked him what the difference was between Iraq and Venezuela. He didn't say the difference was we aren't going to invade Venezuela like we invaded Iraq. He said that if we invade Venezuela, which may be part of the president's plan, it's going to go really well. Over and over again, we have seen these war monsters. We have seen these conquering neocons, many of which have influence in this White House, cheerlead us into war under the guise of removing a very bad man. That ends up getting a lot of Americans killed. And if this is really just about the oil, if this is really just about the natural resources, if this is just about getting a bunch of Donald Trump's friends on Wall Street even richer, I don't think there's a single American family who would support having their son or daughter put into harm's way to defend themselves. I don't think there's a single American family who would support having their son or daughter put into harm's way to defend themselves. This is once again American oil interests, American financial interests coming before the actual national security interests of the United States.

[00:06:33] Speaker 1: I do want to ask about a briefing that the Secretary of State and Defense held with senators. You were there last month about Venezuela. Can you talk about what they said and whether or not that actually bore out?

[00:06:51] Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I can certainly tell you the message that they sent was that this wasn't about regime change. I mean, they came to Congress and they literally lied to our face. They said this is just a counter-narcotics operation. This is about trying to interrupt the drug flow to the United States. Right around that same time, the White House chief of staff said publicly, if we ever had boots on the ground in Venezuela, of course we would have to come to Congress. Listen, there's no way to trust this administration. They aren't being straight with the American people. There isn't even a briefing scheduled for Congress next week to explain, A, what happened, and, B, what the plan is moving forward. But, yes, I mean, I think everybody in that briefing heard the administration say this is just a targeted counter-narcotics operation. This has nothing to do with regime change. They knew they weren't telling the truth in that room.

[00:07:41] Speaker 1: Senator Chris Murphy, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it. Happy New Year.

[00:07:45] Speaker 2: You too.