[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 3 (Tuesday, January 6, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S56-S61]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
VENEZUELA
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the invasion of
Venezuela that the U.S. military carried out last weekend, which will
be the subject of a War Powers Resolution vote on Thursday morning.
The news that President Trump had ordered an invasion of Venezuela on
Saturday to capture Nicolas Maduro was a shock but not a surprise.
Beginning with unauthorized military strikes against unknown persons on
boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific starting in early September
and continuing through the massing of U.S. military assets in the
region over the past several months, the likelihood of this happening
one day has been obvious to most observers.
In November, I forced a vote on a privileged and bipartisan War
Powers Resolution to explicitly prohibit the use of the U.S. military
to strike Venezuela without congressional approval. The administration,
in my view, has not provided any clear rationale for the military
pressure campaign, much less any legal rationale or request for
congressional authorization for military action against this sovereign
nation.
At that point, all Democrats supported my resolution, and two
Republicans did so as well. But there were insufficient votes to pass
it.
Many of my colleagues who voted against the resolution at that time
told me that they did so because they viewed that President Trump was
bluffing, and so they voted no for that reason.
In the aftermath of the invasion with the administration claiming it
has the right to seize Venezuelan oil and ``run Venezuela'' under the
supervision of the U.S. Secretaries of Defense and State, and with the
President threatening to put boots on the ground and even conduct
additional strikes to control the country, we can now agree this was no
bluff.
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After the administration actions over the weekend, which resulted in
several injuries to U.S. servicemembers, and we are praying for them
and their families for their recovery, Congress needs to tell the
American public where it stands. And so on Thursday morning, I will,
again, ask my colleagues to vote on a resolution specifying that we
shouldn't wage military action within or against Venezuela unless
Congress votes to authorize it.
We will have to vote later this week, and there will be a floor block
of an hour tomorrow where a number of Senators are scheduled to speak
briefly. But I wanted, for personal reasons, to speak at some length
tonight about why this is such an important vote for the Senate, for
the United States, and for the world.
Speaking as the lead Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee's
Western Hemisphere Panel, before the Presiding Officer, who is the
chairman of that panel, I know far too well the despotic nature of the
Maduro rule in Venezuela, following a similarly despotic rule by Hugo
Chavez. I have condemned the Maduro rule for years. I have visited the
Venezuelan border in Cocuta, Colombia, and interviewed people exiting
the country, from children to senior citizens leaving behind everything
they have known because of this despotism.
And together with all of my colleagues in the Senate, I have
advocated forcefully for a democratic transition for the electoral
malfeasance of the last election where Maduro claimed victory when that
was clearly not the case, and I have supported the Nobel Prize winner
Maria Corina Machado's efforts, with others, to bring democracy to
Venezuela.
So this discussion, this invasion, this vote is not about whether
Maduro is a bad guy. He is. But here is the thing: I also speak as a
member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as a military dad, and
as a former missionary in Latin America. The use or misuse of American
troops is very personal to me, and the role that the United States
plays in Latin America has been a lifelong field of both study and
lived experience.
Mr. President, I know you served as a missionary in Taiwan.
I was a 21-year-old first-year student at Harvard Law School when I
decided I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and that I
needed to take a year away from my studies to figure it out. So I wrote
a letter to Jesuit missionaries working in Honduras that had a
connection to the high school I attended in Kansas City, and I offered
to take a year off school and come volunteer with them.
That is how I found myself in El Progreso, Honduras, in the intense
heat in early September of 1980, more than 45 years ago. And during
that academic year, I ran a small technical school, teaching teenage
boys carpentry and welding. I was a Harvard Law student, but that meant
nothing there. But being the son of an ironworker who ran a welding
shop, now that was a vocation that the Jesuit missionaries could put to
use during my time in Honduras.
I will say that year, from September of 1980 until, essentially, May
1981, was the pivotal year in my life. It put me on a path to serve
others. As a civil rights lawyer in Richmond, VA--the capital of the
Confederacy--for 18 years and as an elected official for 30 years and
counting that year in Honduras, that formation year, that fortified my
Catholic faith. It forged my fluency in Spanish. It taught me so many
lessons about myself, my country, and the circumstances under which so
many people live around this world in settings far less comfortable
than what I had been used to growing up. I have drawn on those lessons
from that time in Honduras every day for the last 45 years.
The families and students that I worked with showed me how to live
with grace under the most challenging conditions. And the Jesuit
missionaries--Brother Jaime, Father Patricio, Father Ramon, and
others--showed me how serving other people is the path to happiness. I
can never repay--never repay--the good they did for me, both my
students and their families and these missionaries. But my life has
been an attempt to do so ever since.
Now, the lessons of my time in Honduras were not all pleasant. When I
was there, Honduras was a military dictatorship, and it was also one of
the poorest countries in the Americas, second poorest next to Haiti.
People prayed--prayed--for the day when they might have the ability to
choose their own leaders, and they also hoped that they might have a
future with a path out of the grinding poverty that surrounded them.
But I learned, as a naive 21-year-old, much to my sorrow, of the many
instances in which misery throughout the region was spread by actions--
sometimes unintentional but sometimes intentional--of the United
States.
When I was in Honduras, the military dictatorship there suppressed
political opposition and dissent, and it was supported by the United
States in doing so. A long history of U.S. intervention in Honduras to
protect the interests of two American fruit companies has left a legacy
of corruption and underdevelopment whose consequences are still felt
today, 45 years later.
Toward the end of my year in Honduras, the United States began
secretly funding a band of rebels in the southern part of the country
to wage destabilizing military action against the Government of
neighboring Nicaragua, which had been ruled for decades by the U.S.-
backed Somoza family dictatorship until it was overthrown in 1979.
Another neighbor just dozens of miles away, maybe 50 miles away--El
Salvador--was in the midst of a devastating civil war in which a
rightwing government used U.S.-trained military and security personnel
to murder civilians, including Catholic bishop Oscar Romero, a few
months before I arrived, and four American missionaries--Maura Clarke,
Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, and Jean Donovan--a few months after I
arrived. The civil war in El Salvador led to more than 65,000 civilian
deaths.
Yet another neighbor not that far away, Guatemala, had a similar
longstanding civil war sadly initiated after the United States
engineered the overthrow of a popularly elected government in 1954.
That war lasted for nearly 40 years, with as many as 200,000 deaths and
nearly a million refugees chased from their homes by the civil war.
The Presiding Officer can think about his time as a young person as a
missionary, and he can imagine. This was shocking to me. I had just
gone to Honduras to teach carpentry and welding, but the conflicts I
described were at my doorstep, with refugees from violence in
neighboring countries flooding into Honduras and the murders of
bishops, priests, and nuns spreading fear among the Catholic
missionaries whom I worked with. And I was confronted with this very
painful question: Why was the United States--my country, a nation that
I loved--backing military dictatorships and death squads and the
plotting of the overthrows of democratically elected governments at the
expense of poor people who were just struggling so hard to feed their
families?
I came home from that experience a changed person--fortified in my
faith life, energized to serve others with my life, but also deeply
concerned about the role that the United States was playing in Latin
America. This part of our history--the part that I have given, the
Reader's Digest version here in the last few minutes--isn't taught a
lot at home because we have some reason to be ashamed of it, but it is
remembered very clearly and very well throughout Latin America. They
view a U.S. military invasion of a sovereign nation today to seize its
oil as a sinister repeat of decades, generations, and even centuries of
a painful past.
The Trump administration released a National Security Strategy in
early December--barely more than a month ago--and it announced a clear
plan for the Americas. I am going to quote from it:
After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and
enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence
in the Western Hemisphere and to protect our homeland and our
access to key geographies throughout the region.
The strategy prioritizes the Western Hemisphere first among all
regions of the world, and I am going to get to a complement of that
toward the end of my comments.
But let's talk about the Monroe Doctrine because that is not so well-
known, and when the President and his
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team say that we want to reassert the Monroe Doctrine, it is really
important to discuss what that is.
The Monroe Doctrine goes all the way back to the 1820s. In that
doctrine, Virginian President James Monroe and his Secretary of State
John Quincy Adams, declared the Americas were now off-limits to
European colonization or interference. Remember, most nations in the
Americas had had a prehistory after their indigenous history of
European colonization. So the Monroe Doctrine was like, you know, a
``No Trespassing'' sign or a ``Do Not Disturb'' sign, where America
said the Americas would now be off-limits to European colonization or
interference.
While it was a foreign policy doctrine about the Americas, it wasn't
fundamentally about building good relationships with nations in the
Americas. Rather, it was about keeping Europe away. Initially, Latin
American nations appreciated it. They appreciated the United States
clearly stating that European colonizers could no longer have free rein
to continue the past practices that had used the Americas as a region
for plunder or slavery. But over the years, after the initial
declaration in the 1820s, Latin American leaders also came to see that
the Monroe Doctrine had evolved to being more about American dominance
than American partnership.
In the early 1900s, President Teddy Roosevelt expanded the doctrine
to also assert the right of the United States to intervene in the
domestic politics of all nations in the region. It was called the
Roosevelt Corollary, and it declared that economic challenges in
Venezuela threatened the nation's economy--the economy of Venezuela--
thereby increasing the likelihood of its default on international
debts.
How ironic that Venezuela thus became the first use of the Monroe
Doctrine to justify U.S. intervention into another nation's domestic
affairs rather than just, as it had been previously, a defensive
doctrine to ward off European interference. The people of Venezuela
know this history very, very well even if Americans have largely
forgotten it. The reinterpretation of the Monroe Doctrine to now allow
the U.S. intervention led to escalating U.S. military intervention in
the region. Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, and the
Dominican Republic all were affected in the first half of the 20th
century. During World War II, the United States invoked the Monroe
Doctrine to occupy Greenland once Germany occupied Denmark.
In more recent years, under the Monroe Doctrine and its corollaries,
President Eisenhower authorized U.S. assistance for the overthrow of a
democratically elected Government in Guatemala and for a coup against
the Government of Brazil. President Kennedy, as we know, authorized a
U.S.-backed invasion of Cuba. President Johnson authorized U.S. troops
to invade the Dominican Republic. President Nixon authorized U.S.
support to assist the toppling of the democratically elected Government
of Chile. President Reagan secretly funded the Contra war against
Nicaragua and also authorized an invasion of Grenada, and the first
President Bush authorized the invasion of Panama.
You will notice that I mention both Democratic and Republican
Presidents. The Monroe Doctrine was not the fault of one party or the
other. It was an attitude of the United States that stretched for
nearly 200 years that we had the right to interfere with and dominate
the politics of nations in our region.
The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a few decades of relative
calm in the relations of the United States and its neighbors, and we
turned our attention to the Global War on Terror. But now, after many
years when the phrase ``Monroe Doctrine,'' I am sure, was not even
mentioned once on the floor of the U.S. Senate, President Trump now
pledges to revitalize the doctrine of American dominance in the
hemisphere and go even further.
In his own words, ``[T]he Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we've
superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Donroe
Doctrine.''
Now, I am not sure which marketing department came up with the name
``Donroe Doctrine.'' It sounds sort of comical, but it is anything but
humorous to Latin American nations whose history books are filled with
example after example of the United States using our military to
interfere in their domestic politics.
And that brings us to President Trump's invasion of Venezuela to
arrest and depose its de facto leader and seize its oil.
Again, Nicolas Maduro was an incompetent and barbaric dictator who
stole the last election just less than 2 years ago, which he clearly
lost by every internal and international count, and he has presided
over the economic collapse of a nation that was recently one of the
most prosperous countries in the entire region, but multiple things can
be true.
It is also true that President Trump's haphazard initiation of a
unilateral war against the country of Venezuela is, in my view, a
mistake of historic proportions that will make our country and our
region and our world less secure. I view this invasion in the same way
that many warned about the U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam or in
the initiation of the war in Iraq in terms of the potential negative
consequences that it will likely deliver.
I hope to convince my colleagues, whether they believe the war is a
good or a bad idea, to at least stand up and support the constitutional
requirement that the United States shouldn't be waging a war without a
vote of Congress.
I assert that the military action against Venezuela is illegal, is
confusing in its true motives, is harmful to U.S. interests in the
region, is a dangerous precedent if when followed by our adversaries is
unnecessarily and suspiciously secret, is a frightening return to
forever wars, is unpopular, and, finally, is profoundly disrespectful
to U.S. troops.
First, the war is illegal. As I have argued on the floor of this body
since I came here in 2013 and as I have asserted face-to-face with
Presidents of both parties, only Congress can declare war or, in the
modern phrase contained in the 1973 War Powers Resolution, ``authorize
the use of military force in hostilities.'' That legislation was passed
in response to the abuses of President Nixon both initiating war
without notice to Congress, and it builds off one of the clearest parts
of the Constitution: Congress and only Congress initiates war, and once
initiated, the President and only the President as Commander in Chief
is charged with the duty to execute the declared war.
The text of the Constitution is so clear. The Constitution has some
phrases that are superclear: that you have got to be 35 years old to be
President. Then there are other phrases that are a little vague. What
is ``due process of law''? What is ``cruel and unusual punishment''? So
you can put the phrases of the Constitution on a spectrum between
extremely clear and somewhat ambiguous to be determined under the
standards of the time.
When it comes to warmaking, the Founders of this Nation were very,
very clear, and the meaning of the Constitution is not just in the text
of that document. It was additionally clarified by the notes taken
during the debate at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, by
the Federalist Papers that were written by those involved in drafting
the Constitution, and in correspondence between the Founders who were
there which described what they were trying to accomplish. Congress
declares war. The President executes upon that declaration.
Now, the Presiding Officer knows that the narrow exception has
already been understood. The President as Commander in Chief has the
power and the duty to defend the Nation for ongoing or imminent attack
without asking for prior congressional approval, but any war that is
offensive in nature or that would be sustained beyond that initial
point of self-defense needs congressional authorization.
This administration has advanced no credible legal basis, under
either American or international law, to invade Venezuela, to depose
its leadership, to seize its oil, to run its country. There is a legal
analysis issued by the administration to justify military strikes
against boats in international waters. The administration has been
unwilling--in a very rare instance--has been unwilling to share that
rationale publicly. And I know why because I have read it. It is
laughably weak, and the administration knows this.
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As evidence of the administration's own insecurity about its own
legal rationale, in October, the U.S. military carried out a strike
against a submersible in international waters, and there were two
survivors. The U.S. having slaughtered struggling survivors in
September made a different decision in October to rescue the two
survivors.
Well, they were narcotraffickers, so we would bring them to court,
right? No. After rescuing survivors, the U.S. military returned these
alleged narcotraffickers to their own countries for release rather than
prosecuting them. Why? Because the U.S. understood that the flimsy
legal rationale allowing targeting these individuals would not stand up
if scrutinized in an American court.
While I am not at liberty to share the many weaknesses of the
classified legal opinion, it does not violate any rule of
classification to say what is not in the opinion--what is not in that
40-page legal document. There is nothing whatsoever about the legal
rationale in that document that would allow for military action against
the sovereign nation of Venezuela or any sovereign nation.
Now, the assertion of the administration that this is not military
action but merely a law enforcement operation doesn't pass the smell
test, and it doesn't pass the laugh test. The coordinated military
mission--massing of ships and aircraft, deployment of forces on land,
dropping of bombs, and seizures of a country's main political leader--
is the very definition of hostilities.
The Saturday operation alone involved more than 150 aircraft--
fighters, bombers, surveillance platforms, drones, refueling tankers--
launched from at least 20 air bases across the Western Hemisphere. The
killing of untold Venezuelan civilian and military personnel--the
number is 80 and climbing by the U.S. Armed Forces--is hostilities.
American troops were wounded in this invasion. That is the essence of
hostilities.
Deep concerns about the legality of this military operation are
widespread not only in this Chamber, but in the Pentagon, where leaders
have been forced into retirement for raising questions about the
legality of these actions among the American public and among American
allies, some of whom have stopped sharing intelligence with the United
States in these operations because they do not believe they are lawful.
Unless and until the invasion of Venezuela and the ongoing operation to
seize its oil and run its government are authorized by Congress, it is
illegal.
Second, the reason for this war is deeply confusing to the American
public because of the mixed messages sent by the administration. If you
listen to Secretary Rubio, it is about countering narcotrafficking. If
you listen to other officials, it is about changing the Venezuelan
regime. If you listen to President Trump, it is about seizing oil or
carrying out a ``Donroe Doctrine'' that allows the U.S. military to
smash and grab anything we want anywhere in the hemisphere.
Why can't the administration get its story straight? We know
narcotrafficking is a horrible scourge responsible for massive deaths
in the United States and elsewhere, but President Trump has shown, as I
have earlier discussed on the floor of the Senate, by the pardons of
narcotraffickers Ross Ulbricht and Juan Orlando Hernandez, that he
cares little about narcotrafficking.
The charges handed down against Nicolas Maduro--if you read the
charging document--are eerily similar--eerily similar--to the same
charges that were successfully prosecuted beginning in Donald Trump's
first term when the case initiated against Honduran former President
Hernandez, using his position as a head of state to manage a massive
operation smuggling narcotics into the United States. But President
Trump recently pardoned Hernandez in a shocking move. That proves that
fighting narcotrafficking is not the goal here.
The likely goal is President Trump's desire to seize control of
Venezuela's oil reserves. That explains his admission that while he
chose not to notify Congress of the invasion in advance, he did
disclose his war intent to his friends at American oil and gas
companies. This is a war for plunder to benefit campaign contributors,
and that explains why the President did not want to seek congressional
authorization for this invasion and occupation.
As the father of a marine, what American parent wants to send their
son or daughter to war risking injury and death to seize the oil of
another nation on behalf of billionaire oil companies?
Third, this attack endangers American influence in the region by
pushing nations away from the United States and toward China. We have
seen in recent years, in the Foreign Relations Committee and others,
how China has ramped up investments in the Americas. They have taken
advantage of our focus in the Middle East to expand their influence in
our neighborhood.
Many of the Chinese investments are hollow--even predatory--and as I
have dialogued with heads of state throughout the Americas, one thing
they often say to me is: We would rather deal with you guys than China,
but they are offering help, and you are usually nowhere to be found.
But faced with the choice between a Chinese offer of partnership of
some doubtfulness and an American ``Donroe Doctrine'' that asserts
dominance, no self-respecting sovereign nation will knuckle under and
agree to be subservient. The United States has slashed USAID and other
humanitarian and civil society programming in the region. We have
imposed massive tariffs that hurt the American economy but also hurt
the economies of our American neighbors.
And now, after slashing humanitarian programs and after imposing
tariffs, we assert the right to invade at will to seize the assets of
sovereign nations in the Americas. We will find ourselves--if we pursue
this path--with less and less influence in the region closest to our
shores, and our chief adversary is likely to grow stronger.
As evidence of this, the Chinese Government put out a Latin America
strategy document just last month, focusing on how American overreach
and dominance is opening up opportunities for China in the Americas.
This invasion plays right into China's hands.
Another downside of the attack is this: Increased chaos and
instability always leads to more migration. Attacking Venezuela and, as
President Trump has suggested, other nations in the region is likely to
lead to even more desperate people crossing borders to immigrate,
including to the United States. This has happened throughout history
and will only continue and accelerate if the United States continues to
carry out these military operations.
Fourth, the invasion of Venezuela by American troops to topple its
leadership and seize its oil sets a dangerous precedent in the world
that will be used by power-hungry dictators who are adversaries of the
United States. If the U.S. can invade Venezuela, what is wrong with
Russia invading Ukraine? What is wrong with China invading Taiwan? If
the U.S. gets to dominate the Western Hemisphere, what is wrong with
Iran trying to dominate Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen? If we can
interfere to destabilize Venezuela's leadership, is it acceptable for
foreign nations to interfere without consequence in American domestic
politics?
The entire international legal order that the U.S. has led in the
construction since World War II has been based on respect for the
sovereignty of nations and the objection of those who would violate
that principle. That respect has worked wonders for the U.S. economy
and our national security, and it has also helped advance our interests
across the world. The United States--as I have indicated--we have not
been perfect in upholding the principle--and others certainly haven't
either--but the principle is worth upholding.
The U.S. plays a leadership role for good or bad by our actions.
There is no nation whose leadership example is as closely watched and
followed as the U.S. example. The invasion of Venezuela under these
circumstances has given a green light to more invasions by others in a
way that is bad for the world and will harm U.S. interests as well.
Fifth, the invasion of Venezuela and the boat strikes preceding it
have been suspiciously secret, with critical details shielded by public
scrutiny by either Congress or the American public. The first boat
strike occurred on September 2. So we are now more than 4
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months into this operation, close to 200 people have been killed in
dozens of strikes on open waters and the Venezuelan invasion.
American troops have been injured. The administration has removed the
head of state, intends to seize its oil assets, proclaim that we will
run Venezuela for an indeterminate future, weighed in on who should and
shouldn't be entrusted with leading the Venezuelan Government. And yet
there has not been a single public hearing--not been a single public
hearing--in the House or Senate about this major military campaign.
This is shocking. The administration has only been willing to offer
limited information on occasion to Members in classified settings. It
has offered next to nothing to the American people.
Because I can review material in classified settings, I know that the
legal rationale for the boat strikes is deeply inadequate and flawed.
But I can't fully explain why, even to Virginians whose kids are
deployed in this military operation, because the rationale is only
available to a limited number of Members in a classified setting.
I have had sessions in the SCIF about the targeting criteria for who
gets bombed in international waters. And I would say that those
criteria contain at least one critical flaw that I believe would be
shocking to the American public, but I can't describe it because I only
know about it from review of classified material.
The United States, at the President's say-so, has declared war
against a number of groups. I can't say what the number is, and I can't
say who the groups are because that has never been made public and it
has only been made available in classified settings.
That is pretty important because, when the U.S. declares war publicly
against an enemy, those connected to ISIS or al-Qaida are on notice
that if they act with those groups, the U.S. has put a military target
on them.
But if we declare war against a secret list of organizations whose
identity can only be known by a tiny handful of people who have
privileges to visit a classified facility in the U.S. Capitol, then
many people are carrying out activities in their lives without
knowing--without any knowledge--that the U.S. has put a target on them
and rendered them eligible for attack.
The Presiding Officer may have seen this as well. I have seen the
video of America striking shipwrecked sailors on September 2, who
didn't even know that President Trump had placed them on a secret list
to be targeted. But I can't fully describe it because the
administration, while proudly and immediately displaying the video of
the first strike on that boat, the strike that destroyed their ship,
chose to hide the fact of that second strike and hide the video of the
murder of those two shipwrecked sailors, even from Congress, and from
the American public for nearly 2 months and continues to hide that
shocking evidence from public scrutiny, which raises the question: If
the administration believes this cause is so righteous, is so legal, is
so necessary, is so in the national interest, what is it afraid of?
Put the facts before Congress and the American public in a public
setting where they can be subjected to the questions that should
precede U.S. involvement in a military campaign of this kind.
And if my colleagues in this body believe these actions are
justified, well, what are they afraid of? Why haven't the Armed
Services or Foreign Relations or Intelligence committees in either
House, under the Republican leadership of those committees, called for
even a single public hearing on this important matter?
They have been repeatedly asked to do so. They have been repeatedly
urged to do so and have, thus far, resisted.
But America and Americans shouldn't tolerate a war waged in the dark
in which oil executives get better notice of our military actions than
Members of Congress or everyday Americans.
Sixth, the invasion of Venezuela represents a dangerous slide to the
kind of forever wars, or permanent war footing, that this President
specifically campaigned against. In the first year of his second term
in office, President Trump has carried out unilateral and unauthorized
military hostilities against or within Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, and
boats in international waters.
And the Venezuela invasion comes with a pledge to occupy the country,
seize its oil, for some indeterminate future. But that is not all. The
President has also strongly suggested the possibility of using the
American military against other nations: Cuba, Mexico, Colombia,
Panama, Greenland, and our NATO ally Denmark. Where does this end? If
this President, or any President, can wage war on multiple continents
in secret and without congressional notice, consultation, debate, or
vote, we will have transformed the United States from the world's chief
diplomat--an important position that we achieved when President Teddy
Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering the end of the Russo-
Japanese War.
Since that time, the United States has been viewed as the chief
diplomatic nation in the world. But if we can now wage war on
Presidential say-so in secret, without congressional authorization,
anywhere in the world, we will have transformed the United States from
the world's chief diplomat into the world's chief bully. Is that what
the American people want?
Seventh, the invasion of Venezuela without congressional
authorization is deeply unpopular in Virginia and the Nation. Polling
suggests that even after the exemplary performance of American troops,
63 percent of Americans do not believe the United States should have
invaded Venezuela without congressional approval.
I have had conversations around Virginia, a very pro-military State,
about this very topic, and in those conversations what I have noticed
is this: The opposition to war in Venezuela without congressional
authorization is not about article I versus article II powers; it is
not about a constitutional abstraction or theory of government; it is
about an instinctive wisdom among the American people that says war
should be a last resort, and it shouldn't be entered into upon the say-
so of one person--it is too big a decision for one person--but instead
should only proceed after careful deliberation by a President and by
the people's elected Congress.
And let's be clear, the American people are not asking for more wars
right now. They are telling us that housing costs too much, that food
costs too much, that healthcare costs too much, that childcare costs
too much, that energy costs too much. They want us to fix the American
economy, stop the tariffs and the chaos, make everyday life better for
them.
This endless foreign adventurism, which was precisely what President
Trump campaigned against, is very likely helping his own pockets and
helping out oil companies and cronies and donors, but it is doing
nothing for everyday folks. Instead, they are seeing higher costs,
fewer jobs, slower growth, and a distracted President focused on air
strikes and ballrooms.
It is long past time for the President and all of us to work on what
he promised as a candidate instead of dismissing everyday folks'
affordability concerns as a hoax.
Finally, the invasion of Venezuela and threats of unilateral military
action against others is profoundly disrespectful of our Nation's
military. Our troops aren't a palace guard to be used by a President in
chaotic ways around the globe or deployed against Americans at home.
That is not what they are for.
The juvenile decision to rebrand the Department of Defense as the
Department of War, completely without legal authority and sure to be
abandoned as soon as this administration exits the stage, sends a loud
message to our troops and their families. People like my oldest son
volunteer to serve because they love this country and they want to
defend it against all enemies, foreign and domestic. They take that
oath just as we do.
People of integrity don't see military service as measured by how
much they wage war against others; they see it as a patriotic
commitment to defend the United States and our allies. And a nation
committed to ill-conceived and secretive wars, waged without adequate
debate and consideration, will see over time a decreased willingness to
serve by those whom we would most welcome as our military leadership.
I am not aware of any military service in Donald Trump's family. I
wish he
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would come to Virginia and talk to military families about what it
means to wonder whether your kid or your spouse might get sent to war
tomorrow. I have had those conversations with Virginians, both as
Governor, where I was the titular commander of the Virginia Guard as we
deployed thousands and thousands to Iraq and Afghanistan between 2006
and 2010, and, in the years since, family members repeatedly deployed
during the 20-year global war on terror. These families are now hoping
for some respite.
I have had these conversations with Virginians serving on warships in
the Red Sea while getting fired on by Houthi militias, and I have had
these conversations with Virginians whose families are part of the
military assets now deployed in the Caribbean and Pacific and poised to
strike Venezuela and other Latin American nations.
Just at church recently, somebody came up to me and said: Don't let
this President send my kid to war.
Our military signs up for a tough job. When they volunteer in this
all-volunteer military, they are signing up for a tough job, and they
are always ready to do it. And when we ask them to do it, they always
do it in ways that are so impressive. But they deeply want civilian
leadership of this Nation to be wise in decision-making about how to
use military force, wise when making the decision about when or how to
put their lives on the line. And wise decision-making requires careful
deliberation and debate, not impulsive action such as this Venezuelan
invasion, where we now find it hard to answer even the most basic
questions about what comes next: How long will we be there? What is the
goal? Who will be in charge?
If we can't answer those questions, do we have a right to order these
young men and women to risk their lives in military actions without a
real plan?
Let me conclude with a positive message--positive message--about
President Trump's national security strategy and a final plea to my
Senate colleagues. I believe that this Trump national security
strategy, which I believe was issued on the first Thursday in December,
is right in placing the Americas as the top priority. If you read both
the introduction and then the portions of the strategy that really get
into the regions of the world, this is the only strategy that has been
produced during the entire time in the Senate that puts the Americas
and the Western Hemisphere as item No. 1, rather than the last item.
And I think the President is right, and I applaud him and his team
because we have ignored our own neighborhood for so long--for so long.
And when we have focused on it, it has usually been more about keeping
other nations away than it has been about building the partnerships
that will really strengthen the Americas.
The Trump administration's decision to make the Americas the top
priority makes it unique among any recent administration that I have
been familiar with, and if it is done correctly, I believe it offers us
a great path forward to deepen the ties among the more than 1 billion
people who are Americans--North, South, or Central--who live in this
hemisphere.
And as the chair and ranking member of the Western Hemisphere
Subcommittee, I say getting this right is critical to American well-
being because today certainly, but even going forward, how can we match
up economically with nations like China or India, each with more than a
billion citizens?
The productivity of the more than 340 million Americans is second to
none, but at some point--at some point--the scale of our chief
competitors becomes really hard for us to match. But if you think about
the Americas with 1-plus billion and if we strengthen ties throughout
the Americas--let's call it an ``Americas First'' policy--strengthening
ties in security and education and trade and diplomacy and humanitarian
assistance and democracy promotion, we can more than match the might of
the world's most populous countries, even our fiercest competitors like
China.
But we won't achieve it--we won't achieve it--through dominance or
invasion. We have tried it before. We tried it for 200 years, and it
hasn't worked. It produces hostility, suspicion, resistance. It chases
nations that could be friends, that should be friends, into the arms of
adversaries. But we can achieve much through respectful partnerships
and by giving the attention to our America neighbors that we have often
reserved solely for nations in Europe or the Middle East.
We have tried throughout our history this positive approach on brief
occasions--FDR's Good Neighbor Policy, President Kennedy's Alliance for
Progress--but we have too often tried it for a short period and then
lapsed back into a failed Monroe Doctrine mindset.
President Trump's instinct to prioritize the Americas is the right
one; it is the right one. But doing it the right way and not repeating
the mistakes of the past is the key to making it a success.
And finally, a plea to my Senate colleagues: The vote we will have
Thursday on our bipartisan resolution to say no to war in Venezuela
without congressional authorization is actually a vote about many
things. It is a short resolution, like a page and a half, but it is a
vote about many things. It is about Venezuela. It is about war. It is
about the use of U.S. troops. It is about our complicated history in
the region. It is about the example we set and our position in the
world. But it is also, ultimately, about what it is to be a U.S.
Senator.
In recent months, this body has rejected my resolutions saying that
the Senate should have a role, if we go to war, with Iran or Venezuela
or launch strikes on unknown boats in international waters.
I have put those votes on the table, and we have had votes on them.
And the Senate has opposed my resolutions. The Senate has actually
voted in favor of its own irrelevance, saying that it didn't need to be
consulted about war.
We have the opportunity to change this. We have the opportunity to
say forcefully: Mr. President, you are the article II Commander in
Chief of this country, and we want you to inhabit every square
centimeter of power the Constitution gives you. But we are the article
I branch, and the Constitution demands that you need to consult us
before taking America to war.
So cast a vote in accordance with the Constitution, and that honors
the relevance of the U.S. Senate. If you believe that a war to topple
the Venezuelan Government and seize its oil is justified, you should be
willing to vote to support it. You should be willing to introduce an
authorization for use of military force, put it on the floor, and
advocate for it. And if you don't believe a war against Venezuela is a
good idea--as I don't--you should be willing to vote against it. But
don't outsource this power, carefully vested in the article I branch by
our Founders, to this President or to any President.
We were all sent here for a reason. We were all sent here to show
courage. We were sent here to stand up for our constituents and our
troops and the Constitution, and there is no more important power for
Congress to maintain than the power to send our sons and daughters into
war.
I yield the floor.
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