Chuck Schumer condemns Trump's Venezuela strike, calls it 'violation of the law'

WASHINGTON, DC: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Sunday, January 4, sharply criticized Donald Trump’s decision to launch a military strike inside Venezuela and capture President Nicolas Maduro, calling the operation unlawful and reckless.

Speaking on ABC’s ‘This Week’ with anchor George Stephanopoulos, the New York Democrat argued that while Maduro is widely viewed as a brutal authoritarian, the United States cannot respond by ignoring its own legal constraints.

Chuck Schumer claims 'there is no authority'

“Maduro is a horrible, horrible person, but you don’t treat lawlessness with other lawlessness, and that’s what’s happened here,” Schumer said.

“There is no authority. They did not just do ships off the water. They went inside Venezuela, bombed civilian as well as military places, and it’s a violation of the law to do what they did without getting the authorization of Congress,” he added. 

Schumer also pushed back against Trump’s claim that the United States would effectively oversee Venezuela until a “safe, proper and judicious transition” could be arranged, saying that the administration itself appeared unsure of what comes next.

“Nobody knows who is running Venezuela right now. The American people this morning are scratching their heads in wonderment and in fear of what the president has proposed,” Schumer claimed.

Chuck Schumer expresses skepticism over oil promises

Drawing on past US interventions abroad, the senator warned that abrupt regime change and nation-building efforts have historically come at a high cost.

“We have learned through the years when America tries to do regime change and nation building in this way, the American people pay the price in both blood and in dollars,” he said.

Schumer expressed deep skepticism about Trump’s assertion that US oil companies could quickly rehabilitate Venezuela’s long-neglected oil infrastructure following the strike.

“It seems sort of a back-of-the-envelope operation, at least by what they’ve told people,” Schumer said. “These oil fields have been in disrepair for years. We have no idea how long it’s going to take, how much it’s going to cost, and whether we need military troops guarding the oil fields while we do it.”

He suggested that the administration had failed to present even a basic roadmap for how such an effort would work or how long US forces might remain on the ground.

The Democratic leader also highlighted what he described as a stark contradiction between Trump’s actions and his long-standing campaign rhetoric against foreign entanglements.

“The American people are worried that this is creating an endless war. The very thing that Donald Trump campaigned against over and over again was no more endless wars. And right now, we’re headed right into one, with no barriers, with no discussion,” he said.

Schumer also claimed that Congress was sidelined entirely in a decision that could have sweeping military, economic and diplomatic consequences.