Santa Barbara’s congressional representative Salud Carbajal issued a statement denouncing President Trump’s early Saturday morning attack on and arrest of Venezuelan strong man Nicolás Maduro, calling it “reckless and deeply destabilizing.”
Carbajal, a Democrat, termed Maduro “an illegitimate leader,” referring to the recent presidential election that international observers contend Maduro stole. But, he added, Trump’s unilateral deployment of military force weakens the “international rules-based order our country helped build decades ago.” By seizing Maduro, Carbajal charged, “these actions risk putting our nation into yet another open-ended conflict at a time when the American people are demanding an end to forever wars abroad.” Without any clear plan, he added, Trump “risks creating a dangerous power vacuum — one that could plunge the entire region into chaos and endanger countless lives.”
Thus far, congressional reaction to Saturday morning’s military action has fallen pretty much along party affiliation, though with a few isolated Republicans objecting that the action flies in the face of Trump’s “America First” agenda and his campaign pledge to avoid anything that smacks of nation building.
The Democrats, being the minority party, have little leverage, but are calling on House Speaker Mike Johnson to get a congressional briefing from the Trump White House on what’s next for Venezuela and how it will be governed now that Trump declared that the United States intends to run the county for the indefinite future.
