Wyoming’s two senior members of Congress are backing the Trump administration’s military strikes on Venezuela and the capture of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro.
Republican Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis posted statements over the weekend on social media that called Maduro a “narco-terrorist” and thanked the U.S. military, which carried out the Saturday raid on Caracas.
“Maudro is a dictator, a narco-terrorist, and an indicted criminal in the United States,” Barrasso posted on X. “Venezuela, America, and the world are safer with this dangerous dictator removed from power.”
Likewise, Lummis posted on X that she was “grateful to President Trump for his decisive leadership and to our military and law enforcement personnel who executed this operation with extraordinary courage and skill.”
“Peace through strength works,” Lummis wrote. “Maduro will finally answer for his crimes in American courts.”
Maduro had led Venezuela since 2013. But many countries, including the United States, refused to recognize him as a legitimate head of state. In 2024, the Biden administration accused Maduro of stealing the presidential election, citing “overwhelming evidence” that his opponent, Edmundo González Urrutia, won.
A 2020 U.S. indictment accused Maduro of overseeing “Cartel de los Soles,” which the Trump administration has described as a violent drug organization. However, a range of specialists in Latin American criminal and narcotics issues, including former Drug Enforcement Administration officials, maintain that “Cartel de los Soles” is instead a figure of speech, dating back to the 1990s, for Venezuelan military officials corrupted by drug money. Since the 2020 indictment, both the Trump and Biden administrations offered millions in reward for information leading to his arrest.
At least 80 people were killed, including military personnel and civilians, during the Caracas raid, the New York Times reported. No Americans were killed. Following Maduro’s removal, Trump announced the United States would “run” the country for an indefinite period.
But Venezuelan leaders gathered Monday for a swearing-in ceremony to project independence in running their country, the Associated Press reported.
Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman, who recently announced plans to run for Senate now that Lummis is retiring, has so far not made a public statement on the invasion, via the press, press release or social media. Neither her campaign or congressional press contact responded to WyoFile’s request for comment by publishing time.
Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who is running to replace Hageman in the U.S. House, released a statement backing the invasion.
While most conservative, congressional lawmakers have voiced support for Trump’s actions, some have raised concerns that such a strike supersedes Congress’ authority to declare war.
“If the President believes military action against Venezuela is needed, he should make the case and Congress should vote before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America,” Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, said on the House floor last month as the chamber considered a pair of resolutions to force Trump to secure approval from Congress before attacking Venezuela.
Both resolutions failed. Massie reposted a video of his floor comments Saturday following the raid.
“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, Libya, Iraq or Syria?” Massie said in his comments last month.
The Kentucky Republican also expressed skepticism about the Trump administration’s stated motivation behind the strikes.
“If it were about drugs, we’d bomb Mexico, or China, or Colombia,” Massie said. “And the President would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández. This is about oil and regime change.”
Last month, Trump pardoned Hernández, the former Hondruan president, who had been convicted in the U.S. for helping smuggle more than 400 tons of cocaine into the country.
“They basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country,” Trump told reporters. “And they said it was a Biden administration set-up. And I looked at the facts and I agreed with them.”
You won’t get any argument from me concerning what a horrible human being is Nicolas Maduro. Even ranked alongside other corrupt psychopathic facsist dicators he’s well down the list.
What I will argue about is why it took a billion $$$ military campaign with 150 aircraft, an entire US Navy aircraft carrier flotilla , thousands of soldiers and sailors , drones , teams of elite Special Forces , spacecraft , and who know how much logistical resources just to cuff one man and his wife. Honestly, the strategic goal was to capture and abduct husband and wife in the middle of the night. Tactically it seemed to use a huge percentage of America’s military might to accomplish . Bad night to be a Russian , Cuban , or Iranian operative stationed in Caracas, though. Looked like a lot of collateral damage you could see from two countries over.
My opening argument : it was all ego-driven Overkill. The purpose on paper was to execute a court order to bring a criminal to justice , no more no less. A Law Enforcement police action , not a regional geopolitical shooting war. A heckuva lot less bombs bursting and rockets red glare started the Vietnam War that night in the Gulf of Tonkin, for instance.
The real world equivalents of James Bond 007 of Britain’s MI-6 , his femme fatale companion , and CIA off book comrade Felix Leiter could’ve accomplished the abduction with stealth and precision. I feel confident those real world equivalent agents exist, and the skills to make it so.
Yet here we have Senators Barrasso and Lummis , a herd of MAGA Congressmen and right wing pundits , even the mustelid SOS Chuck Gray making as much noise as possible heaping praise on Donald Trump’s bravado and leadership . Deservedly ? I think not. What I see and hear from our Trump loyalists is more along the lines of ” my tyrannical dictator can beat your tyrannical dictator. ”
Was it just coincidence that Donald Trump needed a big stage show or a reality TV blitzkrieg saturating the news media to deflect attention away from his Really Bad Week ? Of course our compliant Congressmen will play their part and perform in the production number for Operation Absolute Resolve .
I implore WyoFile when they necessarily interview Barrasso and Lummis and mustelid Chuck Gray after the November midterm elections to revisit the maduro debacle. Ask them if it was worth it , truly in America’s best interests , to use military might in a banana republic for regime change and to steal a few million barrels of dirty oil . It certainly wasn’t about drug interdiction. Come year’s end we will probably see that America’s Big Oil corporations have little to no interest in doing business in Venezuela, even if we flat out give them the crude oil. It’s a bad investment on its best day . The oil companies have seen this movie before ( it starred Hugo Chavez ) . Trump has no clue about petronomics. Ask Rex Tillerson , Trump’s Secretary of State back in 2017.
I remind Barrasso and Lummis that Tillerson , former CEO of Exxon-Mobil at the time his company was forced out of Venezuela , said of Trump ” he’s dumb as a box of rocks … a moron “. Privately he said far far worse things about Trump , his business accumen , and his grasp of geopolitics.
When will you learn , dear Senators ?
Because removing a dictator and destabilizing a smaller country with no plan for the future has worked out so well I the past.
Operation Iraqi Liberation. Note the initials. I have spoken to several vets of this mess, they were ordered to ignore civil disorder and protect the oil fields. The horrible ghost of Dick Cheney lives on.
I agree. It’s not about narco-terrorism, it’s to control the oil. Barrasso isn’t up for reelection until 2031, so he can continue to approve of the President’s actions. Lummis is a lame duck, nothing she says now, or ever means anything. Gray, well, I think he’s still waiting for an endorsement. Finally. It’s interesting that Hageman is mum…..maybe somebody hasn’t told her what she needs to support. Frankly, I would have thought that she’d be all over this, but Venezuela oil and big petroleum companies involvement is in direct competition with Wyoming. So….we’ll see
Removing Maduro yet pardoning a convicted trafficker shows glaringly just how two faced and corrupted our elected officials are! It’s all about trump enriching himself and big oil who were big donors and will be big donors to maga candidates in ’26 and ’28.
Thomas Massie, one of the few residents of DC that has his head screwed on straight.
Predictable as the sunrise. Trump’s rubber stamps.
This is the truth of the matter (from Rep Massie), ““If it were about drugs, we’d bomb Mexico, or China, or Colombia,” Massie said. “And the President would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández. This is about oil and regime change.” I would add it is also about Trump wanting to show he is a “Tough Guy.”
And it’s a distraction for the EPSTEIN files.
These three trump goons would support anything that the criminal in the white house says or does.
Thank you Maggie for continuing in your attempts to try and inform the people of Wyoming what’s really happening outside of the MAGA bubble.
All that the picture that was used for this piece needed was some puppet strings connecting Barrasso and Lummis to their master Trump.