Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a congressional hearing Wednesday on why the U.S. ouster of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro wouldn’t be considered an act of war.
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“If a foreign country bombed our air defense missiles, captured and removed our president and blockaded our country, would that be considered an act of war?” Paul asked.
“We just don’t believe that this operation comes anywhere close to the constitutional definition of war,” Rubio said, defending the Trump administration’s argument to not define the operation, which lasted a few hours, as an act of war.
“But would it be an act of war if someone did that to us?” the Republican senator shot back. “Of course it would be an act of war.”
“I think we need to at least acknowledge this is a one-way argument,” Paul added.
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The Republican senator later agreed with Rubio that the U.S. should act in its national interests, but added that some of the administration’s arguments for the military actions on Venezuela — specifically those around drug busts — are “empty.”
“The drug bust isn’t really an argument. It’s a ruse. The war argument — not a war, is a war — is a ruse. It’s not a real argument,” Paul said. “We do what we do because we have the force, we have the might.”
“We do it because it’s in our interest,” he added. “So we wouldn’t let anybody come in, bomb us, blockade us and take our president.”
Rubio testified before the Senate committee on Wednesday for the first time since Maduro was removed.
President Donald Trump, who said the U.S. would “run” Venezuela, has ordered the U.S. military to control exports of Venezuela’s oil and seize multiple tankers. The Trump administration has carried out dozens of strikes since last year against a series of alleged drug-trafficking boats near Venezuela, killing at least 126 people. It has offered little evidence that these were “narcoterrorists.”
Worried about the Trump administration’s plans for Venezuela, some members of Congress attempted to push a war powers resolution to rein in Trump’s authority to carry out further military action in the country. Those efforts ultimately failed without sufficient Republican support.
